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With isolation caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, businesses will discover fraudulent activities. Owners will look at the activities of their business, the company books, bank accounts, the decrease in sales, and the increase in inventory and realize it all does not add up. Sage Investigations, LLC is standing by to assist your clients with a free consultation to help. Recently, we were contacted by the owners of an international company with workers in the U.S. and a foreign country. They were concerned about the number of employees working on the production of their products. During the boom period from 2018 to 2020, this small business made a lot of money and had high profits. In the last few months, it was necessary to cut back on production. In the process, it learned that the American manager and contact person for the foreign country were showing more than 75 employees on the payroll when there were only 25 employees. It appears there are 50 “ghost employees” on the payroll due to collusion between the American and the foreign contractor. The small business has lost about $1 million due to payroll fraud.
This is only one example of how fraud can impact a small business. When fraudsters look to steal money from a company, they look for a business with weak internal controls such as doctor’s offices, law practices, restaurants, night clubs, and car dealerships, to name a few. Absentee owners, in partnership with others, will notice that their income distributions have decreased and want to know why.
Sage Investigations, LLC is uniquely positioned and able to assist your clients in determining why the decreases occurred and make recommendations. Most of these determinations can be made via the use of computer access to data. We analyze the company books, records, bank accounts, etc. to determine the extent of the fraud and to help stop and prevent fraud from further damaging their small businesses.
When You Need an expert in identifying and preventing Business Fraud,
Call Ed Martin at 512-659-3179.
