Business Fraud

Employing accounting, auditing, and investigative skills to uncover fraud in your business.

What We Deliver

Thorough
Investigation

Our specialists conduct in-depth examinations to uncover critical details and insights.

Financial
Clarity

We offer expert guidance to navigate and clarify complex financial matters, making them comprehensible and manageable.

Optimal Client
Outcomes

We strive to achieve the best possible scenarios for you based on thorough analysis and available data.

Areas of Specialty

  • Employee fraud
  • Accounting fraud
  • Fictitious vendor fraud
  • Payroll fraud
  • Insurance fraud
  • Identity theft
  • Tax fraud
  • Conflicts of interest & Corruption schemes
  • Complex white collar fraud schemes
  • Falsification of financial statements
  • Asset tracing
  • Shareholder dispute
  • Due diligence Investigations
  • Marital dissolutions

What You Can Expect From Us

Dedicated Client Advocacy
Our team passionately fights to uncover the truth, advocating fiercely on behalf of you and your situation.

Seamless Communication and Collaboration
From start to finish, we provide consistent communication, guidance, and collaboration.

Empathy and Understanding
We approach each case with compassion and understanding, ensuring you feel supported throughout the process.

Future Fraud Prevention / Fraud Risk Management
We recommend actions and internal controls designed to minimize the risk of loss and reduce the likelihood of future fraud.

How We Enhance Your Case During Litigation

Comprehensive
Case Building

We provide meticulous and thorough investigations to help build your case.

Proactive
Strategies

Our forward-thinking approach anticipates potential challenges and opportunities, keeping your case ahead of the curve.

Expertise Throughout
the Process

With our extensive knowledge and experience, we maintain a high level of thoroughness and communication throughout the entire process, including discovery, mediation, arbitration, deposition, and trial.

Trusted Expert
Witnesses

Our experts provide reliable and credible testimony on the witness stand, strengthening your case with their expertise.

Expert Witness Testimony

Our team knows that expert witness testimony can strengthen or weaken a case. We work with our client and their attorney to the level of detail required for their specific situation. This puts us in a position to provide the best testimony possible. We deliver clear and engaging information to the judge and jury, sharing technical knowledge in a way that can be easily understood. We are focused and purposeful in our preparation for each case. We utilize our team of experts and support to understand the case and prepare thoroughly for testimony and/or settlement.

Case Studies

  • A Farmer’s Fraud

    A brother, trustee of his dad’s estate and farming business, had felt slighted by his siblings. As trustee, he was able to disguise certain grain sales from his dad’s farm as coming from his own farming operations. He then kept the proceeds of the stolen grain for himself. The key to breaking the case was analyzing farm yields. Farmers like to talk about crop yields and this farmer’s yield increases were too much to believe. The case is still pending in court and likely the farmer will be criminally charged.

  • Pizza Party

    The unraveling of a fraud scheme by a retirement home director occurred from a pizza restaurant. The retirement home staff were treated to pizza on the weekends for working late shifts. No problem with that. However, receipts obtained from the restaurant noted that for almost every delivery ½ of the order was delivered to the retirement home and ½ of the pizzas went to the director’s home. She had four children and they had pizza almost every weekend.

  • Gas on the Cheap

    A local energy company had several locations providing gas to customers. An employee at a specific location had been applying discounts outside of the company policy to benefit themselves, family, and friends. As the first situation was found, two other locations were found to have similar fraudulent activities occurring. 

  • Renting Gone Wrong

    Two partners owned a commercial building that was rented out to various businesses. The minority partner was running the operations and redirecting certain rent payments to his personal accounts. This partner was also coercing at least one remodeling company to charge additional fees to the partnership and then, on the side, pay the extra fees to the partner personally.

Fraud Investigation & Forensic Accounting FAQs

What is Fraud Investigation?

Fraud investigation is the practice of employing accounting, auditing, and investigative skills to assist in the determination of whether matters such as employee theft, business fraud (including falsification of financial statements), insurance fraud, and identity theft have occurred. Investigative work may also be required in civil matters such as searching for hidden assets in divorce cases.

Why is ARA Litigation Consultants different than other firms?

At ARA Litigation Consultants we look beyond the numbers to grasp the substance of questionable situations. This type of accounting is a combination of specific skills that are increasingly in demand as business complexity expands, and requires the most important quality an investigator can possess: the ability to think logically with an eye to detail.

What is our approach to Fraud Prevention?

Through investigative work, we recommend actions and internal controls designed to minimize risk of loss and reduce likelihood of future fraud. We work to understand your operations. For example, understanding how money flows into and out of your business, understanding the flow of product and supplies in and out of your business, and understanding the sales process within your business are all aspects of providing a fraud prevention plan.

Who do we work with?

  • Business owners

  • Attorneys

  • Partners

  • Beneficiaries

  • Nonprofit Organizations

  • Churches

  • Governmental entities including sheriff and police departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)