Tampa Bay Chapter CFE News

October 12th, 2010 Dinner Meeting

Our next dinner meeting will be on October 12, 2010 at the Marriott, Westshore, Tampa.  Our speaker will be Mike Deeson from 10 News.  Mike has won many prestigious awards during his career as a reporter and will share with us an "Insight into Investigative Reporting".  Our new facility received great reports at our dinner meeting in September.

New Chapter CFE's

Well done to everyone who has recently passed the CFE Exam.  Recent Chapter graduates include:

Kristin Alongi
Mary Clawson
Brandon Edwards
Virginia Kalil

We are having fantastic success with our Chapter Study Group with new graduates all the time.  We have recently relocated the study session to DeVry University at Rocky Point.  If you know anyone who is interested in studying for the CFE certification please send them to our Study Group page on our website for more information. 

Tour of the WTSP-TV Channel 10 CBS Studios

The local Tampa Bay chapter held it’s August board meeting at WTSP-TV Channel 10 CBS. A tour of the station’s news room, master control room and studios was conducted by Dan Reynolds, VP/Business Manager of the station. The group observed the live coverage of the 6 pm news with Reggie Roundtree, Heather Van Nest and Tammie Souza.

Thank you to Channel 10 for being so kind and letting us take a behind the scenes tour.

Click here to go to 10 News Website!

Forensic Technology Tour

Consuelo Herrera, CFE with Forensic Technology (and FAFSI Forensic Accounting and Fraud Solutions International) played tour guide for Lynn Zimmerman, CFE and Accounting Manager at WTSP-TV CBS at the St Petersburg location of Forensic Technology. A training class was being conducted with agents from all over the United States on IBIS, Integrated Ballistics Identification System.

Award Winning Article

In our last issue we reported that Drs. Lynn Clements and Gary Cook received the 2009 Writing Excellence Award from the FICPA.  Click here to read an excerpt from the article on pages 44 & 45.

When asked for a few fraud tips, Lynn shared this:

“My biggest fraud tip is to CONTACT LAW ENFORCEMENT AND HAVE THE PERPETRATOR PROSECUTED!”

"The fraud investigation begins in the parking lot!"

Read more articles written by our members here

NEWS FROM THE ACFE

2010-2011 Compensation Guide for Anti-Fraud Professionals

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) has completed its 2010/2011 Compensation Guide for Anti-Fraud Professionals. The information contained in this global salary study is based on the 2009 employment situations of the 3,328 anti-fraud professionals who responded to our survey — 68% of whom are Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs).

CFE Credential-An Indicator of Knowledge and Integrity

What we found most encouraging about the data is how consistent the patterns have remained despite the economic downturn of the past two years. The pay advantage for having the CFE credential is as evident and significant as it was in our previous study. While this study will demonstrate the value of the credential for prospective CFEs, it will also provide valuable information and comparison points helpful to all anti-fraud professionals in measuring their compensation levels and career growth.

Download the report here!

 Free Fraud Prevention Check-Up CD

This CD-ROM, available to both ACFE members and non-members, contains a number of resources that will be of value in your company's ongoing fight against fraud. ACFE's Fraud Prevention Check-Up, a simple yet powerful test of your company's fraud prevention processes, and the one-hour How Fraud Hurts You and Your Organization, are just two of the tools included in this useful resource.

About Fraud Prevention Check-Up
How vulnerable is your company to fraud? Do you have adequate controls in place to prevent it? Find out by using the ACFE's Fraud Prevention Check-Up, a simple yet powerful test of your company's fraud health. Test fraud prevention processes designed to help you identify major gaps and fix them before it is too late.

Click here to learn more!

Free Spreadsheet Fraud Webinar with Ralph-Baxter, CEO, Cluster Seven

A significant number of companies across a variety of industries make use of manually driven spreadsheet management systems which are highly susceptible to error or deliberate manipulation. Spreadsheets have also recently come under scrutiny from the PCAOB and FINRA as an area of concern and one where additional review should take place during an audit.

There are five primary areas of fraud tied to spreadsheet management:

Presentation Fraud
Data Fraud
Incremental Fraud
Burial Fraud
Function Fraud

This session will review these areas of vulnerability and what companies can do to reduce their risk.

Click here to learn how ACFE members can view this webinar for free!

FRAUD IN THE NEWS

Money Laundering Trends

Kevin Sullivan has a philosophy that he has carried through his two-plus decades in security and law enforcement: All crimes, whether they are digital or physical, are connected at the hip. A former FBI investigator who cut his teeth on financial crimes, what he found is that typically most fraud can be traced back to some kind of organized group. This particularly holds true for money laundering.  Read more here.

This Domain Name is Greek to Me: An Introduction to Internationalized Domain Names for Investigators

In recent years, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been establishing a system for “Internationalized Domain Names” (IDNs). Unicode allows the IDNs to use a wide variety of character sets from the world’s languages.

Many other people, including some investigators, might never run into an IDN. But for those encountering an IDN for the first time, the IDNs can present several challenges. The good news is that not all that much has changed at the “bits and bytes” and IP address level. But at other levels, there are some big changes with challenges. We’ll look at these challenges and ways of dealing with them.  Click here to learn more. 

Terrorists are Committing Fraud to Fund Their Activities

The threat of terrorism has become the principal security concern in the United States since 9/11. Some might perceive that fraud isn’t linked to terrorism because white-collar crime issues are more the province of organized crime, but that perception is misguided. Terrorists derive funding from a variety of criminal activities ranging in scale and sophistication – from low-level crime to organized narcotics smuggling and fraud. CFEs need to know the latest links between fraud and terror.  Click here to learn more.

Spear-Phishing E-mail Scam

Kerry Dewey was a finance officer for a small nonprofit in the Pacific Northwest. She was having a bad day, but it got worse when her local bank called her to inquire about the validity of a recent funds transfer for just under $10,000 from the nonprofit’s account to an account at an Alabama bank. Moments before, the Alabama bank had contacted Kerry’s bank because its policy is to investigate any transfer that’s close to, but less than, $10,000 – an amount that fraudsters commonly use to avoid currency transaction reporting.  Click here to read more.
 

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION EVENTS

Digital Forensics Tools & Techniques

Interviewing Techniques for Auditors

Investigating Conflicts of Interest

ACFE Pacific Rim Fraud Conference

ACFE Online Training
 

Paraben's Forensic Innovations Conference

International Association for Asset Recovery Annual Conference

LETTER FROM THE CHAPTER PRESIDENT

Tampa Bay Chapter CFE News