Background

In 2005, an anonymous email was sent to a client’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, informing it about illegal administrative activities being carried out by employees at its branch office in Venezuela. The allegations also implied the Venezuelan managers were conspiring to defraud with the client’s import/export broker agency.

The client’s Legal Department tasked ArmorGroup’s security consultants in Venezuela to conduct an investigation to determine whether the allegations were true.

ArmorGroup actions

ArmorGroup’s experienced local team carried out a comprehensive risk assessment with the client to define the major lines of action to be taken.

Following completion and presentation of the risk assessment ArmorGroup worked with the client to identify those of the client’s employees who were regularly in contact with the custom broker agency allegedly involved.

Once these employees were identified, detailed research and analysis of their personal banking accounts was performed. An ArmorGroup surveillance team was assigned to gather detailed information regarding meetings of the suspicious employees with the custom broker agency.

Simultaneously a comparative analysis of the fees charged by the custom broker agency to competitors on import and export operations was carried out in order to determine whether there were significant deviations in prices.

Results

ArmorGroup’s security consulting team were able to confirm:

• The client’s employees had been receiving bribes for the previous two years, via deposits into their bank accounts, in order to let the custom agency charge higher fees for the services provided.
• The client ended its commercial relationship with the custom broker agency and fired the employees responsible for the illegal actions