Organisations often overlook the importance of promptly investigating complaints of fraud and misconduct and taking quick and appropriate corrective action before significant problems arise. Since an organization’s prompt and effective response to complaints can limit the operational, financial and reputational damages, it is imperative that organizations do not leave any allegations of fraud and misconduct unattended.
Integrity Reliance (IR) forensic team have experts who understand how to examine evidence and identify patterns of fraud throughout the organization. We conduct thorough financial and operational investigations to determine if fraud is occurring and by what process it is happening. Our fraud investigation services enable fast collection and analysis of evidence to ensure that crucial decisions can be made quickly preventing loss. We can help dissect how the fraud occurred, quantify the potential losses, assess internal control weaknesses and recommend remedial action.
FRAUD RISK MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
Our professionals can assist organizations in developing and rolling out an effective fraud risk management framework that will enable organizations to have appropriate mechanisms that firstly prevent the fraud from occurring, secondly, detect a fraud when it materializes and finally respond effectively when such fraud incidents occur.
FRAUD SCENARIO ASSESSMENT
A fraud scenario assessment is the most effective preventive measure and yet the least expensive means to control fraud, only meticulous and proactive efforts to assess vulnerability to fraud can protect your company against significant acts of fraud. We assist management by paying due consideration to the fraud risks and features unique to the business in order to identify gaps and weaknesses in controls and thereafter develop a practical plan to target the right resources and mechanisms needed to mitigate those fraud risks.
For each key business function such as procurement and payables, our experts will help you find answers to the following questions –
- How could fraud exploit weaknesses in controls?
- How could controls be overridden or circumvented?
- How could fraud be concealed?
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FRAUD
Financial statement fraud is deliberate misrepresentation, misstatement or omission of financial statement data for the purpose of misleading the reader and creating a false impression of an organization’s financial strength. Public and private businesses commit financial statement fraud to secure investor interest or obtain bank approvals for financing, as justification for management bonuses or to meet expectations of shareholders.
Financial statement frauds include improper revenue recognition, manipulation of liabilities, manipulation of expenses, improper disclosures on financial statements and overstating assets.
ASSETS MISAPPROPRIATION
Asset misappropriation fraud happens when employees who are entrusted to manage the assets of an organization steal from it through fraudulent activity.
If they’re not tackled, opportunistic one-off asset misappropriation frauds can become systemic and spread throughout an organization, creating a culture of theft and fraud. When this happens, fraudsters think their actions are acceptable and fail to make the distinction between company funds and their own funds.
BRIBERY
Bribery is defined as offering, giving, receiving or soliciting anything of value to influence the outcome of a business transaction. Bribery schemes are different from other types of fraud, such as asset misappropriation. The hallmark of bribery is that it requires collusion from at least two parties–usually the vendor – paying the bribe and the employee – receiving the bribe. There are two general types of bribery schemes: kickbacks and bid-rigging.
KICKBACK
Kickbacks are payments (cash or non-cash) by vendors to employees involved in the purchasing function of a business entity. The purpose of the payment can be to obtain additional business from the purchasing company or to obtain the cooperation of the purchasing company’s employee in an over-billing scheme through the facilitation of the payment of inflated or false invoices. For example, a subcontractor having completed 50 hours of work on a project submits an invoice for 100 hours. The bribe recipient, through his level of influence at his place of employment, then processes the approval of the invoice. In other instances, bribes can be offered and paid to facilitate different types of favorable treatment, such as the acceptance of substandard materials or approval of substandard work.
BID RIGGING
Bid rigging occurs when vendors, that would otherwise be expected to compete, secretly conspire to raise prices or lower the quality of goods or services for purchasers who wish to acquire products or services through a bidding process. A few of common indicators of bid rigging are – an winning bidder subcontracts part of the business to a losing bidder, bids of all companies are very almost identical, qualified bidders do not bid and different companies submitting bids with the same handwriting, or from the same fax number.
EMBEZZLEMENT
Embezzlement is defined in most cases as misappropriation of cash or property by a person in a position of trust or responsibility over those assets. The methods used to embezzle can include fraudulent billing, payroll checks to fabricated employees, records falsification.
FORENSIC DATA ANALYTIhCS
Are you concerned about potential duplicate payments to vendors, double payment of salary or breaking up purchases to override delegated financial limits?
We can assist you with your Forensic Data Analysis to proactively prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse by profiling financial and non-financial data across various areas and disparate systems.
Some of the key outcomes of Forensic Data Analytics are identification of trends and red flags such as duplicate supplier invoicing, ghost employees and altered payees which need further investigation. Also This rigorous analysis can help organisations identify fraudulent activity, prioritize case management and investigation, and improve the false positive rate of a detection and prevention strategy.
WHISTLEBLOWING
Do you know that a whistleblowing hotline is one of the easiest and least expensive means for detecting fraud?
Predominantly, its your employees and external third parties who witness the initial fraud so its in the best interests of leaders to encourage whistleblowing and provide a trusted mechanism by which detected fraud can be reported.
Implementing an employee whistleblowing hotline gives your employees a voice to confidentially report workplace concerns and enables you to identify and rectify problems before they damage your business, reputation and employee morale. Companies are also slowly beginning to realize the importance of integrating a whistleblower service/ independent helpline as part of the fraud risk management strategy.
At Integrity Reliance (IR), we have experts who have the multiple industry experience of directing the entire whistleblowing project.
Our name is based on integrity, we are honest and follow top level of ethics, we don’t offer, neither accept any kind of bribes & we do the right thing in all circumstances even if no one is watching.
We are passionate about our services, we strongly desire for excellence and provide high quality work, beyond our clients expectations. We do our best to accomplish our vision and mission with excellence.
We are more trust worthy because we show accountability towards our commitments and the work we do, showing accountability and responsibility increases the importance and value of our clients.
