Having reviewed a two-year case load it is the opinion of Expert Investigations Managing Director, David Kearns that we now have ‘criminal entrepreneurs’.
This ‘criminal entrepreneur’ is the employee who using a business mentality obtains stolen products, markets them and maximise the profit on the sale. It is not only senior managers, business owners and board with a business brain when committing the entrepreneurial type of crime. The majority of thefts investigated by Expert Investigations are mainly from the blue collar employees and middle management. Generally offences committed by owners and board members are revealed when the company fails or when vast sums are involved. There are no true figures for employee theft and the offences can run for a substantial time.
Employees dealing with product on a daily basis know all the shortcomings in procedures and security and then they exploit them. They have a reason to be handling, moving, transferring or transporting products, often under the lens of a CCTV camera, security guard or fellow employee. Exploiting these weaknesses is simple for the ‘savvy employee thief’. Removal of the product, storage off site at home or in a lock up and then they market and sale of the product, with efficiency and customer focus. This new entrepreneur knows the value of the stolen item, whatever it is. Examining theft of precision machine tool parts, brake pads, flooring, scrap metal or bathroom suites, there is a ready market. Employees understand the value of the Internet as the mechanism to sell these goods, usually via already established Internet sites, or by setting up a mail order business and building their own site, hiding behind a postal box address and / or unidentifiable public details which the seller uses.
Understanding the value of high customer service, dispatching items quickly and efficiency they will gain ready references and approvals from purchasers on various established Internet sites. These thefts will fall outside the radar of police investigation and internal company capabilities. Employees see internal theft as victimless and aware of limited police resources for detection and prosecution. Product is stolen and sold by way of a business on small and large scales with a massive profit and minimal overheads. Expert Investigations investigated seen these scales from £100, to £400k.
