Fraud Auditing, Detection, and Prevention Blog

The Science of Identifying Fraud Risks in Your Business

Aug 26, 2022 8:43:15 AM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Risk Statements, Fraud Risk Identification, ...

Who caused the failure of a bank via illicit stock trades? Nick Leeson

Who almost caused the failure of a bank due to illicit stock trades? Jérôme Kerviel 

What carpet cleaner was listed on Forbes? Barry Minkow

Which was the first widely publicized case of computer crime to conceal a financial statement fraud? Equity Funding. I remember when this case was first publicized, and I must admit, it started with my fascination with fraud as an auditor.

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Applying Knowledge to a Fraud Audit

Mar 17, 2022 6:03:55 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Data Analytics, Fraud Risk Identification, ...

Last month’s trivia questions and answers

Besides the fraud triangle, what other shapes are used to describe the theory of why people commit fraud.

 The fraud diamond and the fraud pentagon.

 In what year did Dr. Cressy publish the fraud triangle?

This is an interesting question because there seem to be conflicting thoughts on this subject. With that said, I will say the study was never published by Dr. Cressey, based on what I believe is a reliable source. This does not diminish the importance of the fraud triangle, it is just interesting trivia.

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How to Write a Fraud Audit Report

Sep 20, 2021 11:03:27 AM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Data Analytics, Fraud Risk Identification, ...

In the August blog, I provided you with a homework question.

I asked why the following fraud risk statement would not be included in the scope of your audit work:

“Payroll function causes a payroll payment to be issued in the name of an employee who is not on the human resources database.”

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Emerging Issues: Top 100 Most Ethical Companies

May 14, 2021 4:19:42 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Risk Identification, Fraud Auditing ...

  1. Last month I wrote about the Top 100 Corporate Criminal List. So, this month I will write about the most ethical companies. If you are not aware, there is an organization, Ethisphere, that publishes a report each year listing the most ethical companies. I would encourage you to look at the report.

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Emerging Fraud Audit Issues: Top 100 Corporate Criminals List

Apr 21, 2021 3:30:56 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Risk Identification, Fraud Auditing ...

I think it is time for a change in my focus, so this blog will not address our profession directly but rather corporate management. I believe that the concealment of criminal fraud by management is a critical emerging issue that should be top of mind for fraud auditors. Maybe it has always been an issue, but nobody wanted to discuss it.

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Fraud. What does this really mean?

Mar 16, 2021 4:27:51 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Risk Identification, Fraud Auditing ...

Consider Fraud. What does this really mean?

As you are aware, the auditing standards require an auditor to consider fraud in the conduct of an audit. Depending on the standards you follow, the meaning has different requirements. No, I have no intention of critiquing each standard but rather, I want to critique the phrase “consider fraud”

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Five Common Fraud Schemes & How to Identify Them

Feb 16, 2018 4:56:00 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Data Analytics, Fraud Risk Identification, ...

Knowing where and how fraud occurs can be a crucial step towards improving your fraud detection and prevention policies, saving you or the company you are investigating a significant amount of money and time.

Here are five common fraud schemes and how to better identify them. Auditors and management may utilize knowledge of these schemes to help their teams better identify fraud as it happens by understanding key patterns in data.

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