Business fraud is the crime that is least talked about because it is not as headline grabbing as armed robberies, and more importantly many businesses do not report this type of crime because they are afraid of reputational damage should it become public knowledge.

Fraud cost the African continent $5.5 billion in the second half of 2012, with three-quarters of all fraud cases reported in Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa, According to the latest African Fraud Barometer. One can only imagine that it had quadrupled by 2016.

In its Global Economic Crime Survey 2014 auditing firm PwC revealed that in comparison to businesses globally, South African businesses experienced more fraud and bribery incidents than their counterparts globally. The survey went on to say that South African organizations reported that senior and middle management commit 77% of all internal fraud and that the profile of the typical fraudster is;

• MaleAged between 31 and 40,
• Has worked for his employer for more than 10 years
• Has acquired a university degree

There five common financial frauds that can affect a company and if not caught or stopped before they happen can financially ruin a company.

Too often we hear of business owners that have found out too late that a “long time trusted” employee is suspected of stealing from the company. The majority of fraudsters are only identified after the employee has been appointed to the job, by means of a pre-employment screening investigation possible fraud could be mitigated.

The five basic type of financial business fraud are;

• EMBEZZLEMENT - theft or misappropriation of funds placed in one's trust or belonging to one's employer. A bookkeeper or other employee may have come into hard times financially and has resorted to using his/her employers funds for personal expenses. More times than not embezzlement cases will not find their way into the media or even into the courtroom as the employer, to avoid embarrassment and reputational harm will settle with the embezzler privately out of the spotlight.
• EMPLOYEE THEFT - is defined as any stealing, use or misuse of an employer's assets without permission. The term employer's assets are important because it implies that employee theft involves more than just cash. This type of theft is also sometimes referred to “inventory shrinkage. This is also very common in the fuel industry.
• PAYOFFS & KICKBACKS – this is where employees accept cash or other benefits in exchange for access to the company’s business.
• SKIMMING - this occurs when employees take money from receipts and don’t record the revenue on the books.
• DOUBLE CHECK FRAUD – a bookkeeper would typically write two checks when paying an invoice. For example, the bookkeeper would pay ACME Office Supplies R700 and at the same time make another payment to herself/himself for R100 and code it in the accounting system to “ACME”.
• CYBER-CRIME. These can include phishing attacks, EFT payment fraud, identity theft, bank account fraud, ransomware, CEO fraud, hack attack, denial of service attacks to name a few.

It is vital to an organization, large or small, to have a fraud prevention plan in place. On average fraudulent activities can last an average of 18 months before being detected. Imagine the type of loss your company could suffer with an employee committing fraud for that amount of time unchecked.

There are steps you can take in order to reduce the risk of your company becoming a statistic.

• Know your employees before you hire them. Conduct a thorough pre-employment screening check on them. These checks can weed out those with prior convictions for financial crimes, confirm references with prior employers also ensuring the company information given is not a friend on the other side of the line giving a glowing reference, check that qualifications claimed are indeed factual and much more.
• Make employees aware. Everyone within the organization should be aware of the fraud risk policy including types of fraud and the consequences associated with them.
• Implement internal controls. Segregation of duties is an important component of internal control that can reduce the risk of fraud from occurring, checks and balances. 
• Monitor vacation time. You might be impressed by the employees who haven’t missed a day of work in years. While you may think that these loyal hard working employees, it could be a sign that these employees have something to hide and are concerned that someone will detect their fraud if they were out of the office for a period of time. Many bookkeepers were caught only when they were forced to take a vacation and a temp was in doing their job.
• Hire experts. If you suspect that there is possible fraudulent activity going on in your company or the recent break-in just does not make sense as no one can figure out how they got in, call an expert, in this case, a private investigator. Even if nothing is found it will give you peace of mind.

“Business fraud is a big problem and we have seen an increase in this type of case coming into our office not only here but also our Los Angeles office so it is a global issue. Most clients come to us because they do not want it getting out and becoming public for obvious reasons. We have seen it all; cyber-crime, embezzlement, employee theft, employees that team up with outsiders to break into offices and much, much more. Business owners must be more vigilant as to who they hire when we perform pre-employment screening checks for clients we have noticed an increase of applicants with serious criminal convictions and more and more false qualifications, some of the job applicants we investigate have as many as 20 criminal convictions. The slogan should be ‘CHECK BEFORE YOU HIRE’ it will save you future problems” said local private investigator Rick Crouch.

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Media Contact:

Rick Crouch
Rick Crouch & Associates
Private Investigators & Digital Forensics
Mobile: 076.449.5263 | Web: www.rickcrouch.co.za

Despite what the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Hawks say, the Senzo Meyiwa case can now be classified as a cold case.

A case is classified as a cold case when there are no new substantial leads and all previous leads have dried up and turned to nothing.

With a murder case, more than other types of crimes, you have a window of 48 hours in which to develop your leads and hopefully arrest a suspect. Every hour that passes after the first 48 makes it less likely that an arrest will be made and the case solved. The case in which Senzo Meyiwa was murdered has now dragged on for more than 2 years and 6 months which equates to approximately 22000 hours. Neither the police nor the Hawks have much chance of solving this murder. Especially when you consider a statement in April 2016 by acting national police commissioner, at the time, Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane, when he told Parliament that “there is a possible cover-up in the case”.

The problems with the case right from the beginning:

• The crime scene was not immediately secured by the first responding officers;
• People were allowed to enter and exit the crime scene at will corrupting the crime scene;
• Police failed to confiscate two cell phones belonging to Mthokozisi Twala;
• Standard forensic procedures related to crime scenes were not followed, for example, no gunpowder residue tests were done on the people who were present in the house at the time of the murder. This should have been done to everyone at the scene because it helps in eliminating them as suspects.
• The police caved to public and political pressure which caused them to arrest the wrong person
• The docket has been a ping-pong ball bounced between Provincial SAPS, Vosloorus SAPS and Hawks

Unfortunately for the family the case is now cold and it will take investigators who specialize in cold cases to solve this case, because of the time that has passed it is going to take some specialized skill and a lot of time to now solve this cases, but with specialists it is possible.

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Media Contact:
Rick Crouch
Rick Crouch & Associates
Private Investigators & Digital Forensics
Mobile: 076.449.5263 | Web: www.rickcrouch.co.za

It’s unclear who hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment on Nov. 24, but there are the telltale signs of a carefully orchestrated attack.

Rick Crouch, founder and owner of Rick Crouch & Associates said “Sony Pictures Entertainment appears to have been victimized by what experts call an advanced persistent threat. (APT)”

“The attack has the hallmarks of an A.P.T.,” he explained. “The hackers had a specific target in mind. It’s not like they were after just any company or studio, it looks like they specifically went after Sony”

But in his estimation there’s nothing the studios — or any company — can do to completely eliminate the threat of hackers.

“We need to re-think our perceptions about cyber-security. This is not something where you can achieve 100 percent security,” he explained. “As long as you are online there will be threats. In some cases they will already be inside your company or organisation, like a disgruntled employee who could be anyone from a personal assistant, a manager to an IT employee.  Once someone gets inside your systems they shouldn't have the keys to the kingdom. They shouldn't be able to go anywhere and everywhere within your system.”

The way Sony was hacked was actually quite simple and is a method that is used by many hackers involved in corporate espionage.

In this case they looked for names of employees that worked on this particular movie, just watching the movie credits or a simple Google search would have given them that information, they would then have narrowed that list down to high ranking IT personnel, because IT people usually have access to the entire network. The next step would have been to send an email to that employee and spoofing it so that it appeared to come from a co-worker, the content of the email would have contained a link and a reason for that person to click on the link, which they would have because it was from a co-worker.

That link would have then taken them to a website which would, within seconds, have downloaded malware to that computer. That malware would then enable the hacker’s computer to “mirror” the infected computer. The hacker would be able to see everything that is typed on the infected computer as if they were sitting in front of the target computer, including usernames and passwords.

That is a simplistic explanation of what happened to Sony and can happen just as easily to your company or your personal computer. Ensure that you employ defences to this type of hack, most importantly educating staff on these tactics and how to respond.

{pp}The Eskom debacle is a prime example of what happens when there is no competition and the government of the day has socialist leanings wanting to centralize everything to consolidate its power.

{pp}Socialist type governments continue to think that they can tax themselves out of debt, the working person can only sustain so much taxation, especially with the large increase in electricity looming.

{pp}The current financial woes of the SABC is a prime example of why government should get out of the business of doing business.

{pp}We have to get rid of the system that rewards party loyalty or we will never have a true democracy.