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Theft as an Employee (August 2006)
Currently this is one of the most common file cases that we have to work on here at Target Investigations & Security. With the increased financial burdens, and sometimes increased drug use we find that employees try to find an easy way out to make ends meet. This more than often involves theft from their employee. It may be that they are in a cash handling position or have access to stock or company valuables - but unless there are mechanisms in place to deter, we find that it is a continual problem. In some cases - such as this one - the employee was a long serving and most trusted member of staff.
In this case the employee had been on site for about 8 years in a customer service and cash handling position. After discussion with the client it was decided that the best course of action was to place covert CCTV (closed circuit TV) cameras in several positions around where the thefts were occurring.
On reviewing the footage obtained it was noted that this employee was taking substantial amounts of cash on a daily basis and that there were major problems in cash handling procedures within the premises. Overall it was estimated that this person had stolen in excess of $50,000 cash.
After following employment procedures (which can be a minefield) the employee handed in her resignation which was accepted and no further action was taken. We followed up the client in ensuring that comprehensive procedures were put in place to mitigate further losses as part of our risk management division.
Intellectual Property Theft (July2006)
The last thing that our client needed was to find out that after years of setting up a very profitable business, an ex-employee was attempting to set up in competition. It is very fortunate for this client as he had a water tight contract in place with the ex which in the end proved to be his saving grace.
The ex-employee resigned from the business, but with New Zealand being such a small country it did not take long for word to filter back to our client that they were going into competition. We used computer forensics on the ex-employees lap top to uncover a number of problems for him. They had attempted to wipe the computer clean, but using experienced and qualified technicians and tools we were able to recover unauthorised use on the internet. This included on pornographic sites (including child porn), lengthy periods on auction sites (such as Trade Me) and non work related sites, downloading inappropriate files and the theft of intellectual property (IP).
We made further investigations which closed down the ex-employee from continuing his business and the client is currently under negotiations with them. In previous cases we have reported this type of case to the Police for action.
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