Laboring in Embezzlement
Union manager embezzles money from Union by altering bank deposits.
By Megan Porter, Marketing –
One of the top causes of loss in large companies is when someone embezzles money. But large companies are not the only ones embezzling effects. Small companies and even labor unions must be on the watch for embezzling and other forms of financial misuse.
Such was the case with a labor union in West Virginia, USA. The manager of the Vienna Union, Rick Drain, collected membership fees and other funds from Union members but failed to deposit the payments into the Union’s bank account. He instead claimed around $50,000 for his personal use. Drain has since pleaded guilty and now faces a sentence of a year and a day in prison plus paying restitution fines.
Far too many people with positions of authority and with access to financial resources find themselves succumbing to the temptation of using these resources for their own personal gain. This not only hurts the company’s finances; it also harms the company’s reputation and ability to continue functioning. In the case of Drain’s labor union, those funds could have been used to lobby for better working conditions or to help those who had been laid off due to the COVID-19 crisis. Drain chose to ignore those altruistic options and chose to try to profit from other’s good graces instead.
The question, then, is how can we keep leaders and financial officers honest? The large number of embezzlement cases every year just goes to show that the possibility of incarceration and restitution fees is not enough to deter most people. The perpetrators do not believe they will be found out. If there was a way to ensure that leaders and financial executives were honest in all financial transactions, embezzling and fraud would decrease significantly.
Converus® has proposed such a way through their innovative, non-invasive lie detection test called EyeDetect®. EyeDetect is a computerized lie detection system that can accurately determine within half an hour whether a test subject is being deceptive by tracking involuntary pupil dilation and eye movement. If all those who dealt with large financial flow volumes were to take regular EyeDetect tests about embezzling and fraudulent practices, there would be no way for the perpetrators to hide. Let them say what they will, the eyes never lie.
Photo by /Julian Lozano
