THE NATHAN MUELLER FRAUD SCHEME: A PERSONAL TOUCH WITH DETECTION AND PREVENTION STRATEGIES

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1 A PERSONAL TOUCH WITH DETECTION AND PREVENTION STRATEGIES Nathan Mueller was an accountant for a division of a multinational insurance company. Over a period of four years he embezzled $8.45 million from the company. In this session, a forensic accounting professor discusses how the fraud was hidden, recounts the remarkable events that led to its detection, and outlines the prevention steps that could have prevented this fraud in the first place. This session will also discuss the detection steps, including the use of forensic analytics that could have detected the fraud long before it reached the $8 million mark. You will learn how to: Recognize internal control weaknesses that could be exploited by accounting personnel. Adopt effective fraud prevention strategies. Implement effective fraud detection strategies, including forensic analytics. MARK NIGRINI, CA Professor West Virginia University Morgantown, WV Mark J. Nigrini teaches managerial accounting and forensic accounting. His current research involves advanced theoretical work on Benford s Law and the legal process surrounding fraud convictions. Nigrini is the author of Forensic Analytics (Wiley, 2011), which describes tests to detect fraud, errors, estimates, and biases in financial data. Nigrini is also the author of Benford's Law and Losing the War Against Fraud. His work has been featured in national media including The Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and he has published papers on Benford s Law in accounting academic journals, scientific journals, pure mathematics journals, and professional publications. Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Certified Fraud Examiner, CFE, ACFE, and the ACFE Logo are trademarks owned by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Inc. The contents of this paper may not be transmitted, re-published, modified, reproduced, distributed, copied, or sold without the prior consent of the author. 2015

2 The Journal of Accountancy and the CPA Insider Our article, Lessons from an $8 Million Fraud (by Mark J. Nigrini and Nathan J. Mueller), was published in the August 2014 issue of the Journal of Accountancy. In the article, Nathan Mueller describes his fraud scheme in his own words, what made it possible, what contributed to the pressures to carry out the scheme, how the scheme was discovered after four years, and the consequences for him of the scheme. The article can be accessed and read here: On August 4, 2014, Nathan Mueller published a shorter solo-authored article on his fraud titled, Why Stealing $8M Wasn t Worth It in the CPA Insider. Nathan s short answer is no. This insightful article can be accessed and read here: der jsp The Global Conference Sessions My sessions at the ACFE Global Conference will cover: How I made contact with Nathan (Nate) Mueller How we made contact with the Journal of Accountancy Some events and milestones along the way to getting published in the Journal of Accountancy A summary of the fraud scheme A summary of the preventive and detective controls and validity checks that could have prevented or detected the scheme Some events that have taken place since our article was published Some relevant photos and documents from the scheme Introduction I was introduced to Nate by two different people who knew him in two completely different ways. The first

3 introduction came from Ryan Homa who was the controller of Robinson Metals in De Pere, Wisconsin. Ryan was also incarcerated in the Duluth Federal Prison because he had embezzled some $1.3 million from that company. Ryan and Nate were friends, and Ryan was one of the people that introduced me to Nate. Nate and I wrote the article while he was incarcerated in the Duluth Federal Prison. We used the U.S. Mail and the CorrLinks system. We have never met in person, nor have we spoken by telephone, nor have I watched Nate s videos on the ACFE website. I have also not given Nate any gift which naturally includes no deposits of any sort into his BOP commissary account

4 On September 23, 2013, Nate sent his narrative to me in an envelope from the Duluth facility. The narrative was a reasonably detailed 24-page account of his fraud scheme. The cover letter is shown below: To familiarize myself with the narrative, I went through parts of the document in my graduate auditing class over a period of three weeks. We went over the details of the case, the lack of controls, and how it all unraveled at the end. My students had some questions, and I would send the

5 questions to Nate and he would promptly answer all the questions. He never, ever said that a question was too personal or anything like that. One student asked me in class how much Nate was earning by way of a salary. This question came about when we were talking about the pressures to commit a fraud. Nate s answer is shown below: My students found the review of the scheme and the insights to be interesting and informative. Their thank you letter took three pages, and the first of the three pages is shown:

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7 Court Documents: Indictment (first two pages)

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9 Government Sentencing Memo (two pages)

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11 Defendant Sentencing Memo (extracts)

12 Speaker: Wednesday Closing Session, June 17, 2015 This will be the first time that I meet, or speak with, Nathan Mueller in person