Visa fraud suspects fled after wiring $1m overseas

A corrupt Immigration Department official and her husband helped run a $3 million criminal migration racket involving more than 1000 fraudulent visa applications.

Read more at : http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/visa-fraud-suspects-fled-after-wiring-1m-overseas-20140807-3dbmu.html

Deter the Inside Job. 5 Ways to Avert Employee Theft and Fraud.

Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235737

Scams, fraud increased in Australia during 2013

ACCC says dating/romance scams most expensive for victims while card fraud reached $290.9 million reports Australian Payments Clearing Association

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/547858/scams_fraud_increased_australia_during_2013/

Hotlines, Not Audits, Catch Crooked Employees

Read more at:

http://ww2.cfo.com/fraud/2014/06/hotlines-audits-catch-crooked-employees/

Mary Berners-Lee: An Unlikely Fraud Victim

As crime victims go, a 90-year-old pensioner might appear typical. But Mary Berners-Lee is a highly regarded mathematician who helped create the world's first commercial computer, the Ferranti Mark I. She is also the mother of Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the world wide web. Yet even she was outsmarted by the courier scammers. Watch the video

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27688173

EBay customers must reset passwords after major hack (Watch a hacker steal encrypted passwords)

Reset you PayPal Passwords as well.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/21/technology/security/ebay-passwords/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse - 2014 Report

Some Key Findings:

• Survey participants estimated that the typical organization loses 5% of revenues each year to fraud. If applied to the 2013 estimated Gross World Product, this translates to a potential projected global fraud loss of nearly $3.7 trillion.
• The median loss caused by the frauds in our study was $145,000. Additionally, 24% of the cases involved losses of at least $1 million.

For more:

http://www.acfe.com/RTTN.aspx

Intelligence Assessment And Unpredictability

Kris Wheaton’s reflection on his class discussion (How to Analyze Black Swans) is useful in understanding the challenge of elaborating future possibilities in intelligence assessments. 

Mark Lowenthal’s comment on Black Swans also illuminates an important aspect of uncertainty—while a situation may be completely mysterious to some observers, others may be very familiar with every aspect of it. Their knowledge, however, may not be transferable to intelligence analysts. 

Read more at:
http://sourcesandmethods.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/intelligence-assessment-and.html

10 golden tenets of fraud prevention and deterrence Part 1

http://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294982428

Identity fraud hits new victim every two seconds

"To protect yourself from fraud, create strong passwords and lock electronic devices like computers and cell phones, change your passwords frequently, monitor your bank accounts and credit card statements regularly, shred personal documents, install security software on your computer and phone and avoid public Wi-Fi connections......"
http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/06/pf/identity-fraud/


In Australia you can take advantage of Identity Watch which is Veda’s cyber-monitoring product, used to "help detect fraud by constantly looking for information – such as credit and debit card numbers, phone numbers and email addresses – in places on the internet where information is known to be illegally traded."

http://www.veda.com.au/yourcreditandidentity/protect/what-identity-watch

 

Unstructured data: How to implement an early warning system for hidden risks

Managing the devil you know is difficult enough. But in risk management, it’s the devil you don’t know that can spring chaos on your organization.


Read more at: http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2014/Jan/20126972.htm


This a US article however all businesses face the same risks....key takeaway = please don't ignore risks  :-)

ANZ lack of due diligence and abandonment of ethical lending obligations in lending to controversial Cambodian sugar plantation that employs children

Beware of not completing proper due diligence and adhering to integrity commitments.....


ANZ is said to be financing a Cambodian sugar plantation, owned by Ly Yong Phat, one of Cambodia's richest men and a senator from its ruling political party. 


Audits apparently reveal that the plantation involves child labour, military-backed land grabs, forced evictions and food shortages thus not implementing the environmental, health and social management programs required by ANZ to meet its ethical lending obligations.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/anz-under-fire-for-loans-to-controversial-cambodian-sugar-plantation-20140122-3196z.html#ixzz2rAbCQKnb

We know to protect ourselves from Personal Identity Theft but what about Business Identity Theft?

Business identity theft can be described as the misappropriation of an organization's tax identification number or other sensitive information necessary to imitate the identity of the business for illicit purposes. Criminals obtain tax identification numbers through various means, such as searching for them online, examining filings with securities regulators, reviewing tax forms, phishing or social engineering.


This articles mention some US fraud schemes but it is not beyond imagination that the activity is global given that business data is easily available online in many databases.


For more read:http://www.acfe.com/fraud-examiner.aspx?id=4294981064