Fraud presents a constant threat to all organizations, both large and small. Fraudsters exploit vulnerabilities in an organization’s internal controls, systems, and people. In addition to financial losses, fraud can damage reputation; weaken consumer and investor confidence; impact share price and employee morale, and result in costly regulatory investigations from which many organizations fail to fully recover.
The ability to detect and prevent instances of fraud early is vital to avoiding business-critical problems. K2 Integrity helps clients identify and uncover fraudulent activities and schemes, while also assisting with the recovery of losses associated with fraud. Our team uses proprietary research-gathering tools and advanced data analytics technology to identify the indicators of fraud from the large volumes of data held by organizations, often from a variety of independent data sources.
Fraud Detection
Our tailored fraud detection analytics provide insight into clients’ most critical data to detect fraud and areas of high risk, including the following:
- Conflicts of interest involving purchasing, sales schemes, and customer collusion
- Nepotism
- Bribery, kickbacks, commissions, bid-rigging, and illegal gratuities
- Overcharging
- Theft of cash and skimming
- Billing and expense reimbursement schemes
- Fictitious invoices, suppliers, and credit notes
- Ghost employees and payroll fraud
- Inventory and raw material misuse and theft
- Financial statement fraud, including fictitious revenue, timing differences, and concealed liabilities
- Over-reliance on key suppliers and customers
K2 Integrity’s investigators design fraud detection analytics for each client based on the client’s profile, industry, geography, size, and regulatory environment. The result is a bespoke fraud prevention diagnostic service that identifies potential fraud indicators and areas of high risk through the interrogation of patterns and irregularities in large data sets.
Monitoring and Prevention
Detection of fraud is one of the best forms of fraud prevention and is a crucial mechanism in uncovering and preventing fraud and corruption within an organization and should be part of an organization’s ongoing fraud monitoring and prevention program.
Fraudsters are not easily deterred and will continue to look for ways to exploit an organization’s control weaknesses. As such, it is vital for an organization to review and tighten its controls, policies, and procedures, and develop a program for ongoing fraud monitoring. K2 Integrity brings together experts in compliance, forensic accounting, law enforcement, government regulation, and financial services, who work with clients on a continuous basis to ensure their organizations stay ahead of fraud and corruption issues.
Fraud Investigations
Incidents of fraud can cause major disruption to businesses and have a lasting impact on profit, performance, and reputation.
Our fraud investigations are tailored to the needs of the client. Our global teams of experts—with credentials in cyber crime, finance and accounting, law, law enforcement, and intelligence—are supported by technology and data analysis tools to conduct deep inquiries into questions of large-scale fraud and misconduct. We offer unmatched depth of experience in highly complex, multijurisdictional fraud investigations. We help clients understand the circumstances, weigh their options for remediation, assess the damage and recover from it, and prevent similar incidents happening again.
Our investigative experts deploy the following fact-finding methods:
- Document and Communications Review: Careful and diligent analysis of documentation, email correspondence, contracts, communication logs and other data to isolate facts, identify discrepancies, discover patterns and connections;
- Research: Thorough review of publicly available information, including official records, media and social media, to gain a deep understanding of the background of individuals, activities of companies and political and business context;
- Forensic Accounting: Granular examination of financial records, amplified by data analytics technology, to uncover irregularities in financial transactions, misstatements in company accounts and evidence of fraud;
- IT Forensics and Cyber Investigation: Capturing, preserving and careful analysis of digital information, to safeguard crucial evidence; conducting deep web searches, analysis of metadata and other sources of digital information to identify connections, patterns and anomalies;
- Investigative Interviews: Detailed interviews with members of staff to establish a full chain of events and challenge their account of facts.
Our investigators have expertise in a wide variety of matters:
- Financial Fraud Investigations: We diagnose and resolve instances of embezzlement, procurement fraud, financial statement fraud, and other large-scale misappropriations from either inside or outside the client’s organization. Working closely with the client’s counsel we determine how the wrongdoing arose, its impact on the business, and means of remediation.
- Inventory and Assets Fraud: We combine a variety of methods to identify and investigate theft, loss, or misstatement of inventory and assets. Using advanced analytical methodologies and technology, forensic accounting expertise, and traditional investigative techniques such as interviews, field assessments, and intelligence gathering, we effectively navigate through a delicate and complex situation to identify the scheme of misappropriation of physical assets, and assist the client in mitigating future losses.
- Price Fixing and Bid Rigging: Companies around the world face increased scrutiny and cartel enforcement actions by regulatory agencies. Involvement in price fixing or bid rigging can have serious legal, financial, and reputational consequences for a company. K2 Integrity brings sophisticated knowledge and expertise to conduct internal investigations, and establish facts and work with legal counsel to assess liabilities and mitigate future risks.
- Construction Fraud Investigations: We help companies involved in construction and engineering projects determine the extent to which they might have experienced over billing, whether as a result of fraud, mismanagement, or other causes. K2 Integrity combines its core teams with robust expertise in forensic audit and forensic engineering with the firm’s strong investigative acumen to identify and reconstruct the type of fraud that might have occurred.
- Information Breaches and Intellectual Property Leaks: Information breaches and intellectual property (IP) leaks can disrupt business, affect profitability and performance, or adversely affect reputation. We investigate how such incidents take place, the impact they have, and the losses that can occur, and provide steps that can be taken in mitigation or recovery.
