Wk3 Discussion (Work Programming) - Post 1
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 1/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
CHAPTER 3: CASH LARCENY
EXHIBIT 3-1: Cash Larceny Schemes
73
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 2/25
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 3/25
3-1 Define cash larceny
3-2 Understand how cash receipts schemes differ from fraudulent disbursements
3-3 Recognize the difference between cash larceny and skimming
3-4 Understand the relative frequency and cost of cash larceny schemes as opposed to
other forms of cash misappropriations
3-5 Identify weaknesses in internal controls as inducing factors to cash larceny schemes
3-6 Understand how cash larceny is committed at the point of sale
3-7 Discuss measures that can be used to prevent and detect cash larceny at the point of
sale
3-8 Understand and identify various methods used by fraudsters to conceal cash larceny
of receivables
3-9 Understand schemes involving cash larceny from deposits including lapping and
deposits in transit
3-10 Understand controls and procedures that can be used to prevent and detect cash
larceny from bank deposits
3-11 Be familiar with proactive audit tests that can be used to detect cash larceny schemes
CASE STUDY: BANK TELLER GETS NABBED FOR THEFT
Laura Grove worked at Rocky Mountain Bank in Nashville, Tennessee, for five years. As a
teller, she thought to herself, she wasn’t getting any richer. She and her husband owed
about $14,000 in credit card bills, which seemed to get higher and higher each month,
especially after adopting a five-year-old girl the year before.
When she transferred to a branch bank in Cheetboro, Tennessee, the bank promoted her to
head teller. In this new position, Laura had authority to open the night depository vault
with another teller. For security reasons, the bank allowed each teller to possess only half
the combination to the vault.
Every morning, Laura saw the bank night deposit vault door open and close after the
removal of all customer night deposit bags. The bank placed only one camera on the night
vault, which was turned on at 8:00 a.m. when the bank opened for business. Laura thought
it would be easy to get into the night depository and take the bags. These thoughts were
reinforced when a customer reported his bag missing and the bank quickly paid his money
without a thorough investigation. So one Friday morning, Laura made up her mind that she
could take about $15,000 with little risk of being identified. But before she actually took the
money, she observed. When she opened the night vault with her coworker Frank Geffen,
1
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 4/25
she saw him dial the first half of the combination and was careful to memorize the
numbers. After entering the second half of the combination, they opened it
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 5/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
as usual, removed and listed each night deposit bag, and shut the vault behind them. This
time, however, Laura did not lock the vault.
Here, Laura made her first mistake. She thought she could leave the vault door open and
return Monday to take the money. But just before the bank closed and employees prepared
to leave, teller Melissa Derkstein checked the vault one more time. Seeing that the vault was
open, she spun the dial, shaking the handle to ensure the door was locked.
Laura and the other bank employees punched their security codes on the outside door and
left for the day. During the weekend, Laura considered her plot. Should she enter the
combination by herself this time and place the money into a personal tote bag? Should she
stay at work all day with the goods underneath her feet?
Monday morning, she still was not sure how to pull it off but had resolved to go through
with the plan anyway. Arriving at 7:15 a.m., Laura was the first person in the bank that
morning. After punching in her security code, she placed her tote bag and personal
belongings on her chair. Immediately, she went to the night vault and dialed the full
combination. Nothing happened. Her mind raced. “Maybe this won’t work; this is too
risky.” Her fingers tried the combination again, and once again, until she heard a click and
the vault opened.
Inside, Laura removed the two customer deposit bags, ones that she knew contained large
sums of cash. She placed both bags in her tote bag and walked back to her teller window.
She stuffed her Weight Watchers book and purse inside the tote bag, on top of the deposit
bags. She then hung her bag on the door of the storage room and returned to the teller
window, straightening up her work area.
Fifteen minutes later, the branch manager, Harvey Lebrand, entered, looking surprised
that Laura was already at her desk. He asked Laura why she had come into work so early
this Monday.
“Oh, I just needed to get organized early, because I need to take my Bronco into the shop
later today and knew I wouldn’t have much time,” Laura said.
“You need to get your truck repaired?” Mr. Lebrand asked. “Why don’t you go now?”
“Okay, I can get my mother to give me a ride back,” Laura said. “See you soon, Mr.
Lebrand.”
73
74
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 6/25
Laura rushed to the storage area, grabbed the tote bag and left the bank. She drove directly
to her home and emptied the contents of the bag, watching the many bills and checks spill
onto her bed. She lit up with uneasy excitement. Sorting the checks into a separate pile, she
gathered the money into a large heap and did a quick count. She estimated she had taken
about $15,000. Placing the bills into manila envelopes, she hid them in the headboard
storage compartment of the bed. The checks were placed in a small plastic bag. She then
phoned her mother and asked her to meet her at the Sears Auto Center.
Laura knew there was an apartment complex next to Sears that had a large blue dumpster.
After the checks had been deposited in the dumpster, Laura drove to Sears. Her mother
arrived a little later to take her back to work.
A day later, Rocky Mountain Bank Audit Investigator Stacy Boone received a call from
Laura’s manager, informing her that two customers had not gotten credit for the deposits
they’d made the night before. Each deposit was for $8,000.
Boone’s investigation quickly led her to suspect Grove. The first one in the bank that
morning, Grove also came in before the surveillance cameras turned on. As head teller, she
had one-half of the combination to the night depository. Other employees said they “didn’t
trust her.” But when the investigators questioned her, Grove strongly denied any
knowledge of the theft.
“During our interview with her, she broke out in a red rash” (which suggested stress). “I
have seen innocent people break out into a red rash, but she was the only one we
interviewed that day who did,” Boone said.
Boone also suspected Grove because the branch bank from which she’d transferred “had a
lot of unexplained shortages, and she was a suspect there, but we could never pin down
that she took the money. She had bought a lot of new jewelry, wore a lot of expensive
clothes, but had filed bankruptcy at one point that year.”
The investigation came to a swift conclusion, however, when Boone received a call on her
answering machine from Grove’s husband, a former neighbor. “I was afraid he wanted to
know why we were investigating his wife, and hesitated to call him right back,” Boone said.
Boone decided she “might as well get this over with and tell him I could not talk about it
[the investigation]. When I called him, he told me he found the bank’s money in his attic
and suspected his wife. His wife had told him of the bank’s investigation, but had not
admitted any theft.
“Their daughter had overheard a conversation they had the day of the theft” in which
Laura had expressed anxiety to her husband about the bank’s investigation, Boone said.
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 7/25
“His daughter had told him that she saw [Laura] put something in the attic. So, when she
wasn’t there, the husband went up in the attic and looked, and found two bags of money.”
Boone said the husband was also suspicious because his wife had lied to him before. “He
told me that his mother-in-law, her mother, always won all these prizes. She had even won
a car through a contest. One night, he came home and found a new big-screen LCD HDTV in
the living room, and asked his wife where it came from. She said ‘Oh, Mom won that.’ At
the time, he really didn’t think anything about it. But a couple days later, Kirby’s
Electronics, where the TV came from, called in regard to her credit application. They told
him that she charged that TV.”
Faced with this evidence, Laura and her husband delivered the $16,000 in cash as
restitution. The bank dismissed Grove and she was prosecuted for the crime but received
probation in lieu of prison time.
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 8/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
A year later, Boone received a call from one of the bank’s tellers who had seen Grove
working at another bank in a small city outside of Nashville. Boone called one of the
personnel employees there and talked with her. “They were a bank that did not do
fingerprint checks, so they had no knowledge that she had been convicted. She did get into
another bank to work, but not for very long.”
Several names and details have been changed to preserve anonymity.
OVERVIEW
In the occupational fraud setting, a cash larceny may be defined as the intentional taking
away of an employer’s cash (the term cash includes both currency and checks) without the
consent, and against the will, of the employer. In the case study above, Laura Grove’s theft
of approximately $16,000 from her employer is an example of a cash larceny.
How do cash larceny schemes differ from other cash frauds? In order to understand the
distinction in our classifications, it is helpful first to break down the cash schemes into two
broad groups, the first being the fraudulent disbursement schemes and the second being
what we will loosely term the cash receipts schemes. Fraudulent disbursement schemes are
those in which a distribution of funds is made from some company account in what appears
to be a normal manner. The method for obtaining the funds may be the forging of a check,
the submission of a false invoice, the doctoring of a timecard, and so forth. The key is that
the money is removed from the company in what appears to be a legitimate disbursement
of funds. Fraudulent disbursements will be discussed later in this book.
Cash receipts schemes, on the other hand, are what we typically think of as the outright
stealing of cash. The perpetrator does not rely on the submission of phony documents or the
forging of signatures; he simply grabs the cash and takes it. The cash receipts schemes fall
into two categories: skimming, which we have already discussed, and cash larcenies.
Remember that skimming was defined as the theft of off-book funds. Cash larceny schemes,
on the other hand, involve the theft of money that has already appeared on a victim
company’s books.
Cash Larceny Data from the ACFE 2009 Global Fraud Survey
In the ACFE study, cash larceny schemes were the least common form of cash
misappropriations. Thirteen percent of all cash schemes in our survey involved cash
74
75
1
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 9/25
larceny. The median loss for these cases was $100,000, which is more than the median loss
for skimming schemes, but only two-thirds as much as the median loss for fraudulent
disbursements (see Exhibits 3-2 and 3-3).
CASH LARCENY SCHEMES
A cash larceny scheme can take place in any circumstance in which an employee has access
to cash. Every company must deal with the receipt, deposit, and distribution of cash (if not,
it certainly won’t be a very long-lived company!), so every company is potentially
vulnerable to this form of fraud. Although the circumstances in which an
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 10/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
employee might steal cash are nearly limitless, most larceny schemes involve the theft of
cash:
• At the point of sale
• From incoming receivables
• From the victim organization’s bank deposits
EXHIBIT 3-2: 2009 Global Fraud Survey: Frequency of Cash Misappropriations
The sum of these percentages exceeds 100 percent because some cases involved multiple fraud schemes that fell into more than one category.
EXHIBIT 3-3: 2009 Global Fraud Survey: Median Loss of Cash Misappropriations
75
76
a
a
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 11/25
Larceny at the Point of Sale
A large percentage of the cash larceny schemes in our research occurred at the point of sale,
and for good reason—that’s where the money is. The cash register (or similar cash collection
points like cash drawers or cash boxes) is usually the most common point of access to ready
cash for employees, so it is understandable that larceny schemes would frequently occur
there. Furthermore, there is often a great deal of activity at the point of sale—particularly in
retail organizations—with multiple transactions requiring the handling of cash by
employees. This activity can serve as a cover for the theft of cash. In a flurry of activity, with
cash being passed back and forth between customer and
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 12/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
employee, a fraudster is more likely to be able to slip currency out of the cash drawer and
into his pocket without getting caught.
EXHIBIT 3-4: Cash Larceny from the Register
This is the most straightforward scheme: Open up the register and remove currency (see
Exhibit 3-4). It might be done as a sale is being conducted, to make the theft appear to be
part of the transaction, or perhaps when no one is around to notice the perpetrator digging
into the cash drawer. In Case 1252, for instance, a teller simply signed onto a cash register,
rang a “no sale,” and took currency from the drawer. Over a period of time, the teller took
approximately $6,000 through this simple method.
Recall that the benefit of a skimming scheme is that the transaction is unrecorded and the
stolen funds are never entered on company books. The employee who is skimming either
underrings the register transaction so that a portion of the sale is unrecorded or completely
omits the sale by failing to enter it at all on his register. This makes the skimming scheme
difficult to detect, because the register tape does not reflect the presence of the funds that
have been taken. In a larceny scheme, on the other hand, the funds that the perpetrator
steals are already reflected on the register tape. As a result, an imbalance will result
76
77
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 13/25
between the register tape and the cash drawer. This imbalance should be a signal that alerts
a victim organization to the theft.
The actual method for taking money at the point of sale—opening a cash drawer and
removing currency—rarely varies; it is the methods used by fraudsters to avoid getting
caught that distinguish larceny schemes. Oddly, in many cases the perpetrator has no plan
for avoiding detection. A large part of fraud is rationalizing; the fraudster convinces himself
that he is somehow entitled to what he is taking, or that what he is doing is not actually a
crime. Cash larceny schemes frequently begin when perpetrators convince themselves that
they are only “borrowing” the funds to cover a temporary monetary need. These people
might carry the missing cash in their registers for several days, deluding themselves that
they will one day repay the funds, and hoping their employers will not perform a surprise
cash count until the missing money is replaced.
The employee who does nothing to camouflage his crimes is easily caught; more dangerous
is the person who takes active steps to hide his misdeeds. In the cash larceny
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 14/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
schemes we reviewed, there were several methods used to conceal larceny that occurred at
the point of sale:
• Thefts from other registers
• Death by a thousand cuts
• Reversing transactions
• Altering cash counts or register tapes
• Destroying register tapes
Thefts from Other Registers
One basic way for an employee to disguise the fact that he is stealing currency is to take
money from someone else’s cash register. In some retail organizations, employees are
assigned to certain registers. Alternatively, one register is used and each employee has an
access code. When cash is missing from a cashier’s register, the most likely suspect for the
theft is obviously that cashier. Therefore, by stealing from another employee’s register, or
by using someone else’s access code, the fraudster makes sure that another employee will be
the prime suspect in the theft. In Case 1252 discussed above, for example, the employee who
stole money did so by waiting until another teller was on break, then logging onto that
teller’s register, ringing a “no sale,” and taking the cash. The resulting cash shortage
therefore appeared in the register of an honest employee, deflecting attention from the true
thief. In another case the ACFE reviewed, Case 2127, a cash office manager stole over $8,000,
in part by taking money from cash registers and making it appear that the cashiers were
stealing.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
A very unsophisticated way to avoid detection is to steal currency in very small amounts
over an extended period of time. This is the “death by a thousand cuts” larceny scheme: $15
dollars here, $20 there—and slowly, as in Case 709, the culprit bleeds his company. Because
the missing amounts are small, the shortages may be credited to errors rather than theft.
Typically, the employee becomes dependent on the extra money he is pilfering, and his
thefts increase in scale or become more frequent, which causes the scheme to be uncovered.
Most retail organizations track overages or shortages by employee, making this method
largely ineffectual.
77
78
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 15/25
Reversing Transactions
Another way to conceal cash larceny is to use reversing transactions, such as false voids or
refunds, which cause the register tape to reconcile to the amount of cash on hand after the
theft. By processing fraudulent reversing transactions, an employee can reduce the amount
of cash reflected on the register tape. For instance, in Case 2147, a cashier received
payments from a customer and recorded the transactions on her system. She later stole
those payments, and then destroyed the company’s receipts that reflected the transactions.
To complete the cover-up, the cashier went back and voided the transactions, which she had
entered at the time the payments were received. The reversing entries brought the receipt
totals into balance with the cash on hand. (These schemes will be discussed in more detail in
Chapter 8.)
Altering Cash Counts or Cash Register Tapes
A cash register is balanced by comparing the transactions on the register tape to the amount
of cash on hand. Starting at a known balance, sales, returns, and other register transactions
are added to or subtracted from the balance to arrive at a total for the period in question.
The actual cash is then counted and the two totals are compared. If the register tape shows
that there should be more cash in the register than what is present, it may be because of
larceny. To conceal cash larceny, some fraudsters alter the cash counts from their registers
to match the total
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 16/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
receipts reflected on their register tape. For example, if an employee processes $1,000 worth
of transactions on a register, then steals $300, there will be only $700 left in the cash
drawer. The employee will falsify the cash count by recording that $1,000 is on hand so that
the cash count balances to the register tape. This type of scheme occurred in Case 1806,
when a fraudster not only discarded register tapes to conceal her thefts, but also erased and
rewrote cash counts for the registers from which she pilfered. The new totals on the cash
count envelopes were overstated by the amount of money she had stolen, reflecting the
actual receipts for the period and balancing with the cash register tapes. Under the victim
company’s controls, this employee was not supposed to have access to cash. Ironically,
coworkers praised her dedication for helping them count cash when it was not one of her
official duties.
Instead of altering cash counts, some employees will manually alter the register tape from
their cash registers. Again, the purpose of this activity is to force a balance between the cash
on hand and the record of cash received. In Case 788, for instance, a department manager
altered and destroyed cash register tapes to help conceal a fraud scheme that went on for
four years.
Destroying Register Tapes
If the fraudster cannot make the cash and the tape balance, the next best thing is to prevent
others from computing the totals and discovering the imbalance. Employees who are
stealing at the point of sale sometimes destroy detail tapes, which would implicate them in a
crime.
Preventing and Detecting Cash Larceny at the Point of Sale
Most cash larceny schemes only succeed because of a lack of internal controls. In order to
prevent this form of fraud, organizations should enforce separation of duties in the cash
receipts process and make sure there are independent checks over the receipting and
recording of incoming cash.
When cash is received over the counter, the employee conducting the transaction should
record each transaction. The transaction is generally recorded on a cash register or on a
prenumbered receipt form. At the end of the business day, each salesperson should count
the cash in his cash drawer and record the amount on a memorandum form.
78
79
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 17/25
Another employee then removes the register tape or other records of the transactions. This
employee also counts the cash to make sure the total agrees with the salesperson’s count
and with the register tape. By having an independent employee verify the cash count in
each register or cash box at the end of each shift, an organization reduces the possibility of
long-term losses due to cash theft. Cash larceny through the falsification of cash counts can
be prevented by this control, and suspicions of fraud will be immediately raised if sales
records have been purposely destroyed.
Once the second employee has determined that the totals for the register tape and cash on
hand reconcile, the cash should be taken directly to the cashier’s office. The register tape,
memorandum form, and any other pertinent records of the day’s transactions are sent to
the accounting department, where the totals are entered in the cash receipts journal.
Obviously, to detect cash larceny at the point of sale, the first key is to look for discrepancies
between sales records and cash on hand. Large differences will normally draw attention,
but those who reconcile the two figures should also be alert to a high frequency of small-
dollar occurrences. Fraudsters sometimes steal small amounts in the hopes that they will
not be noticed, or that such shortfalls will be too small to review. A pattern of small
shortages may indicate the presence of this type of scheme.
Organizations should also periodically run reports showing the number of discounts,
returns, adjustments, write-offs, and other concealing transactions issued by
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 18/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
employee, department, or location. These transactions may be used to conceal cash larceny.
Similarly, all journal entries to cash accounts could be scrutinized, as these are often used to
hide missing cash.
Larceny of Receivables
Not all cash larceny schemes occur at the point of sale. As was discussed in Chapter 2,
employees will frequently steal incoming customer payments on accounts receivable.
Generally, these schemes involve skimming—the perpetrator steals the payment but never
records it. In some cases, however, the theft occurs after the payment has been recorded,
which means that it is classified as cash larceny. In Case 2758, for example, an employee
posted all records of customer payments to date, but stole the money received. In a four-
month period, this employee took over $200,000 in incoming payments. Consequently, the
cash account was significantly out of balance, which led to discovery of the fraud. This was
one of the cases in the ACFE studies, incidentally, in which the employee justified the theft
by saying she planned to pay the money back. This case illustrates the central weakness of
cash larceny schemes—the resulting imbalances in company accounts. In order for an
employee to succeed at a cash larceny scheme, he must be able to hide the imbalances
caused by the fraud. Larceny of receivables is generally concealed through one of three
methods:
• Force balancing
• Reversing entries
• Destruction of records
Force Balancing
Those fraudsters who have total control of a company’s accounting system can overcome
the problem of out-of-balance accounts. In Case 1663, an employee stole customer payments
and posted them to the accounts receivable journal in the same manner as the fraudster
discussed in Case 2758 above. As in the previous case, this employee’s fraud resulted in an
imbalance in the victim company’s cash account. The difference between the two frauds is
that the perpetrator of Case 1663 had control over the company’s deposits and all its ledgers.
She was therefore able to conceal her crime by force balancing: making unsupported
entries in the company’s books to produce a fictitious balance between receipts and ledgers.
79
80
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 19/25
This case illustrates how poor separation of duties can allow the perpetuation of a fraud
that ordinarily would be easy to detect.
Reversing Entries
In circumstances in which payments are stolen but nonetheless posted to the cash receipts
journal, reversing entries can be used to balance the victim company’s accounts. For
instance, in Case 1886, an office manager stole approximately $75,000 in customer
payments from her employer. Her method in a number of these cases was to post the
payment to the customer’s account, and then to later reverse the entry on the books with
unauthorized adjustments such as “courtesy discounts.”
Destruction of Records
A less elegant way to hide a crime is to simply destroy all records that might prove that the
perpetrator has been stealing. Destroying records en masse does not prevent the victim
company from realizing that it is being robbed, but it may help conceal the identity of the
thief. A controller in Case 1550 used this “slash-and-burn” concealment strategy. The
controller, who had complete control over the books of her employer, stole approximately
$100,000. When it became evident that her superiors were suspicious of her activities, the
perpetrator entered her office one night after work, stole all the cash on hand, destroyed all
records (among them her personnel file), and left town.
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 20/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
Cash Larceny from the Deposit
At some point in most revenue-generating businesses, someone must physically take the
company’s currency and checks to the bank. This person or persons, literally left holding the
bag, will have an opportunity to take a portion of the money prior to depositing it into the
company’s accounts.
Typically, when a company receives cash, someone is assigned to tabulate the receipts, list
the form of payment (currency or check), and prepare a deposit slip for the bank. Then
another employee, preferably one not involved in the preparing of the deposit slip, takes the
cash and deposits it in the bank. The person who made out the deposit generally retains one
copy of the slip. This copy is matched to a receipted copy of the slip stamped by the bank
when the deposit is made.
EXHIBIT 3-5: Cash Larceny from the Deposit
80
81
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 21/25
This procedure is designed to prevent theft of funds from the deposit, but thefts still occur,
often because the process is not adhered to (see Exhibit 3-5). In Case 1277, for example, an
employee in a small company was responsible for preparing and making the deposits,
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 22/25
recording the deposits in the company’s books, and reconciling the bank statements. This
employee took several thousand dollars from the company deposits and concealed it by
making false entries in the books that corresponded to falsely prepared deposit slips.
Similarly, in a retail store where cash registers were not used—in Case 2833—sales were
recorded on prenumbered invoices. The controller of this organization was responsible for
collecting cash receipts and making the bank deposits. This controller
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 23/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
was also the only person who reconciled the totals on the prenumbered receipts to the bank
deposit. Therefore, he was able to steal a portion of the deposit with the knowledge that the
discrepancy between the deposit and the day’s receipts would not be detected.
Another oversight in procedure is failure to reconcile the bank copy of the deposit slip with
the office copy. When the person making the deposit knows that his company does not
reconcile the two deposit slips, he can steal cash from the deposit on the way to the bank
and alter the deposit slip so that it reflects a lesser amount. In some cases sales records will
also be altered to match the diminished deposit.
When cash is stolen from the deposit, the receipted deposit slip will of course be out of
balance with the company’s copy of the deposit slip (unless the perpetrator also prepared
the deposit). To correct this problem, some fraudsters alter the bank copy of the deposit slip
after it has been validated. This brings the two copies back into balance. In Case 1446, for
example, an employee altered twenty-four deposit slips and validated bank receipts in the
course of a year to conceal the theft of over $15,000. These documents were altered with
correction fluid or ballpoint pen to match the company’s cash reports. Of course, cash
having been stolen, the company’s book balance will not match its actual bank balance. If
another employee regularly balances the checking account, this type of theft should be
easily detected.
Another mistake that can be made in the deposit function, and one that is a departure from
common sense, is entrusting the deposit to the wrong person. For instance, in Case 693, a
bookkeeper who had been employed for only one month was put in charge of making the
deposit. She promptly diverted the funds to her own use. This is not to say that all new
employees are untrustworthy—but it is advisable to have some sense of a person’s character
before handing that person a bag full of money.
Still another commonsense issue is the handling of the deposit on the way to the bank. Once
prepared, the deposit should be immediately put in a safe place until it is taken to the bank.
In a few of the cases we studied, the deposit was carelessly left unattended. In Case 2232, for
example, a part-time employee learned that it was the bookkeeper’s habit to leave the bank
bag in her desk overnight before taking it to the bank the following morning. For
approximately six months, this employee pilfered checks from the deposit and got away
with it. He was able to endorse the checks at a local establishment, without using his own
signature, in the name of the victim company. The owner of the check-cashing institution
did not question the fact that this individual was cashing company checks because, as a
81
82
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 24/25
pastor of a sizable church in the community, the fraudster’s integrity was thought to be
above reproach.
As with other cash larceny schemes, stealing from the company deposit can be rather
difficult to conceal. In most cases these schemes are successful for a long duration only
when the person who counts the cash also makes the deposit. In any other circumstance,
the success of the scheme depends primarily on the inattentiveness of those charged with
preparing and reconciling the deposit.
Deposit Lapping
One method ACFE studies have identified as having been successfully used to evade
detection is the lapping method. Lapping occurs when an employee steals the deposit from
day one, and then replaces it with day two’s deposit. Day two’s deposit is replaced with day
three’s, and so on. The perpetrator is always one day behind, but as long as no one demands
an up-to-the minute reconciliation of the deposits to the bank statement, and if the size of
the deposits does not drop precipitously, he may be able to avoid detection for a period of
time. In Case 1993, a company officer stole cash receipts from the company deposit and
withheld the deposit for a time. Eventually the deposit was made and the missing cash was
replaced with a check received at a later date. Lapping is discussed in more detail in
Chapter 2.
3/12/2018 Bookshelf Online: Principles of Fraud
https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118233566/cfi/6/10!/4/6/2/2/2@0:0 25/25
PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without publisher's prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
82
83