The enemy within
Fraud within companies is a risk that can never be eliminated, just managed
BUSINESS has always been plagued by fraud: witness the South Sea Company in the 1710s (which enveloped the British economy in a giant bubble) or Charles Ponzi’s Securities Exchange Company in 1920 (which gave the world the Ponzi scheme) or the Enron and WorldCom scandals in the early 2000s. Ambitious fraudsters are attracted to businesses for the same reason that Willie Sutton, a contemporary of Ponzi, reportedly said he robbed banks: “Because that’s where the money is.”
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The enemy within”
From the March 1st 2014 edition
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