The work of a forensic investigator can be dangerous. We are often dealing with people who might fit the definition of psychopath or sociopath. Or, in the case of Ben Affleck’s CPA character in the 2016 film, The Accountant, a mathematical savant who does forensic accounting for organized criminals.
At the same time, it can be helpful, at times, to be perceived as a simple number cruncher lurking in the background. As this column illustrates, the life of a forensic investigator is not always unexciting.
Tony Soprano’s First Victim
The first victim of Tony Soprano’s wrath in the inaugural episode of The Sopranos, the classic HBO crime-family series, is an accountant. As Tony talks to Dr. Jennifer Melfi, who will become his therapist, he flashes back to a brutal incident, which he refers to as “having a coffee.” It begins with Tony, in a new Lexus 400, chasing a balding businessman who is on foot. The character is 44-year-old Alex Mahaffey, a CPA at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, who has become involved with Tony through a Medicare false-billing scheme.
Mahaffey, a compulsive gambler who had become overwhelmed with debt, reluctantly agreed to help with the fraud. Once hooked up with Tony, he ended up owing the mob boss a considerable amount of money. To fuel Tony’s anger, Mahaffey had been heard saying that Tony wasn’t so tough.
Tony catches up with his running prey and sideswipes him with the Lexus, breaking the CPA’s leg so badly the bone is visible. As Mahaffey writhes in agony on the ground, first Tony, and then his nephew, Christopher, punch and kick the CPA in front of shocked onlookers.
Pity most accountants in TV shows and movies. They are usually cast as either a Caspar Milquetoast or a scheming villain who uses financial acumen to help others steal or defraud. The latter was most evident in The Godfather: Part 111, in which an accountant known as God’s Banker — based on Roberto Calvi, a real-life central figure in a massive international fraud who was known by that nickname — foolishly tried to scam the Corleone crime family out of hundreds of millions of dollars. When Vincent Corleone becomes the godfather, he orders the accountant killed and his body hung from a bridge in full public view. In real life, Calvi suffered the same fate: he was left dangling on a rope tied to scaffolding on Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982.
An accountant is almost never the central character in a film, with a very few exceptions, such as in Ben Affleck’s The Accountant. Another is the 2001 short film (35 minutes) also called The Accountant (titles are not subject to copyright protection). It’s the story of an unnamed CPA retained by two brothers to help save their heavily mortgaged rural Georgia farm from being expropriated by a bank. The muttonchopped accountant is portrayed as a quirky, hard-drinking man of few words whose philosophy is that “you can tell a lot about a person’s comins’ and goins’ if you know how to interpret the numbers,” albeit with one oft-repeated caveat: “There’s always a 4.5% margin of error, plus or minus.”
The accountant suggests several ways to save the property (“it’s doable but it ain’t purty”), including inflating inventory, lopping off an arm or leg to collect insurance, arson for profit (he advises that the family dog has to die in the fire because the investigators will figure “no one’s that coldblooded” and the owner’s natural grief and bereavement “will be the clincher”) and murder. It would be unfair to give away the ending of this engaging film, other than to say it won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Short Film, Live Action.
It’s Not Always Boring
Most CPAs, forensic or otherwise, don’t become involved in files that could end with them hanging from a local landmark or proposing murder. But there are engagements that belie the tired cliché of an accountant’s life being enervating and boring. Some files are anything but routine and can, on occasion, place a CPA in a dangerous predicament.
If a case requires a CPA to work in a city or country known for its violence or lawlessness, that obviously increases the potential for something untoward to occur.
A Toronto-based forensic accounting firm spent more than a decade working on a large-scale fraud investigation in Kingston, Jamaica, one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Although the murder rate has decreased significantly, in 2006, the small Caribbean nation reported 1,300 murders (almost the same number were reported in 2019), many in the capital city. Car jackings were also prevalent, with the driver and/or passengers sometimes taken for ransom. Between 1999 and 2006, the Sunday Observer reported there were more than 1,000 cases of kidnappings and ransoms. The Toronto team, which made more than 50 trips to Jamaica, had strong police protection while there and never ran into trouble. But the potential was there, a threat underlined by the rusty machete one of their regular drivers stored under his seat. “If we come to a street where there’s any kind of blockage, like a stalled car or something burning, we’re turning around right away,” he told his Canadian passenger. “Without question. And fast.”
In an Asian city a few years ago, a Toronto forensic accountant got caught up in a volatile situation at a factory where he was part of a small team investigating allegations of fraud involving groups in several countries. When the workers learned some local managers were suspected of illegally skimming profits, a riot erupted at the plant. The CPA was trapped in the building for several frightening hours before police restored calm. He was particularly concerned that he might be mistaken for someone on the management side. As soon as the riot broke out, he removed his jacket and tie and tried to make himself look as much like a working guy as possible.
The best way for CPAs to protect themselves when on assignment is to assess, as best they can, what they could be walking into, says Sandy Boucher, senior investigator with Grant Thornton and a former detective chief inspector with the Royal Hong Kong Police, where he specialized in organized crime and narcotics. “A risk known and identified can be mitigated,” he says. “You’re far more vulnerable when you have no idea what’s going on or who might be involved in a case. As a cop, I used to say it’s not the detectives who are most at risk, unless they’re going through a door. It’s the uniformed guys who are wandering out on the streets and have no idea what they’re going to encounter around the corner.”
On many files, CPAs are more like street cops than detectives; they are in the background and might have their guard down, assuming it’s only the door bashers who have something to fear. That can be a mistake. “Always have your head up and be aware that you can get caught up in trouble,” says a forensic accountant who has investigated fraud in several emerging economy countries.
When forensic accountant Doug Kalesnikoff and former RCMP investigator Stewart Kingdon were working on a massive fraud case and subsequent royal commission of inquiry in Antigua in the early 2000s, they were aware that factions on the island were not pleased that some of the previous government’s dirty laundry was being exposed. It was rumored, for example, that one minister of state carried a gun while testifying on the stand. A one point, an unsigned letter entitled “Danger” was delivered to the office of the inquiry’s three commissioners. That office was located at the Royal Antiguan resort, where Kalesnikoff and Kingdon had their office and living quarters. Chillingly, they were also named in the threat.
The letter said, in part: “No one is safe anymore. You will be killed. No one knows the hour, date or time when this sad event will occur. It will be done Jamaican style … it will happen and soon. A cocktail or bomb should start you off. We have people everywhere. Good Luck. I will do anything to protect my government.” The letter also warned: “In my hometown of Jamaica, when people get greedy like [the commissioners] Douglas and Stuart [sic], they should be shot and killed.” Nothing came of the threat, but it was unnerving.
How to Mitigate the Risk
When CPAs know they are on a potentially dangerous file, especially in a strange land, Boucher says there are some simple rules to mitigate risks. “My advice is to keep a low profile. There are some who draw attention to themselves starting when they land at the airport, with their business cards stuck on their briefcases, talking too much and too loudly.” He says it’s easy and prudent to do the opposite. For example, when Boucher was working on a contentious fraud case in a small country he and his team stayed at a small local hotel, deliberately avoiding the one most foreigners checked into.
In other words, act the opposite of Leo Getz, the loudmouthed accountant in the Lethal Weapon movies played by Joe Pesci. A federal witness who agreed to testify in a money-laundering case, Getz’s blabbering could be heard over a hurricane. He had strong views on many topics, particularly how the average guy is exploited — Getz used a more profane phrase — by everything from drive-through fast-food outlets to cellphone providers.
Boucher’s second rule is for CPAs to have a clear idea of whom they are dealing with. That’s where due diligence and background checks are essential. When Boucher was investigating a $78-million affinity fraud, he discovered the perpetrator, Canadian Salim Damji, was betting and laundering money through an online gambling site. Further investigation revealed that the small-time owner of the site had hooked himself up with a serious crime figure.
“The mom-and-pop [owner] realized he had suddenly caught himself a whale who was betting sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a day,” says Boucher. “He couldn’t handle it, so he got in bed with a guy named Ron ‘the Cigar’ Sacco, who was a real organized crime guy majorly into rackets and gambling. We were obviously concerned to learn this and started looking for him so we would know where he was. Fortunately, he was soon arrested on gambling and money-laundering charges, so any danger was removed.”
Boucher’s third piece of advice is to ensure that you work with a trustworthy local person. Boucher remembers an engagement in a country that had many areas considered unsafe at night. “But we had a local guy who knew how to protect us and we never had any problems,” he says. “Most people know how to read their own cities, know what areas to avoid, know how to sense that something doesn’t look right. Your radar is attuned to your environment and it helps steer you away from trouble. You need a person in a foreign location who can provide that for you.”
Unless circumstances demand it, Boucher strongly advises against getting armed, an option few CPAs are likely to consider. “If a threat is so serious you’re considering getting a gun, perhaps you should reconsider the file,” he says. “If it feels that dicey, it’s really simple: get away from there. Guns blazing are not a good thing.”
CPAs don’t deserve the stereotype of being dullards. Nor can they claim danger lurks behind every filing cabinet. But it can happen. And when it does, they must know how to respond.
Based on most films involving accountants, it seems CPAs are more dangerous to others than victims of crime on the job. Neither role is desirable. Maybe being thought of as simple number cruncher lurking in the background is actually a good, and safe, cover.
From Uncovering Fraud: True Stories About Fraud, Fraudsters & How They Got Caught by David Malamed, edited by Paul McLaughlin. This column was first published in March 2012.