We have likely all heard about white collar crimes, where financially motivated nonviolent crimes such as embezzlement are committed by high profile business people. However, pink collar crimes, referring to typically female office workers in low-to mid-level positions who steal money from their employers, have been on the increase.
One of the largest instances was in Singapore where an accounts clerk embezzled more than $46 million over 7 years by depositing business cheques into a personal account used to fuel a gambling habit.
In New Zealand a McDonalds Manager stole $166,000 as she was able to authorise cash refunds to customers. It wasn’t until an internal audit disclosed the disproportionally high amount of refunds paid out when the particular manager was on duty, that she was apprehended. Further examples include an accounts clerk paying herself just under $90,000 in wages in a 12-week period and a casino worker stealing $45,000 in gambling tokens in the space of one month.
Does this mean that the innocent accounts clerk, bookkeeper or manager may not be as innocent as we all think? Well potentially. Companies continue to invest large amounts of money into anti-fraud systems and in some cases even have teams in place to detect such occurrences. So how does this go unnoticed? A couple of hundred dollars here and there can be harder to spot, but eventually adds up.
Along with high-tech software detection systems, don’t forget to just look out the window and ask yourself, how does your employee afford the insurance on her Ferrari?