The former CFO of a prominent Harvard, Mass museum is being sued for allegedly stealing more than $1 million from the organization.

According to an article published in The Daily News Transcript, former Fruitlands Museum Chief Financial Officer Peggy Kempton is accused of working with her three children to embezzle $1 million from the museum over a seven year period.

Two vendors that do business with the West Virginia Auditor’s Office never received $2 million in payments due to a massive e-payment scheme.

According to an article published in the Charleston Daily Mail, the fraudsters, claiming they were a pair of legitimate vendors, sent requests to the Auditor’s Office asking that the state stop sending checks and begin paying them electronically.

An accounts payable clerk who was accused of stealing $1.2 million from her employer was arraigned last week in a Massachusetts court. She is accused of using the money to fund a lavish life of luxury.

According to an article published in the Salem News, 39-year-old Tracy Sutley pleaded not guilty to charges of embezzlement. She is currently being held on $250,000 bond on fears that she might flee if released.

Beat fraudsters at their game!

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Beat fraudsters at their game!

• Internal Control Checklist
• Risk Assessment
• Detect Fraud Red Flags
• Latest Fraud Prevention Tips

The federal court in Minneapolis indicted a former state supervisor of a Medicaid records division for embezzling nearly $1 million in state health care funds. Kim Joanne Austen, 47, allegedly committed the fraud by sending dozens of checks to a phony vendor starting in 2003, the indictment states.

By submitting fake invoices to the accounting system linked to the system she supervised, Austen collected 23 Medicaid checks totaling $903,896.54 after taxes ($1,164,071.85 before taxes) written out to the fraudulent company.

A former Livent controller testifying in the Canadian theater company’s fraud case recently described the moves said he was “dumbfounded” by the things he was asked to do.

A former IT manager for Livent, the Canadian theater company currently embroiled in a high profile fraud case, recently admitted that he knowingly altered the company's accounting system to cover his vice president's tracks.

The TV series "CSI-Crime Scene Investigation," has brought forensics to the attention of popular culture. But in recent years a new type of forensics investigation has burst on the scene in response to the AP fraud epidemic. This new kid on the block is Forensic Accounting.

The Forensic Accountant is, of course, an accountant. But they must also be a skilled investigator, able to follow the clues they find in the numbers to the desk of the perpetrator.

Deception and fraud has reared its ugly head within the trademark industry. Fraudsters from all over the world are using public trademark information available on the internet to create official-looking documents disguised as invoices or important notifications.

Many companies and their accounts payable departments have become victims of these deceptive practices due to lack of knowledge of what to look for. Not every document that appears to be an invoice should be paid, nor should every official-looking document be taken at face value.