Friday, January 2, 2015

Study: Montana 4th Highest State for Embezzlement Losses

From the Missoulian on 1/2/2015:

Montana’s businesses, nonprofits, government entities and other organizations had the fourth-highest risk in the nation for suffering major losses due to embezzlement in 2013, according to a newly released annual study.

Vermont topped the list, announced by Marquet International, an independent investigative, litigation support and security consulting firm based in Massachusetts that has compiled the study of major embezzlement cases in the United States for six years now.

Vermont and Montana – along with Florida, Missouri and Virginia – have been the five states most frequently named as being at the highest risk for major embezzlement cases during those six years.

“Vermont and Montana are similar in two respects, although they’re vastly different in geographical size,” Christopher Marquet, founder and CEO of Marquet International, said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

“Both are sparsely populated,” he explained, “and both have a preponderance of small businesses. By definition, smaller businesses are at higher risk for being embezzled from because their financial controls may not be as robust as larger businesses, and they often rely on a single person to handle the books. These people have often been with the business for years and years, and they are trusted implicitly.”

Beyond that, “it’s unclear why some states are more victimized than others,” Marquet said, “because the states at highest risk do not always have small populations.”

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Read the whole story here.

Download the report here.

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