19 Jun Opinion 2: During the investigation of possible fraud in local college, after identifying the three computers

Opinion 2: During the investigation of possible fraud in local college, after identifying the three computers allegedly believed to have been used in perpetration of fraud revolving around the theft of tuition money from students. Extracting evidence from the computers requires a lot of attention to detail to get the best basic forms of evidence to sue the fraudsters to conviction. Some of the basic forms of evidence to escalate include the fraudulent action of omission of figures which is full of forgery and alteration of accounts from the computers. I will look at the backup and recover all sheets deleted into the recycle bin of each computer to investigate any form of alterations on figures. Any omissions and adjustments on the financial statements would indicate that the accountants are hiding the evidence of the fraud activities they have been engaging in in their office (Albrecht W.S, 2018). I will also look at any form of backdating or unusual signatures on the account documents saved in the computers. This evidence will indicate that the accountants are gaining some improper benefit from the students’ tuition money illegally and they are hiding some pieces of evidence on their computers to avoid legal obligations. 

The second basic form of evidence is identifying whether there is a misrepresentation or not. Misrepresentation in documents in numbers across different classes in the college in the excel and other worksheets saved in the computers will be also another piece of evidence to identify fraud on students’ tuition money in the college. One example is when they quote that a certain class has 150 students while in fact it has 100. This will mean that the financial statements issued by the accountants are false and adjusted in some reckless manner.  The third basics of evidence is identifying any form of misleading information from the statements (Rita de La Feria, 2020). Any misleading information on the computations and data will indicate some evidence about the fraud activities and should be quickly obtained and transferred into an external material to be presented to the administration or resolution court. Reckless and deliberate omissions for some years or months will be identified from the financial statements as well. All these pieces of evidence will be transferred carefully without any omissions into an external storage device and then printed or transferred to another computer to prove how the accountants have been engaging in fraudulent operations.

Answer: thanks for your post.  In reference to your statement below:  Couldn’t the discrepancy just be an error, not fraud?  Also, why would you define the discrepancy as reckless?

One example is when they quote that a certain class has 150 students while in fact it has 100. This will mean that the financial statements issued by the accountants are false and adjusted in some reckless manner.