Fraud, corporate espionage, identity theft and other financial crimes continue
to plague businesses and investors to an unprecedented extent. Losses from such
activities are reliably estimated to be in excess of $100 billion per year, and
are rising for U.S. businesses and investors.
Schemes to defraud, embezzle, and illegally divert funds have been developed
and perfected over many years and, with the addition of the internet, have become
an incalculable nightmare. Fraud schemes typically fall into several general categories:
- Corruption involving governmental authorities, such as bribery, kickbacks, illegal
gratuities, bid rigging, conflicts of interest, and breach of fiduciary duty.
- Asset misappropriations (embezzlement of cash or inventory).
- Unlawful disclosure of business, trade and research secrets.
- Fraudulent statements both financial and non-financial. These include revenue
over statements, fictitious revenues, concealed expenditures, false asset valuations,
or failure to disclose material facts.
- Ponzi Schemes - The oldest trick in the book but one that has been reinvented
time and again. Today, through the Internet and with the secrecy afforded by offshore
financial centers, PONZI's have become the biggest single threat confronting global
investors.
In all of these schemes, the victim is the business entity or investor who is
betrayed by a breach of trust. These schemes are seldom detected or solved by
traditional internal or independent audits. Even if detected, auditors rarely
have the investigative experience to unravel the fraud - particularly the ability
to pursue leads outside of the victim's company. That is simply not what auditors
do, but it is what USSC, Inc. does most efficiently.
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