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366 An HR Guide to Workplace Fraud and Criminal Behaviour

chance of a financial reward, but these are in the minority. The allegations usually relate to
employees, although they may be made against companies, including vendors and customers.
Experience shows that most anonymous communications contain at least a grain of truth and
therefore must be taken seriously.

IGNORED ALLEGATIONS that four years earlier an anonymous letter
had been received setting out the precise
An investigation revealed that a senior mechanics of the fraud and naming the
manager in a company’s treasury brokerage firm. It had been filed with the
department had defrauded over £2 million, annotation ‘Rubbish, GG is a senior officer
by working in collusion with a brokerage of the company and these allegations are
firm of which his wife (using her maiden malicious.’
name and her parent’s address) was the co-
owner. A review of his personnel file showed

Never ignore anonymous allegations of wrongdoing

OBJECTIVES

When an anonymous allegation has been received, there is an obligation to find the truth in
the interests of the victim organization and of the subject. Thus, the objectives are to:

• establish whether the allegations are true or false;
• establish the facts of a possible ‘worst case’ (see Appendix 1);
• identify the informant, to see if he can provide further information or to censure him for

making a false allegation.

Responsibility for investigating allegations should be passed to internal audit, corporate secu-
rity or to external advisers and handled by trained investigators in strict confidence: under no
circumstances should the allegation be handled by managers in the business line concerned.
Ideally the company’s reporting of incidents procedures should cover anonymous allegations
(see page [xref]).

METHOD
Initial handling

It is critical that the forensic integrity of the physical media on which the allegation is commu-
nicated is maintained. For example, anonymous letters and envelopes should not be touched
unnecessarily, so that fingerprint and other evidence are not compromised. The originals
should be copied and placed in a cardboard-reinforced envelope.

Try to trace the informant

You should consider having the letter and envelope forensically examined to see if there are
any clues that could identify the author. For example, an Electrostatic Document Examina-
tion (ESDA) may reveal impressions from writing on other documents.