INVESTIGATION STRATEGY: Ask the Right Questions to Win
/by Lt Joseph Pangaro
Conducting any kind of an investigation requires varying degrees of preparation. A simple shoplifting incident will be covered by the events that led to the on-scene arrest e.g.
• When did you decide to steal the property?
• Was anyone else with you?
• How did you get to the store?
• How many times have your stolen form this store in the past?
• Do you know any employees of this store?
• What were you going to do with the stolen property?
• Do you have an online place to sell items like eBay or Facebook Marketplace?
The idea here is to cover the time before, during, and after the incident and find out if anyone else is involved. Clearly a simple shoplifting as a one-time event can be uncomplicated, but a shoplifting event could also be part of a larger criminal scheme to steal and resell merchandise. Asking the right questions will help you define what you have.
In any investigation, we must always consider the possibility of a larger picture we cannot see, such as an ongoing shoplifting enterprise. We find that out by asking questions.
If you need to investigate a more complex crime such as an economic or what we used to call a white-collar crime, the preparation will be more intense and detailed.
An economic crime can consist of different levels of planning and action by the criminal. I had a case where a woman, aged 63, with a CPA degree was working for multiple companies as their bookkeeper. She also had access to a specific type of accounting program that she used. The program was unique to the bookkeeping industry and only a few people knew how to run it. The program was very efficient, but it also had a way for the operator to manipulate the activities of the software so she could hide things from the business owner.
What she did was list a business expense such as equipment for truck repairs to keep the company vehicles running. This might be a $4,000 expense as a line item in the software. If anyone looked at the books, the expense would seem legitimate and not be noticed.
In reality, she could then change the payee on the check that was issued by the software to something other than a supplier of truck parts. In her case it was for a mortgage payment she made on house she bought in the Bahamas. Because she could manipulate the software, no one except her would know who the payment was made to. She did this to several businesses for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The theft was only discovered by the business when they had a tax audit and had to show the checks for their expenses. When they expected to see “Joes Truck Parts” for $4K, the actual check was to the Bahamas property management company. Since they had no business in the Bahamas, they called the police thinking an outside source had accessed their accounts. In fact, they defended the accountant when I suggested she may be responsible.
When I got the investigation, I looked over the forensic audit report. I was not formally trained on reading forensic audit reports or any kind of bookkeeping other than my own checking account, so it was confusing.
To help me understand they dynamics so I could investigate it properly, I had to get acquainted with the processes. I created a list of questions and spoke to professional accountants and detectives from the economic crime unit of the county prosecutors.
Then questions I had concerned how accounting works and how a check could be made out to one person yet be cashed by a third party, that is not a common financial transaction. What I found was the only way to do this was to manipulate the software that was doing the accounting, check writing and record keeping.
Once I understood that, I began asking:
• Who had access to the accounting software?
• Who actually used the software?
• Who approved the payments?
• Who credited the payments and cash in?
• Who reconciled the accounts?
• And who was authorized to do this?
It was through these questions that I realized I could have a single thief or a conspiracy of thieves. The owner might be involved, or another employee and the accountant could be in with them to defraud the business.
Long and short of it was the only person with the knowledge of the software was the accountant, she did it all. When she prepared the monthly reports, it was with the manipulated information and the CEO signed off on it not knowing he was being defrauded.
This information prepared me to interview the accountant, because I now had specific information to ask questions about. I knew what was real and what was fraud and how I could decipher between the two when she answered my questions.
Her interview responses led me to contact three other companies she worked as a bookkeeper using the same software. In each case she was doing the same thing, her theft was over $1.5 million from the four companies. During follow up interviews we found her laundering scheme, which was quite inventive,
In this case and in many others, the questions we ask should be unique to the case we are investigating. Generic questions are OK, but do not usually lead you to the truth. There are some specific points we search for when asking questions:
• Motive, as this will help us find other witnesses, accused or victims.
• Actual activities, how an act was committed and planned.
In conducting liquor license background investigations, we understand that the motivations for a criminal to get liquor license is almost always the access to a cash business.
A cash business allows you to hide money, launder money, under-report money and use money for other illicit activities. Therefore, asking questions about why a person wants a liquor license, how long they have thought about it and what they want to do with the license can reveal motivations or planning.
You have to figure that running a bar or restaurant takes a specific set of skills. Most restaurants fail in the first year, therefore it is a big financial risk. Running a bar has its own concerns as well and the costs are very high. This means the people who do this usually have some experience in the food and beverage industry, or they are just foolish and don’t understand how they can lose their investment money.
In our liquor license class, we suggest investigators probe the motives of a buyer by asking questions that go beyond the basic, things such as:
• When did you first decide you wanted to buy a bar or restaurant?
• What is your experience in running a bar or restaurant?
• Who will work in your restaurant?
• What will your food theme be?
• What name have you thought of for your restaurant?
• Who else knows about your desire to run a bar?
These seemingly innocuous questions go right to the heart of motivation. A person planning to use the license for the cash value probably did not consider any of these things, whereas a legitimate buyer almost certainly addressed these concepts and can answer enthusiastically.
In the end, questions, unique questions, outside the norm, without being provocative or offensive can help you see through lies and deception and reveal the real bottom line.
I suggest you get my book- “The Interview” from Loose Leaf Law or on Amazon or Goodreads for more tips on how to enhance your interview skills. Whether you are a patrol officer, corrections officer, detective or supervisor, our interview skills can make the difference in getting confessions and admissions.
Always seek the truth!
Lt. Joseph Pangaro retired after serving 27 years at a police department in Monmouth County, NJ, having served as the Lead Training Officer. Pangaro is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickenson University’s Certified Public Managers Program (CPM). He’s a newspaper columnist who writes about the rigors and joys in law enforcement. Joseph Pangaro is the CEO and President of Pangaro Training and Management, and Pangaro Global Training, an online training company. E-mail at: JPangaro@TrueSecurityDesign.com, www.TrueSecurityDesign.com
