A financial investigator is someone who concentrates on illegal activities that lead to monetary or financial benefits. A financial investigator can work in different ways. They can either work in the public sector or the private sector according to their choices and preferences.
Financial crimes are rapidly developing into more complex and time-consuming to investigate. These types of crimes are specialized areas that need proper knowledge and expertise. Even police officers cannot solve such cases and they often require someone who can provide them with correct guidance throughout the case.
This is where a financial investigator comes into action. Nowadays, most detective agencies include a team of financial investigators to support various financial crimes. Businesses must figure out the financial frauds happening within to prevent the possibilities of money loss, and loss of other important financial assets. Therefore, conducting financial investigations is vital as frauds and scams are on the rise.
What is a financial investigation?
A financial investigation is an investigation where it is properly analyzed where the money comes from, how it moves, and how it is being used. A financial investigation will reveal different things such as tax evasion, public corruption, telemarketing fraud, terrorist financing, illegal activity, health care fraud, credit card fraud, electronic crime, etc. Identity theft is also a major situation that involves financial investigation.
In most cases, financial investigations deal with collection and financial analysis. During the collection process, a lot of financial documents are checked thoroughly including bank records, account information, real estate documents, and many more. Once the investigator collects all the information, they will start analyzing the data. Financial investigators are mostly legal. Therefore, the pieces of evidence gathered by them can be put up in court.
Role of a financial investigator
There are different types of financial crimes happening around the globe and the role of a financial investigator can differ accordingly depending on the crime. One of the major roles of any financial investigator is to monitor various financial activities with the latest and advanced technologies. There are some other roles played by a financial investigator such as:
- Financial investigators conduct quality control assessments and then prepare reports for the same.
- They also take interviews with the stakeholders to figure out their goals for conducting an investigation.
- They conduct surveillance to keep a check on suspicious ones.
- A major role played by financial investigators is that they also appear as expert witnesses in front of the court, providing supporting documents.
- They often collaborate with other state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies to settle the cases.
- Financial Investigators must be updated about the continuously evolving forensic tools.
- They also act as counselors to calm down clients who are worried about their money.
- A financial investigator must be able to manage the ever-changing compliance laws and regulations across multiple jurisdictions.
What are the benefits of hiring a financial investigator?
Are you suspecting that someone in your company has conducted financial fraud? If yes, then you must know that hiring a private investigator can help you to identify things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Financial investigators are well-skilled and they are often able to deliver very quick outcomes.
A financial investigator is likely to deal with defilement, tax evasion, and recovery. Let us take an example – assume that you are dealing with illegal tax avoidance, insurance avoidance, or some other financial fraud. In such a situation, it is very obvious that you will want a capable financial investigator to explore and handle the case appropriately.
Financial investigators use various latest technologies to screen a financial crime and discover evidence of it. Expert investigators are capable of monitoring all the surveillance activities that are required to trace the culprits, reducing the investigation costs. When you hire skilled financial investigators, they also bring in time-saving abilities.
How to conduct a financial investigation?
The finance industry ranks in the fourth position among all the businesses for dealing with fraud cases every year. Mostly, cases of defilement and charging schemes are announced every year. But, how is a financial investigation conducted? Let us find it out.
The financial investigator reacts and receives every allegation
A financial investigation usually starts with looking out for formal claims. These claims may come from a wide range of sources. The investigator will consult with the client to discuss the whole crime or fraud situation and determine what type of investigation is required for the same.
The investigation is initiated only after a retainer agreement is crafted which includes the scope of the investigation that has been proposed and what would be its overall cost. Once the client approves the investigation and makes the retainer payment, the investigation is started.
Follow the basic business assessments
A financial investigator must initiate conversations to acquire the basic data regarding the assessment charge. These conversations are very necessary because:
- It helps the financial investigator to understand the main issue that led to financial fraud or crime.
- These conversations will uncover the personality of people with all the applicable data.
- It will help to develop the accessibility of proof.
- It will also reveal the major objective of the company behind conducting the financial investigation.
Some major questions must come up during these conversations. They are:
- Is the company willing to seek common or criminal prosecution?
- If it is found out that a representative is involved in financial fraud, will the company fire the employee?
- Does the company have any intention of taking any protection scheme to recover any financial problems in the future?
Gather and preserve all the basic evidence
A company must know about a fraud charge while conducting a financial investigation. It must be able to find ideas and strategies to protect all printed and electronic evidence that exists. Proofs in a financial investigation often include:
- Records of network
- Email documents
- Text messages
- Various interchanges placed away on resources provided by the company such as laptops, tablets, or cell phones.
- Documents that had been given away in an employee’s hard drive.
The steps taken to collect pieces of evidence have evolved with time. It is dependent on whether the company has plans of ending the subject or suspending it for a specific period. Moreover, it shall make no more moves till the financial investigation comes to an end.
Analyze monetary business and electronic records
The financial investigators must be highly advanced. They must implement all the latest tools to conduct the investigation. The company must provide all the scientific technologies that help the investigation. A financial investigator will follow all the information to figure out and collect certain evidence.
Some of the investigators also break down all the pieces of evidence into specific documents to protect and safeguard the data.
Legal Action
When the responsible parties do not agree to pay back, the findings of the financial investigation can be coordinated with law enforcement and regulatory authorities to proceed with legal actions.
The evidence gathered during the expert investigation turns out to be an important element for civil litigation and criminal prosecution.
Conclusion
There are various types of financial fraud and crimes happening in every state. Some of the common financial frauds such as terrorist financing, corruption, market dealing, etc occur almost every month in some place or other.
Whenever you feel like your company is facing any kind of financial fraud, you must connect with a detective agency in Gurgaon to help you solve it. A good, reliable, and well-skilled investigation agency will make use of various strategies and advanced technologies to figure out the financial frauds happening in your company and provide proper guidance to settle it down.
