Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: Investigating Forensic Accounting 7

Chapter 1: Why the World Needs Forensic Accountants 9

Chapter 2: Steering Your Career toward Forensic Accounting 21

Chapter 3: Getting to Know the Most Common Fraud Schemes 33

Chapter 4: Forensic Accounting Minus the Fraud 51

Part II: The Anatomy of Occupational Fraud 67

Chapter 5: Cooked Books: Finding Financial Statement Fraud 69

Chapter 6: Investigating Inventory Fraud 83

Chapter 7: Examining Revenue Recognition Problems 93

Chapter 8: Studying Securities Fraud 107

Part III: It’s All in the Family: Fraud against Individuals 119

Chapter 9: Divorce with a Side of Fraud 121

Chapter 10: Protecting Estates, Trusts, and the Elderly 133

Chapter 11: Recognizing Real Estate Fraud 143

Part IV: Meeting Your Methods of Investigation 157

Chapter 12: Walking through the Investigation Process 159

Chapter 13: Tracing the Flow of Money 171

Chapter 14: Going to the Source: Obtaining Records 183

Chapter 15: Tapping into Electronic Evidence 199

Chapter 16: Who Wants to Know? Reporting on Your Findings 213

Chapter 17: Preparing for Trial: Business Litigation 227

Chapter 18: Organizing Evidence and Serving as an Expert Witness 243

Chapter 19: Peeking Inside Federal Government Fraud Cases 255

Part V: Preventing Occupational Fraud 271

Chapter 20: Helping Small Businesses Prevent Fraud 273

Chapter 21: Assisting Larger Businesses with Fraud Prevention 289

Chapter 22: Keeping Employees Honest (and Happy) 305

Chapter 23: Applying Technology to Fraud Prevention 315

Part VI: The Part of Tens 329

Chapter 24: Ten Entertaining Portrayals of Fraud 331

Chapter 25: Ten Fairly Common – and Unsuspected – Frauds 337

Chapter 26: Ten Truly Strange Fraud Stories 343

Index 353

About the Author

Frimette Kass-Shraibman is Associate Professor of Accounting at Brooklyn College - CUNY. Vijay S. Sampath is Managing Director in the Forensic and Litigation Consulting business segment of FTI Consulting, Inc.