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Following is a list of the stock certificate errors. You should have emailed your answers to walter@feeinc.com to be eligible for the Zim dollar reward.
Stock certificate errors.
As a marketable security, there are errors of construction.
The size of the paper is wrong. 12 ¼ X 8 is the most common size so it is difficult to color copy.
The type of paper is wrong. It should be acid free archival paper.
It looks like a poor quality copy, because it is.
There are two interesting features on the front.
The Secretary is Bernie Madoff’s signature. He was not the Secretary but he did sign the back of the original of this stock certificate as transfer attorney.
The CUSIP number is for Enron.
Reverse side errors.
The front speaks of shares in a fund while the back speaks of shares of stock. These are inconsistent.
The date of issuance is 1962. The address requirement requests a zip code. Zip codes were not known at that time and went into effect July 1, 1963.
Reverse side exaggerations.
DNA fingerprint. There was no such technology in 1962 but by 2062 it might be required.
Patriot act medallion. We are joking here. There is no such thing, at least for now.
We chose these errors as examples of the types of things we have encountered during investigations in the past.
Insurance Fraud
The incorrect size and type of paper lead to a breakthrough on the case spanning the Atlantic. Several documents were provided, supposedly from England that showed that a particular object’d Art had been inspected, appraised and had a certificate of origin issued back in 1970. We are not forensic document examiners, but the size of the paper was wrong and so was the type of paper. The size was 8.5 x 11 not A4 size and the paper was not archival bond. All appraisals and certificates or original are printed on acid free archival bond. We let the client know this. A forensic document examiner examined the documents and agreed with our findings, added a few more of his own, and declared the pile of documents to be wholly inconsistent with what would be expected.
Due Diligence
A hedge fund requested us to check on the veracity of some assets held in Bonded Warehouses around the globe that were the assets behind an investment. We were given copies of the Warehouse Receipts and began to check both the quality and quantity of those assets. Over 70% of the assets were exactly as described. The other 30% possessed inconsistencies. The first was with the ECCN (Export Control Classification Number) numbers on the Warehouse Receipts. Items were listed incorrectly and were incorrectly subject to higher tariffs. The second is that the signatures of some of the warehouse receipts were by unauthorized persons. The end result is that we verified the assets, helped lower their expenses and discovered three different fraud schemes going on in three different warehouses. No losses to the client resulted from these frauds - thankfully
Money Laundering
In a settlement of a dispute between two business partners, each going their own way, an offer of 50% of appraised value of their collection of apartment buildings was made. The second partner accepted but hired a lawyer. The lawyer hired us to help check out the business. We noticed offset accounting of fiscal years with some subsidiaries and found evidence of parallel corporations - the same named corporation formed in many different states. Through these devices we could account for about $500,000 skimmed off of the business and laundered into he pockets of the other partner. We reported our findings to the lawyer and client. The client nodded and said, "That's OK, I figured he would have skimmed off more of what he managed." We still chuckle about that one.
Litigation Support
A man claimed that a number of assets in a divorce were his sole and separate assets. When he provided the documentary proof, it was a very clean trail. The errors in the trail are that the documents, supposedly from the late 1950's, contained zip codes, which had not been in force at that time, and area codes that were not in use at that time. Ruling - no sole and separate property.
Anticipating the Future
In the 1970’s cash could be flown around the world and deposited, 1980' s greed was good, 1990 more was a sign of doing well, now Corporation are vilified and we have to fill out forms if we want a $100.00 bill for a nephews' B-Day Party gift - this really did happened.
10 Years ago we could arrive minutes before our flight left and get on with the expectation of polite and courteous service.
The future need for due diligence, investigations and anti money laundering are on the rise; as are the requirements for protecting Intellectual Property. As markets become increasingly competitive all forms of waste must be reduced. Aggressive due diligence and recovery when a failure occurs will help reduce the costs and telegraph to the world you are serious about fraud
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