Employment Testing Blog

2011 a Great Year for Embezzlers

  

 delicious  

  

2011 was another great year for embezzlement, according to Marquet International, a risk management company. Their report from January summarized hundreds of active embezzlement cases from across the country last year and declared that white collar crime was again alive and well.

One of the embezzlement stars of 2011 was a 67 year old bookkeeper who, during her 34 year tenure at Tanklages Construction Company, had taken almost $5,000,000 and used it on vacations and gambling trips.  Her loyalty to her job was surely appreciated. Other findings of the report include:

• The average loss for 2011 was $750,000.

• Woman are twice as likely to steal, but men will steal more (average of 25% more)

• The average scheme lasted 5 years.

• 40-49 year olds caused the greatest overall losses.
  

These criminal activities are not noticed as much in prosperous business times when there's plenty of money floating around. But when business is slower and there's less profit, business owners will pay closer attention to where the money is going. And that's when these criminals get caught.

Did you perform county level criminal background searches on your new hires? If not, you may be hiring those that other companies rejected. We can can help. If you want to explore how our background screening programs work, visit ScreenMyJobApplicants.com.