You’ve heard news stories involving Ponzi schemes. Investment scams and Ponzi schemes are all too common, even thought consumers are warned about them regularly. Investors are lured in with promises of high returns. People in or nearing retirement find these […]

Fraud is committed by real people. They have real families and real jobs. They often are just like you and me. But what makes thieves different from a lot of us is their ability to lie and steal. Most of […]

When there are suspicions of hidden income or secret investments or bank accounts, an analysis of known bank accounts can reveal helpful details. Tracy Coenen explains how bank statements and credit card statements can be used by a forensic accountant […]

Without information, a fraud investigation goes nowhere. There are abundant sources of information on people and companies, and the availability of personal information on the internet continues to grow. Doing a thorough fraud investigation often goes beyond just analyzing documents […]

Tracy talks about the types of damages that an expert may be asked to calculate in securities fraud cases, such as realized/unrealized gains on investments, margin interest, and more.

When attempting to prevent corporate fraud, management must be aware of the warning signs and be willing to identify operational risk factors and implement effective solutions to the problems. Operational red flags are among the most important red flags of […]

It’s easy to assume that upper-level executives in companies with fraud scandals were always bad people. By assuming that they were inherently bad people, we don’t have to confront the issues related to trusting people who seemed trustworthy. We don’t […]

One of the last places you’d expect to find fraud is in a law practice. Like accounting, the practice of law is a profession in which ethics are of utmost importance. Accountants and lawyers are often too trusting of their […]

While waiting in the hallway outside the courtroom to testify as an expert witness, I thought of all the ways my testimony could go wrong. I had hours to contemplate opposing counsel’s questions for me. It was my first time […]

Tracy Coenen teaches a group about some of the most common red flags of financial statement fraud. More information on corporate fraud is available in Tracy’s book, Essentials of Corporate Fraud.