Sometimes, There is an Exceptional Outcome That We Hear About

One of the primary distinctions between being a government investigator and a private sector investigator is the fact that in the private sector, we often aren’t privy to the outcome. When I was in law enforcement, case agents normally are assigned to their cases for the duration from start to finish.  Without question, there are many differences between the investigations that we do as private citizens and those perform by government agencies including the FBI.  As civilian investigators, we have no authority and a very limited ability to compel people to provide us with information, cooperate or submit to a witness interview.  Search and arrest warrants are a thing of the past and introducing yourself at a social gathering as a forensic accountant or compliance investigator doesn’t have the same ring to it.

But what is often most frustrating at least to me, is that our work is frequently completed before the incident that gave rise to the investigation has  been resolved. No matter how successful our work is, we often don’t get to see or hear about how things ended up. It’s ok and sometimes if we do hear about the outcome, months or even years later, it is sometimes anti-climactic.

Every now and then though, the work that we do for clients is both resolved favorably and our work directly contributed to the positive result.  Last week, White Collar Forensic had not one but two great outcomes for the same client. First, an insurance carrier who at first said that they would not pay anything toward a multi-million dollar claim, reversed course and paid the client $4.25 million against a $5.9 million claim in connection with 4 year long property crime scheme orchestrated by a single employee.  This recovery, coupled with a $1 million recovery against another policy in the same matter meant that we helped the client recover $.76 on the dollar.   Not the typical outcome in a property crime or an embezzlement.

Later that same week, we learned that the subject who stole nearly $7 million in equipment from his former employer was arrested by the FBI on charges related to the case we put together against him.

So gratifying for a years long investigation to be resolved favorably and all the more rewarding when it is for a client who we so enjoy working with.