The case of the missing boiler fuel

The new head of a milk processing plant in India was reviewing his company’s management reports when he noticed a glaring discrepancy in the amount of fuel indicated in the report and amount it actually had. The plant, which used the leaves and husks of eucalyptus to fuel its boiler, should’ve had 150 tons of fuel, or 20 heaps of eucalyptus. But the plant head could only find two heaps. He asked the head of engineering and the boiler manager to account for the discrepancy but only got evasive answers. When the company’s internal audit team began to dig into the fuel reports to resolve the discrepancy, they discovered that records were missing.

The milk processing plant hired my company for a forensic investigation to resolve the matter. Here I’ll guide you through our audit process and how we discovered a scheme among the plant’s engineering head, boiler manager and the plant’s vendors to manipulate the company’s fuel supplies for financial gain.