A large soda pop manufacturer in Southern California suspected that they had a growing problem with employee theft, and called upon Martin Investigative Services to investigate. Management at the company recommended that we put undercover agents in their main factory. As this is a very expensive and time-intensive option, we convinced the executives to allow…
How do you pull off a diamond theft worth over $100,000? A man simply walked out of Tiffany’s flagship store in New York City in the middle of the day with two diamond necklaces. In an interview with abcnews.com, Thomas Martin, a former federal agent and head of Martin Investigative Services in California, commented that…
With the economy still on the mend, the National Insurance Crime Bureau estimates worker’s compensation claimant fraud to be the fastest growing insurance scam of the decade. Fraudulent claims have spiked nationwide and continue to gain momentum even with state agencies attempting to crack down on the defrauders. It’s not always a popular topic, but…
Technology website Gizmodo.com recently featured what appears to be a systematic problem within Apple Inc.’s retail stores in its December article “Exclusive: Corrupt Apple Store Employees Come Forward Across America.” Accounts of outright employee theft, destruction of company property, and fraud were exposed with dozens of reports of former Apple employees boasting about their time…
More than 18,000 companies with United States investments have operations in Mexico, and U.S. companies have invested $145 billion in Mexico since 2000, according a report by the U.S. Department of State. With companies continuing to invest in Mexico, the need for private investigations protecting corporate assets in the region has increased exponentially. Many of…
Most people don’t realize that bugs, ranging from video cameras, wiretapping devices and tapped phones, are found in an estimated 16 percent of U.S. businesses and homes that are swept for monitoring devices. This is more troubling given the find rate that was only 4 percent in the 1970s. The dramatic growth of surveillance technology…
For most companies, it’s become increasingly difficult to avoid employee theft, as the growth of such theft has skyrocketed. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey estimates that 75 percent of all employees steal at least once, and that half of these steal repeatedly. According to the same survey, employee dishonesty costs American businesses in excess…
To safeguard a company’s assets, it’s wise for its security director to review the effectiveness of the entire security function. To achieve this task objectively, a comprehensive security risk analysis or assessment by an outside corporate security firm will provide an independent and unbiased evaluation of the company’s security system and structure. This practice yields…
Interview and interrogation practices have been relied on for decades by federal law enforcement agencies. The application of these same procedures and specialized training in dealing with employee theft often brings quick results. This approach of uncovering the facts takes far less time than using undercover agents.
