Introduction
I have worked in many cases as a private investigator in Minneapolis. In this case, there have been some complaints about a certain company that is believed to be a pyramid scheme. The people came together and got a lawyer who came to my office and asked me for help so that they could sue the company. The minute I got the case, I knew that it was going to be one of the hardest jobs because there was no evidence that has ever linked the company to any scheme. The company is called Kineticate and is well known for helping the poor. The first major step for any investigator is to make sure that there is a case to investigate. I changed the names of some of the people in this investigation. The steps I took to conduct this investigation were according to the basic fraud investigation and examination principles (Ramage, 2009).
The first step: begin the case
The case started in June 13, 2012 when the complaints and their lawyer came to my office at around 10am. I called my partner named as John Weatherly and we debriefed all the complainants so as to get as much information as possible. According to the information we were getting from the clients it became clear that this was more like a pyramid scheme. This is because the clients were mislead into giving their money in order to get more in return but ever since the day they gave out their money they have never being able to enter the building. Whenever they enter the company and ask about their money, they keep telling them that they have no idea who they were.
This got our attention because the company is well known for operating with computers and nothing to do with handling money. I was looking at the clients, that is when I realized that they were not a well educated group because most of them were immigrants who worked as waiters, taxi drivers, house cleaners and mechanics. Both tape and video recorder recorded the information we got from the complaints. We also wrote down the most important information from the clients. When the clients left, my partner and I assembled all the people who would be very useful in this investigation and they are the computer specialist and other field agents (Albrecht, 2006).
Step two: the background check and internal investigation
The computer specialist known as Riley Pears began to look at the background of the company by checking if there have been any reports in which they have ended up being sued. We found there was a case three years before where they were sued for some reason but the case was dropped because they came to a settlement. We saw this as a lead and decided to follow it (Maroney, 2013). Our computer analyst tried her level best to hack into their system in order to see the charges but it was hard to crack because it required passwords. This caused me and my partner to go to the company so as to ask questions. We entered the reception area where we got lucky and found an old friend of mine named as Kenny Osborne who works in the company. He was of extreme help because he took us to his manager named as Peter Griffith and asked him to talk to us.
The manager agreed to talk to us. We entered his office and started asking him questions. That is when he told us that the offices where our complaints had gone to were rented to other companies. This came as a shock and we also found out that the previous people who had rented it had left and now it was occupied by different people. When we left the office, we did not believe him therefore, we went to those offices and found that it was airline offices and was legit. We went to the offices next to them and they told us the same thing that the previous tenants had left. This case was beginning to confuse us thus; we left the office with nothing that could help our clients.
Step three: the external investigation begins
I was still curious about the case that had happened earlier in Kineticate therefore, I went the police station where I used to work. I went to one of my friends office named as Carl Rogers and asked him about the Kineticate company case. He said that the case was about a sexual harassment, which was settled. This got me really frustrated because now we were back to square one. Through my frustration, I told him about my case. That is when I noticed that he was really interested about the case. He told me then that a few months ago there was complaint from three Latino people who claimed that they had been swindled their money.
The complaint had the same characteristics as the one I had. He directed me to the place where I would find those complaints. I called them and they were prepared to speak to me in my office. The next day they came to my office and we were able to question them thoroughly so that we could find something that we missed in the previous interview. They all told the same story as my clients and I found something intriguing about the guy who made them aware about that money making opportunity. We found out the place where we would be able to find him. The other thing that we noticed in this case was the building where the criminals were conducting their illegal business was in big buildings where there is a big company. This is where they were hiding and making it easy for people to blame these organizations.
Step four: interview a potential inside witness or primary subject
One of the workers who is of Latino descent named as Javier Hernandez and I went to the pub where we had about the person who would tell our clients about the scheme. We did not know who he was so went in the pub blind. While drinking we were talking about how we could make more money that is when we realized that there was a man who looked to be in his late twenties listening to us intently. Later on, he joined our conversation and began talking to us about a company that was doing business in which we would get more money than what we give to them. Something about him was not right but we accepted the offer and asked him where the company was. This time the company they rented in was an insurance company. We pretended to be very excited about the deal and told him that we would go to that company the following day. The way the case was going, I decide that it was about time that invited the police into action because there was something about the person that was taking us to the place that bugged me (Pedneault, 2010). I went to my friend’s office at the police station and he referred me to the FBI because apparently this gang had already done this kind of scheme in other states.
Before the FBI, agents came to my office I called the lawyer for my complainants and told him about the development of the case. I told him that this was a criminal case and that they will have to communicate with the ADA. The FBI agents came to my office and my partner and I told them about the place where we were supposed to go. The agents asked us for the files and evidence we were able to get four this case and we gave to them. We informed them about the time we supposed to meet Julian Lopez. They said that it was there time now to do their job and thanked us for our work and they left. I wanted to see if they would be able to be captured therefore, I wore a disguise, went, and hid somewhere I will have a clear view of the raid. The police entered the building and were able to capture the gang. This is when I knew our investigation was complete.
Conclusion
This fraud investigation had many challenges but the worst was during the second step because the case seemed to be a dead end. The only reason we were able to get to where we got was because of the consultations we had with the police department. The scheme turned out to be an interstate affair, which got the FBI involved. The culprits were captured and the case was taken to court. The reason why the case was able to be closed was because of our good investigative skills. In this case, we used the theory of less is more because the information and evidence we acquired was minimal but we were able to capture the schemers (Maroney, 2013).
Reference
Albrecht, W. S. (2006). Fraud Examination. Thompson South-Western.
Maroney, T. (2013). Capital Markets: Pyramid Schemes. Initiative for Policy Dialogue.
Pedneault, S. (2010). Anatomy of a Fraud Investigation. New Jersey: John wiley and sons inc.
Ramage, S. (2009). Fraud Investigation: Criminal Procedure and Investigation. Bloomington: iUniverse.
