Fraud in America

In America today we face a devastating threat to our economy. This threat has injured millions of people, hundreds of thousands of businesses and affects the price points of almost everything we buy. This menace to society has both civil and criminal components and can lead to the devastation and destruction of families, companies, cities, and government subdivisions. The threat is fraud. Fraud is the intentional systematic process to deceive and or misrepresentation that can deprive someone (person, company, government) of something of value that they had a legal right to, usually United States Currency and/or property. It involves trickery and usually as scheme then fraud can rear its ugly head as part of a Ponzi scheme, identity theft, cyber fraud, street fraud, intellectual property, financial fraud, construction fraud and various other forms of this devastating epidemic that are not mentioned in this article.  Lesley Kim of Fight Fraud in America explains to an unknowing public that “Fraud is a multi-billion-dollar criminal industry in America …” (http://www.fightfraudamerica.com/ ). About 33 years ago, I became a certified CFE member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (http://www.acfe.com/ ).  This training & certification became helpful in my tenure as a New York City Detective. It also Investigated Fraud as the  owner of the largest private detective agency ( APB Investigations Inc ) in Staten Island, New York.  ACFE is made up of investigators, accountants (CPA's) and lawyers in the private and public sectors whose sole purpose is to fight fraud. Fraud workshops and training (education), networking and above all, good communication are some of the tools applied in ACFE’s arsenal to fight fraud. In NYC, when I was the president of The Society of Professional Investigators, we used our organizational platform to work symbiotically with ACFE to fight this growing epidemic of fraud.

This was a time of polyester suits, white shirts & ties. computers that were based on DOS and LynxOS, with floppy drives and dot matrix printers. I was interviewed by 48 hours in featured segment about privacy and my archaic computers were depicted in that TV segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCgKgZMO-VI&t=33s  .

During this time, we read hard covered books and my greatest find was a fraud book called the Electronic Criminal. The author, Robert Farr, explained the different types of fraud from stolen bank shares, game swindlers, to credit card fraud. I got a copy of this book in the early 80’s. It enlivened and motivated me to investigate economic crime. 

After I retired from NYPD as a Detective out of Major Case Squad and after 10 years I sold my NYS PI company APB. I was hired by Flagler County Sheriff’s office in Florida. I enjoyed patrol, training, accreditation, professional standards, and other assignments for a few years. Then I was asked by the Sheriff of Flagler Florida County, Donald Fleming, to head up an Economic Crime Unit. After researching the history of FCSO there have been only a handful of Fraud-related arrests and convictions. This was in part because Fraud Schemes were layered with pretext and intricate. This caused the police and prosecutors to make it a non-priority. I embraced the opportunity to continue my fight against fraud. The sheriff gave me the support and resources I needed.  In the first year, we were able to arrest and convict three major fraudsters in the construction industry who stole over 2.5 million dollars from the elderly, immigrants, and other home buyers. In addition to the arrest and convictions, we averaged 25 cents on the dollar of successfully recovered funds from the fraudster to the victims/ and or their estates.  

In addition our criminal convictions were used by private attorneys to get restitution in part for over 100 victims; two cases are noted below: ”Gregory Still Bleyl, 64, of Jacksonville was arrested by Detective Gaspar on Thursday for charges of grand theft in excess of $700,000 and six counts of forgery…”( Noted in the attached hyperlink (http://afipi.com/media/contractor-fraud.html ). ” Detective John M Gaspar and Agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) St. Augustine Field White-Collared Daniel George Quinn today and charged him with one count each of Aggravated White-Collar Crime and Scheme to Defraud, both first-degree felonies”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wR6CfVELwE&t=2s

Sheriff Fleming started the ball rolling with me, and my team and hundreds of Fraud Arrests were and are made after I retired from FCSO.

Fraud needs to be fought on many different levels, both criminal and civil. In the civil arena, fraud is often used to get restitution and bring the much-needed aid to the victims. Restitution and making the victim/plaintive whole is as important as the punitive consequences for the defendant. A good fraud investigator can help you identify the scheme, locate the fraudster, and most important, locate assets that were taken. These crimes are intricate and require attention to detail and an understanding of the mind of a fraudster. With a greater understanding that fraud affects our economy on a global level, we will be ever vigilant. Together we will, as a society, keep up the good fight against fraud; failure is not an option for me I still have my gloves on, and I continue to fight fraud in the private sector to that end after retirement from the Sherriff’s Office, I have continued my journey as an investigator and owner of All Florida Investigations & Forensic Services. 

By John Michael Gaspar, B.S. M.S., M.M.B.A, C.F.E., CST

                            Cited Sources Include

Fraud magazine Volume 28, No.6 November / December 2013 Fraud magazine page 10 -13 “The Shutter Bug case”

Lesley Kim of Fight Fraud in America explains to an unknowing public that “Fraud is a multi-billion-dollar criminal industry in America …” (http://www.fightfraudamerica.com/).

Electronic Criminals by Robert Farr ISBN 0-07-019962-0