Fraud Interview

After 2 hours reviewing the company ethics policy and discussing the relevance of the employee’s position as manager, and the suppliers he used, the employee was asked the following question: “Have you at any time received money from a supplier, gifts over $50 or asked a supplier to make a payment on your behalf”. The immediate answer was a sharp “NO”.

However, the interviewer asked the subject to consider for a few minutes why he may have been asked that question. After a silence of 45 minutes, where the subject looked everywhere but in the interviewer’s eyes, he changed his answer to “Yes”. After 7 hours (including lunch and coffee), he had admitted accepting bribes totalling $300,000.

• KEY POINT: A fraud interview is not an interrogation. It is a structured and planned conversation designed to uncover a series of events.

Disclosures in the Fraud-i™ reporting module, as well as during "Understand the Risks" workshops using the Fraud-i™ tool have helped reveal a great deal of sensitive information regarding malpractice and unethical behaviour within organisations.

The results of these findings remain confidential and anonymous.