ABSTRACT
The word ‘detective’ can easily conjure up images of the amateur sleuth or ‘gumshoe’ in the USA, living an exciting life but also sneaking up on people or, worse still, infringing on their privacy. A fraud detective is anyone with a keen eye for detail, a healthy sense of curiosity, a calm and analytical mind, a desire to speak up about fraud and corruption and a constructive mind-set on how to deal with it. This chapter presents three case situations to show how simple it can be to spot fraud, and how we often do it unconsciously a lot of the time, but then don’t follow our instincts. Fraud and corruption, by nature, is hidden and deceptive, and usually only revealed when a scandal breaks, by which time the damage is done and the losses in monetary, reputational and cultural terms are high. It is often here where the ‘blame game’ starts and the costs often skyrocket even more.
