Fraud at work.

Prestwich_Blue said:
Many years ago, when I worked in the world of accountancy, one of our biggest clients was a large stockbroker. The senior partner was very wealthy, with an estate in Cheshire, chauffeur-driven Rolls & all the other trappings of vast wealth. He was also one of the leading figures in the Equestrian world, one of the judges who Harvey Smith famously gave a v-sign to when they marked him down. All in all very much a member of the Establishment. As, an example, he'd be in the Royal Enclosure at Royal Ascot every year, flying there by helicopter from the roof of the Dorchester, where he had a suite.

Most of the staff were great but there was a small group of arseholes who were responsible for ensuring all the trades were recorded correctly. They had the first computerised accounts I'd come across, with all the transactions on that old, lined computer print-out paper you used to get. 2 of us were on it full-time with others called in as we needed help.

Getting to the end of the audit and it was just the two of us and we both had the feeling that there was something not quite right and that the arsehole group were taunting us. We'd done all the work we needed to but still had a few days left so Martin, the audit senior, suggested we looked through some of the senior partners personal expense accounts,of which there were loads. I picked up the binder of computer output that contained some of these and something caught my eye.

There was an account that was supposedly for the expenses connected with his horse boxes and there really shouldn't have been much going through it. But there was transaction after transaction comprising an eye-watering amount, into six figures (this was 1980 so well over £1m in today's money). Clearly something going on so we traced these transactions back to where they'd originated from, which was a suspense account where they'd normally put share trades there was some dispute over and hadn't been settled. It was all computerised so relatively easy to trace everything but we had to be careful not to arouse suspicion. Many of the trades were linked to a specific figure, a member of a well known banking family working as a fund manager at a merchant bank. Another very Establishment figure.

In the end, we cornered the company accountant, who got his job via our senior partner, was pretty new to the firm and probably got treated like shit by their senior partner. He spilled the beans and told us that the fund manager knew what shares his firm were going to buy, in such quantities that the price would naturally go up. He bought some privately in advamce, via our client, made a nice profit which was then siphoned off into this private account. This was used to pay for the Royal Ascot trips and distribute large amounts of cash.

We had to report back to our own firm and alert them there was a problem and then spent the last few days at the client, keeping out of the way and going for long boozy lunches. Naturally the arsehole group had been putting all these transactions through so it was now clear why they were taking the piss. We took great delight in being extremely nice to them.

Some time later the Stock Exchange banned all the traders from dealing, which effectively shut them down. Turned out that this wasn't the only dodgy stuff they were doing. Turned out that the fund manager was all for coat and no knickers and a living well behind his means, hence why he ended up insider trading. He lost good job of course & ended up blowing his brains out. Even that turned into a court case as he did that the night his life insurance policy expired and the insurance company tried to avoid paying out on the grounds he'd killed himself after midnight, when the policy was no longer in force. They lost and the woodies got the payout.

The senior partner of the stockbrokers was ruined for what was, for him, pin money. He ended up having a severe stroke and was in pretty much a vegetative state for the rest of his days. It was the first big insider trading scandal and mainly came to light because we had a few days to kill on the audit.
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Nice to know karma exists
 
Small time stuff, but indicative of the times. Round about 1970, I worked for a large printing company.
SOGAT, NGA, and NATSOPA were the major unions in that trade and they controlled everything. They told the bosses what to do and they obeyed. In the print shops, there were three guys in control, the Number 1 printer, the Number 2 and an apprentice, Number three. Each Friday a guy from the office came in to pay these three. But there were four pay packets. Nos 1 and 2 split the fourth packet and gave the No 3 a small amount to bring him into the fold.
And, I kid you not, the fourth pay packet was in the name of M. Mouse.
Management knew, of course, but any action would have resulted in a strike, no to mention a heavy screw driver chucked into the print mechanism.
 
What great post by OP Trevor (enjoyed reading it) I’m sorry it didn’t end well for you - i was hoping Dorris and Barbara would have got their cumeuppance for what they did but they avoided the sack and both got a good roasting instead. No wonder Dorris was clutching a tissue and looking red faced.
 
It’s infuriating, but most of the time these people do get found out and punished (unless they are Tory politicians).
My own story,without going into details, is early in my career I worked for a very big company in distribution. We had a couple of delivery men who had 30+ years service and were within 12 months of retirement. Everyone knew they’d been on the fiddle for donkey’s years. With about 6 month each left, they eventually got pulled in and GMP CID got involved too. They lost all retirement benefit, everything and they got prosecuted by the company. They ended up broken men.
 
I worked for British Gas years ago. There was a huge case where customers used to pay by cheque back in the day. Often customers would just write “B. Gas” on a cheque. Lots of these ended up being changed to “B. Gaskell” and deposited into an account of that name. Few people arrested and sent to prison.
 
East Level 2 said:
I knew of a sales manager who shipped a load of stuff to a distributor ahead of schedule in order to exceed a bonus threshold.
When the distributor complained the sales manager explained why he did it and said "Don't pay the invoice and we'll clear it with accounts, and we'll come over and take you for a meal and get you pissed." The meal and the beer would be on expenses of course.
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I worked in an industry where I am told this kind of thing was commonplace a few decades ago. Since then a few of the big players in that industry have been caught out and the fines are eye watering. But I can believe it still happens.

That said, around the turn of the century I was handed an account where we had no business but the potential was millions. The outgoing rep told me I had no chance of ever doing anything with them as they'd fallen out with us almost two decades back over something.

After a few years of toiling away and getting nowhere, I found out suddenly my usual contact had left there. And his colleague, in fact the whole purchasing team and some management.

Turns out, and I am not supposed to know this and have no way for confirming, they were allegedly being treated to meals and holidays abroad by our competitor, the sole supplier for almost two decades, who had been able to do whatever the hell they liked on price as they knew they'd always get the business thanks to taking a few key people and their partners away every year. It was only when this new guy came in to a, by then, failing business that he compared prices and wondered why they were paying double.

It really shocked me though as I was naieve enough to think this kind of thing didn't happen anymore in the 21st century. The name of the company involved would be known to every single person on this forum. If I'd have had more proof i would have had to choose between reporting them, effectively destroying their business and making hundreds unemployed, or building a relationship with this new regime and turning a blind eye. Thankfully it was all word of mouth, albiet corroborated by many. Does irk me though that the same competitor so still going strong, their management now probably unaware of such behaviour or burying it so deep, and such behaviour is unlikely to have been a one off imo.
 
Seen the same sort of people come unstuck when they have gone on Holiday and someone else has used £50 less diesel a week using the same van/same mileage... Same idiots are the ones who cane the overtime with constant machine failures that miraculously also stop when on Holiday!
 
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