02 May 2018 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
A university has kindly shared their experience of suffering a fraud at an overseas office on the Fraud discussion board. It is well worth a read in full, and asking yourself whether you can be confident that a similar situation has not, and could not develop, in your own overseas offices or with overseas partners.
“The office forms a hub for recruiting international students in SE Asia. This is staffed by a manager and team of administrative marketing staff responsible for liaising with in-country agents, attending exhibitions and fairs etc, and has close links with our international office team via email and periodic visits by the international team.
An internal audit investigation found fraudulent activities in the overseas office in relation to misuse of a portion of the funds issued to the office for operating and running costs. These had been used for the personal gain of one or more office staff members; a number of previously unknown conflicts of interest and alleged ‘moonlighting’ on the University’s time were also exposed. These circumstances mark it out as “novel” hence it is captured by the serious incident reporting guidelines, despite being well under the £25K threshold.
As well as appropriate HR action now being taken, the investigation identified a number of improvement areas…” Read the full post here.
