Case study 2: Payment diversion fraud investigation

Mazars were instructed to undertake an investigation into a matter that related to two payments totalling approximately £183,000 being diverted into an unknown bank account in December 2019.

The payments were successfully diverted, as a supplier payment form was amended to reflect different account details to those that belonged to the original supplier. The fraud was identified when the supplier chased for payment and the client investigated the 2 payments further.

We undertook:

a review of the internal investigation work that had already been conducted by the clients IT department interviews with 4 members of the finance team
a forensic review of the laptops of the 4 members of the finance team
an email review on the 4 members of the finance team
enquiries with the client’s bank.

We provided the client with a full written report that outlined the facts and circumstances around the payment diversion fraud to assist them in identifying if there was a need to conduct disciplinary proceedings on any of the employees. The organisation used the findings from our investigation to undertake disciplinary proceedings against one of the individuals concerned which resulted in the termination of their employment. We also identified a number of control weaknesses in their processes and raised recommendations for them to strengthen the process to prevent further instances of fraud from occurring in the organisation.