Theft Investigations To Protect Your Corporate Assets

Theft Investigations To Protect Your Corporate Assets.

Most companies today experience internal theft. ISOG private investigators and private detectives have faced bad situations at retailers of technology and supermarkets. Internal thefts are also committed by employees of international organizations as well as banks and financial institutions.

It is reported that 25% of all internal thefts are perpetrated by the company’s own employees, while a 30% of all is committed by clients and the rest by suppliers and internal inventory mistakes.

A typical situation is then faced by car rental companies whose cars are never returned. These cases are then more complex because usually employees help external criminal organizations which might have reached a sophisticated level of operations.

Employee theft can increase company costs significantly. As a company director you should create an environment where employees know theft will be taken seriously and investigated. This would be the best way for a company to prevent internal theft.

There some guidelines useful for theft investigations:

• Assign the case to a professional investigator for theft investigations. If you have an internal audit or security department in charge with internal affairs, you should first analyse the case and then hire a professional private investigator or private detective. In the case of wrehouses, the preliminary analysis may be done by internal experienced inventory managers.
• Begin the investigation as quickly as possible. Your employees must know that losses are taken seriously and investigated quickly. This may work as a prevention measure as well.
• Decide whether to suspend the employee under investigation. Whenever the employee knows is being investigated, he may stop stealing in the company and may jeopardize the investigation itself. In this case, it may be appropriate to suspend the employee until the investigation ends.
• Make sure that information and evidence gathered during the investigation stay confidential and that no leak of information occurs. This would be very bad especially in cases where other employees have reported misbehavior of their colleagues.
• Choose discipline or termination of the employee. Once you have your findings, you have to decide whether to discipline or fire the employee. If the value of the stolen goods is high, it would be appropriate to terminate the employee. However make sure that you have strong evidence in case the employee sues your company for unjustified dismiss.
• Recover your loss. If you cannot get restitution from the employee, you may file a civil suit or pursue criminal charges.

When you need to protect your corporate assets, ISOG private investigators and private detectives can help you investigate the case and get the necessary evidence to prosecute the perpetrators. ISOG  private investigators and private detectives can really help you mitigate the financial risks associated to internal thefts.