“Every year, employees steal 5-10% of company profits. How to deal with it”
Maxim Yuzifovich, head of the legal company Legal Rights, comments for RBC on material about thefts by company employees.
According to the Russian Association of Certified Theft Investigation Specialists, every year from 5 to 10% of company profits end up in the pockets of unscrupulous employees. The schemes used by payroll scammers can be very complex – for example, a “pocket enterprise” is created within companies that takes out money for years. Other popular methods of siphoning funds include fraud with purchases, salaries and bonuses, manufacturing defects, and luring clients to competing companies.
Most employees steal not because they suffer from kleptomania; the desire to enrich themselves at the expense of the employer arises when a person understands that he will not get anything for it. There are, however, also Robin Hoods – those who pocket out of principle: their employer, paradoxically, nurtures them himself. How to build reliable protection against theft?
It is sometimes almost impossible to hold dishonest employees accountable, states Maxim Yuzifovich, CEO of the legal company Legal Rights. “I’ll give you the case of our client, a trading company that supplies special clothing and footwear. The sales department had a permanent head for many years. She was responsible for supporting business with corporate buyers. A woman established an organization with a similar type of activity in the name of her husband. For several years, she redirected part of the employer’s customer orders to her company, which concluded transactions and delivered goods on its own behalf.”
A representative of this “pocket” company had access to the client base of the affected trading company and, at the same time, also lured away customers. He offered more attractive conditions. The scammers did not incur any costs; they did not even have a warehouse or office. “Over the years the scheme was in effect, the employer suffered damages of several tens of millions of rubles in lost profits – the money ended up in the accounts of the employee’s company.
It was not possible to bring the dishonest employee to justice. The fact is that the client base consisted of corporate clients, that is, mainly legal entities. Data about them is in publicly available sources, so it is not protected information,” says Yuzifovich. The only consequence is the dismissal of such an employee.
Author: Daria Salnikova
The material was published on the RBC website, pro.rbc.ru, 04/26/2024