October 22, 2019

The Future of Fraud Investigations in Canada

October 22, 2019/ Mandy Moody

How do you get a room full of attorneys, accountants and auditors to definitively agree on something? As Henry Tso illustrated at the 2019 ACFE Fraud Conference Canada in Montreal, you ask them if they have ever been a victim of a fraud attempt. Tso, a former RCMP superintendent and officer in charge, asked more than 340 attendees to raise their hands if they had received a call from someone pretending to work for the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) attempting to gain personal information. “I received a call two days ago from the CRA,” he said. “How many people received that call?” A flurry of hands went up without hesitation.

October 21, 2019

5 Ways to Promote Honesty in Interviews

October 21, 2019/ Mandy Moody

What lie do you think a fraudster is on by the time you, the fraud examiner, is introduced to him or her? The first? The second? The hundredth? The truth is, no pun intended, by the time you are sitting across the table from them, they have most likely been lying to their friends, family and coworkers for a good amount of time. Unfortunately, for those who have been committing crimes, practice does not make perfect and a fraud examiner has a wealth of tools available to spot signs of deception.

September 30, 2019

National Security and Corporate Risk Expert Says “We’re Not Winning” the War Against Digital Threats

September 30, 2019/ Sarah Hofmann

Large-scale data breaches are now regular fixtures in the headlines, and as cybercriminals become more sophisticated, corporations and governments are rushing to keep up. “In almost four decades of security work, I have never witnessed a threat environment that has this type of volume, velocity and variety,” security expert Ray Boisvert told the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). “The myriad of threat actors, now spanning an entire globe with increasingly sharp capabilities to strike remotely, has now completely redefined for us what security parameters look like.”

October 31, 2018

Crime in Business and the Business of Crime

October 31, 2018/ Emily Primeaux

In the 90s, smash-and-grab thefts at jewelry stores accompanied by security footage dominated the news more than foreign hackers and cyberattacks.

Seemingly overnight, everything changed. Suddenly criminals figured it out — you don’t have to use a gun to commit a crime anymore. You can rob people from far away — from another country even — without worrying about ending up in a shootout with a cop.

October 30, 2018

Embattled Whistleblower Fights For Better Protections

October 30, 2018/ Emily Primeaux

In 1992, Joanna Gualtieri joined the Foreign Affairs department of the government as a realty strategist and was quickly sent to Tokyo. While there, she learned that Canada's main diplomatic compound was valued at more than $2 billion. She also discovered that taxpayers were paying $350,000 a year to rent accommodations for a trade official in Tokyo while a government-owned mansion worth $18 million sat empty for more than three years.

October 29, 2018

Canada's Auditor General Suggests Revisiting Fundamentals for Fraud Prevention

October 29, 2018/ Emily Primeaux

“The work done to detect, prevent, audit and investigate fraud is very important,” said Michael Ferguson, CPA, CA, FCA (New Brunswick), Auditor General of Canada at the sold-out 2018 ACFE Fraud Conference Canada. “There are many opportunities for people of your skillset to prevent criminals from siphoning off money from others.”