With a 30% rise in unemployment and a volatile economic situation in South Africa, theft and fraud on the part of staff is on the rise, and, the addition of a year spent dealing with the devastation COVID-19 has brought with it has made the situation even more desperate.
Even the most honest, trustworthy people have become so desperate to keep the wolf from the door that they resort to petty theft or fraud, which can take many forms, such as stealing company merchandise or dipping into the petty cash box.
Fraudulent transactions abound as employees embezzle money from the company, sell your trade secrets and even client databases. There is good money to be had from crime syndicates who pay top dollar for this kind of information today!
On top of this, if you don’t have actual proof of wrongdoing you cannot make accusations, and, if you want to dismiss someone on grounds of theft or fraud, you need to do it legally. This is when evidence collected by a private investigator is so valuable, because this is what is needed for disciplinary hearings or outright dismissal.
There’s not much you can do on your own where it comes to employee theft of any kind, however, if you, like many other business owners, hire top investigators from King Investigators, they’ll help you root out any of these issues on your behalf.
King Investigators is headed by Jacques Botha, an experienced, licensed private investigator with more than ten years’ experience in the industry to bring to bear on any investigation, which he does along with his team of professional, highly trained investigators.
Private investigators at King Investigators are undercover specialists, and can easily infiltrate the ranks of your employees, especially those who are in sensitive positions to uncover the truth.
Any staff members in the despatch or receipt of merchandise, or those in a position to commit fraud, without anyone being any the wiser, will be found out by a good investigator.
Let’s take a brief look at where businesses are losing money to employee theft and fraud:
Loss of goods & merchandise
If someone knows exactly how to steal goods and merchandise from your company, they can get away with it for a long time before it becomes obvious that something is wrong. Those in positions as buyers and handling receipt and supply of goods can make good money if they play it carefully, and you won’t be any the wiser until much further down the line.
Loss of finance
Financial loss can start out small, such as ‘fiddling’ the petty cash, and escalate over time into a diversion of payments from clients into the account of the employee instead of into your business account!
Loss of supplies
If you add up the pens or company paper taken home by employees over a period of a year, it adds up to a pretty penny that most businesses today simply can’t afford.
Petty theft or pilfering is often the doorway for employees to take theft or pilfering to the next level, causing your company to become like a sieve that can’t contain all the cash draining out of it.
Loss of company information
We know that organised is crime growing at an alarming rate in the business world, and the price these syndicates pay for company information is high, which is temptation few can resist. They trade in stealing your trade secrets, new product designs and any other intellectual property or confidential information they can lay their hands on to be resold to the highest bidder. Sadly, even the most trusted employee can fall foul to this kind of theft, once again, to supplement their income.
Hire a private investigator to protect your business
King Investigators can assist you in protecting your interests, especially with their experience and the fact that they’ve seen and heard it all, and there are many ways in which they are able to ferret out information you would not have access to on your own.
If you suspect that any of the above crimes may be happening in your business and can’t prove it, contact King Investigators and let this team of professionals help to plug the leaks of loss in your business!