Breaking the Status Quo in Email Review

[Figures referenced in this article are no longer available. — Ed.]

Last year, we and the ACFE first introduced Fraud Triangle Analytics (FTA) in the May/June and July/August issues of Fraud Magazine. FTA links electronic communications to the Fraud Triangle through the developing libraries of specific keywords that relate to incentive/pressure, opportunity, and rationalization – the three sides of the triangle. FTA involves searching for the occurrence of those keywords within e-mail or instant message (IM) communications.

Since the introduction of FTA, corporations, regulators, attorneys, fraud examiners, internal auditors, and accountants have been very interested in this new methodology. In this article, we’ll share the feedback from those who’ve used this methodology on investigations and risk assessments to develop more robust, targeted, and aggressive anti-fraud programs.

THE PERFECT STORM IS HERE 

We introduced FTA simultaneously with the 2009 economic recession because we sensed that the perfect storm was brewing for fraud in the workplace.