Accountants are trusted to keep accurate records of assets. It is the main purpose of an accountant’s job. Recently, it has come to light that the unit of the United States Marshals Service that has been trusted with the assignment of keeping records of assets ceased in criminal cases has failed. In eight out of fifty five cases it handled, the records were so shoddy that the purchase price and the buyer were both unknown. This negligence was caught by an audit of the unit of the United States Marshals Service.
This audit determined that there were many problems in the way that this unit was run. They had inefficient methods of track, value, safeguard and dispose of complicated and valuable assets. They were also supposed to be a team that would oversee the unit that was handling the assets and this team didn’t properly do their job. The biggest injustice in this whole thing is that they lost millions of dollars in restitution for crime victims by undervaluing the assets.
Every accountant has a responsibility to the public to be honest and to fulfill their job to the best of their ability. This means to follow the guidelines that have been set for their specific job. In the case of the United States Marshals Service this responsibility was not fulfilled. It could be that they did not know what they were doing or that they were just lazy and did not want to do the work, or that they were committing fraud. I do not feel like they could have ever gotten to that level in the government if they were ignorant, so them not knowing what they were doing is very unlikely. It is very possible that they were just being lazy and did not want to do the work. I feel like this is also very unlikely because of the way the government audits everything. They would have known that someone would have caught them and the risk would not have been worth the reward. In my opinion, fraud is the most likely cause for this series of events. Fraud is when a person intentionally deceives or misuses their place of power for personal gain.
There are three main factors that will cause a person to commit fraud. They are motivation, opportunity and risk verses reward. They obviously had the opportunity working with millions of dollars in ceased assets. They would have known the risk of getting caught but with the reward being anywhere from 1 million to 49 million dollars it could have been worth it to them. As for the motivation, that could have been a number of things. It could have been that they are just greedy or that they were being pressured into it by their peers. That part of it is unclear but I truly do believe that this was a fraud to put millions of dollars in the pockets of the team that was responsible for overseeing the assets. Fraud is the biggest monetary crime that can be committed and is the biggest problem in the accounting industry. It has caused multi-billion dollar companies to crumble.
Rashbaum, William K. "Auditors Find Chaos in U.S. Marshal’s Asset Sales Record-Keeping." New York Times 13 09 2011. n. pag. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/nyregion/auditors-find-chaos-in-us-marshals-asset-sales-record-keeping.html?_r=1&ref=accountingandaccountants>.
There are three main factors that will cause a person to commit fraud. They are motivation, opportunity and risk verses reward. They obviously had the opportunity working with millions of dollars in ceased assets. They would have known the risk of getting caught but with the reward being anywhere from 1 million to 49 million dollars it could have been worth it to them. As for the motivation, that could have been a number of things. It could have been that they are just greedy or that they were being pressured into it by their peers. That part of it is unclear but I truly do believe that this was a fraud to put millions of dollars in the pockets of the team that was responsible for overseeing the assets. Fraud is the biggest monetary crime that can be committed and is the biggest problem in the accounting industry. It has caused multi-billion dollar companies to crumble.
Rashbaum, William K. "Auditors Find Chaos in U.S. Marshal’s Asset Sales Record-Keeping." New York Times 13 09 2011. n. pag. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/nyregion/auditors-find-chaos-in-us-marshals-asset-sales-record-keeping.html?_r=1&ref=accountingandaccountants>.
