Leaf through just about any newspaper on any day of the week and you are likely to come across a story relating to fraud. Whether it is a random person being found guilty of benefits fraud or it is high profile businessperson such Arlette Ricci getting jailed for substantial tax fraud, the news is never short of stories on the subject.
But that is not purely because of how common fraud is; it is also because of the huge range of different types of criminal activity fall under the umbrella term ‘fraud’. Indeed, at Frenkels Forensics we regularly assist both claimants and defendants in producing forensic accountancy reports in civil and criminal fraud cases.
Let’s take one example of a fraud case we worked on for a defendant who stood accused by her employer, a retail chain, of stealing cash takings. We closely monitored her daily takings records over an 18-month period and produced a report that clearly showed that the accusations of the amount of money she allegedly stole from the business did not add up – leading to the charges being dropped.
In another case we prepared a report on behalf of a businessman who was accused of over-charging a client for services. With a detailed statistical analysis of the database of customers, we were able to show that the defendant had a much better success rate of reducing business rates than the prosecution had alleged, and in doing so Frenkels Forensics was able to contribute to his dramatically shortened custodial sentence.
These are just two cases in which one might find themselves facing an unfair or inaccurate fraud charge. Whatever the situation, by carefully analysing the financial data, often without alerting people of our work (thereby not allowing people to cover their tracks), Frenkels Forensics is able to paint a truer picture of what has really taken place and present this in a court-ready report, thus ensuring justice is done.
For expert help with any fraud investigations contact Frenkels Forensics for an independent appraisal.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for advice in any aspect of forensic accountancy, then do get in touch via Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or by visiting our website www.frenkels.com
By Vitek Frenkel – find me via Google+.