Monday, 07 September 09 - 02:06 PM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
I am pleased to advise that as per 7 September 2009 I have started work at IR}S as a Senior Consultant.
IRS is an initiative of recognized top specialists in the area of integrity, security, forensic investigations, compliance, IT-security and restructuring. Staff at IRS consists of dedicated professionals keeping office in Rotterdam – The Netherlands.
The multi-disciplinary approach of IR}S makes the difference in:
integrity management
fraud and fact-finding investigations
forensic IT
transaction & restructuring services
security risk management
Clientele mainly consists of governments, enterprises, financial institutions, shareholders, advisory boards and venture capitalists. Do not hesitate to contact me should you have any enquiries.
Wednesday, 17 December 08 - 12:31 PM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
Recurring themes in investment frauds
Over the years several duped investor files have passed my deck. Recently I have been going over some old journals and notes and I found several characteristics coming back as well let's say recurring themes.
One person at the top and apparently in control of everything. Some of the cases passing my desk here in New Zealand, are more obvious as there are in general many more SME and the investment scene is not an exception. There was this family owned business, where father ran the show, beyond control of any of his sons, who just did as father ordered. Separation of duties? Yes, but not for father. On a larger scale, look at Nick Leeson's Barings Bank case and a similar pattern is evident, he controlled front and back office.
Unusually high returns If you may not be sold on the person directly, than if anything will pull people over the bridge it is the promise of a higher than normal return. In some instances, people even see these high returns but in order to keep the scheme going they are lured into re-investing these schemes instead of taking a payout or - as is the case in Ponzi-schemes - the substantial payouts come in but at one point the scheme collapses when fresh money is drying up.
Lack of independent proof of profitability What do I mean with that? Well you will get all these fantastic figures, predictions and other tantalizing material, all produced to convince you that this is an opportunity of a lifetime. But what is it they are actually giving you? Well whatever it is it will look luxurious and flash. Glossy presented prospectusses to support the incredible income prognosis. But you need to ask yourself: were these figures ever audited and by whom? They may very well be an unaudited audit report, preferably presented as a copy of a Dun & Bradstreet report or something similar to give it that extra air of credibility.
Diversion tactics You are being flooded with information, however it is not necessarily relevant material! Recently I posted an article and that illustrated this tactic just perfectly. I was referred to website reports with all fantastic graphs but was it really about the opportunity I was invited to? NO! Conmen are besides that a master in drawing big conclusions from little or no evidence. Or otherwise the attention of victims is diverted from the investment opportunity, or business opportunity, to things that are of no relevance, such as incredble headquarters in tropical paradises, mansions that will make you stand back in awe (and who asks or checks whether it is actually owned) and impressive looking materials all around that make it look even more impressive or lifestyles funded by other victims to create this incredible air of success. If you can't sell the "opportunity", sell the person offering it! In Madoff’s case, it was reported that some people were simply begging him to be allowed to become an investor. He was the man, the go-to- guy.
An impressive list of references and endorsements Have you ever tried to verify the credibility of these references: tried to chase down one or the other extremely busy business person. As this is part of my job, I can assure you it is time consuming and often times a frustrating and job. Is such a reference really worth anything if you can't get a hold of him or her? It is very easy to provide fake references once you are aware if this reality. And even if you do get hold of these people, they may very well either not be aware of the fact that they are being defrauded or they could be fraudsters themselves!
Due diligence: say what? Whole all these signs may be very obvious, I see on a regular basis a lack of proper due diligence, even by the professionals. Investors, accountants, lawyers, they see but seem not to see. It is not too hard to understand, they simply don't want the bad or deal breaking news; they are committed to make the deal for real. The fraudster knows this and keeps on coming with more meaningless glam documents, rewrites of the same documents, whatever you ask for, until everyone is tired of asking for more. Moreover, and that is where things go bad, once one reputable party is lured in, the rest will often follow blindly and due diligence is out of the door: "someone else will have already done it."
Remember however, it is your money, and therefore you should take responsibility you are handing over, so make sure you do it wisely. All these recent scandals show the importance of safeguarding your interests. And if you are not sure or not getting the answers you are looking for, keep your money in your pocket and look around for the next opportunity. Most of all remember: if it sounds too good to be true it usually is.
Recently there has been some discussion in New Zealand about disbanding the Serious Fraud Office and bring the unit under the police: an initiative of the previous governement. I expressed my concerns about such an idea on the blog of Dierckx & Associates Ltd.
I was pleased to read today thatmy vote has not been wasted and that our new prime minister John Key announced the SFO would stay.
“They’ll be staying, and they’ll be investigating some very interesting crimes, I would suggest, over the next few years,” Mr Key said.
“Those who have broken the law, maybe those who have defrauded New Zealanders out of their retirement savings with all sorts of dodgy schemes, are going to know that the Serious Fraud Office will be here, with all its powers, to investigate them.”
Monday, 29 September 08 - 02:44 PM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
PRESS RELEASE
New Board Members Announced
On September 23, 2008, The Loss Prevention Foundation’s Board of Directors approved four new board members. These individuals are industry leaders and have been chosen to help govern The Foundation, as well as provide strategic direction for the organization. The following individuals have accepted the nomination to serve on The Foundation’s Board of Directors:
·Patti Feltz, Vice President Asset Protection, Polo Ralph Lauren
·Monica Mullins, Vice President of Asset Protection & Safety, Wal-Mart Stores - U.S.
·Kevin Valentine, Vice President of Loss Prevention, Sterling Jewelers
·Stan Welch, Vice President, Director of Loss Prevention, J. C. Penney’s
According to The Foundation’s Chairman, Frank Johns of A. C. Moore, “It is very gratifying to have such wonderful industry professionals join this Board of Directors. I couldn’t be more pleased to have such a well-rounded group of individuals help govern this organization.”
The Foundation, whose mission is to advance the loss prevention profession by providing relevant, convenient, and challenging educational is organized as a not for profit, 501 (c) 6. “Having such a diverse group of individuals provide direction for this Foundation shows the level of support this organization continues to have from this industry.We could not ask for a better, more passionate group to lead this organization” said Gene Smith, the Foundation’s President.For a complete list of board members, please visit our site at: http://www.losspreventionfoundation.org/about_us_board.html
Friday, 11 April 08 - 05:20 AM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
I have had many an email as to where I was and what happened to the blog, with no new articles appearing for some time now. First of all it was time for my social networking and blog(s) sabattical () but most of all I have been involved in a new startup, the Arcis Group. In December 2008, I broke my relationship with Singapore World Health Network and Singapore World Health Assurance. Not long after that somewhere in the first weeks of the new year I was approached to participate in this exciting new venture of the Arcis Group.
As of April 2008, Dierckx & Associates became a member of the Arcis Group: an international group of companies, partners and affiliates with the mother company Arcis Limited in Belize. This means that Dierckx & Associates will be able to draw upon a wider range of expertise in the future relating to amongst others risk management, but besides that it will be listed as on of the dedicated partners in this new and exciting venture.
The Arcis Group, a (virtual) network of companies, partners and affiliates provides a wide range of services to the insurance and related industries and markets, through a collective strategy and operations under the umbrella of Arcis Limited in Belize.
John Dierckx is a director at Arcis Limited and VP Legal and Operations at Arcis New Zealand Ltd. For those that would like to follow the news surrounding this new venture; I will start up a new blog to keep everyone updated of the latest developments.
Monday, 03 March 08 - 08:17 PM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
After a brief absence of around 3 months this blog will be active again.
Several developments in the business prevented me from actively posting new content.
Besides the general line of articles new categories of articles will be posted here that in the end all relate to keeping your business and life protected against risks .
I would like to thank everyone that has been coming back and express my apologies for leaving without notice. I look forward to your comments again and to answer the questions that arise on the blog on and off line.
Tuesday, 06 November 07 - 09:16 PM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
Want privacy for your Internet searches? Then check out Ixquick, claimed to be the only metasearch engine that deletes the user’s personal data.
With little scandals like the AOL user data leakage still fresh in mind, some users are worried about their privacy when it comes to searching the Net. The AOL leakage (the complete database is still available) identified that privacy and search engines do not always go hand in hand.
AOL is not alone, similar issues have been identified at other companies such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Whilst progress is being made the solutions are not ideal yet.
Ixquick aims to step into this identified void.
Ixquick
Ixquick is a metasearch engine: you are searching many popular search engines at the same time.
Ixquick allows for Boolean search phrases and incorporates in its searches:
Ask Jeeves/Teoma
Entire Web
Gigablast
MSN
Netscape
Wikipedia
Yahoo
Whilst I was happy with the meta search capabilities, I was not too impressed with the fact that I did not see an immediate option to go over all search hits for instance by search engine. Ixquick makes a selection for you.
An Ixquick result is awarded one star () for every search engine that chooses it as one of the ten best results for your search. So a five star () result means that five search engines agreed on the result.
This is significant because search engines choose results in different ways, and each approach works well in some cases and poorly in others. A result with many stars was chosen for many different reasons, and is a consensus choice of many search engines.
Also, while irrelevant Web pages can be "optimized" to fool a single search engine's algorithm, it is much harder for a page to fool all the search engines.
Privacy Ixquick's position in relation to privacy is simple
You have a right to privacy
Your search data should be protected from falling into the wrong hands
Deleting your search data is the only real solution
User data is deleted in 48 hours
Ixquick claims to be the first to do so
Certified Secure, a leading Certification Authority, has certified Ixquick's Privacy procedures.
Search Results Whilst privacy might be a great good I was not overly impressed with the search results of several of several searches when compared to using the normal search engines themselves. However most of the searches performed came up with adequate results, sometimes unexpected when compared to "googling" for specific information and for those that want to save time in having to search through lots of irrelevant results. The algorithm used seems to be doing its job, although sometimes the selection of search results is meager or outdated and can lead to missing relevant information simply because it did not end up on first page search results.
On the other hand refining and enhanced searching using the "relevant" ticker and "irrelevant" ticker to identify what you found as an especially relevant search result, did help in getting more and better additional results.
A search through a specific search engine listed is also possible. So for those that would like to search for instance just MSN, or Wikipedia and any combination of the listed search engines, that possibility is also available.
In addition to web search the site offers the possibility to search for video and pictures and trawl through international phone directories.
Search bars are available to install, both for internet search and desktop search.
Conclusion A great alternative for those that want their privacy protected but for those that require comprehensive results, this search engine does not seem like an option unless a possibility is included to search through all results if you chose to.
Personally I like this new search engine a lot as it helps streamlining specific searches. It is a bit more work to get the results you are after sometimes but in return your user data is deleted within 48 hours. A great option for those that value their privacy.
Saturday, 20 October 07 - 12:37 PM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
Today I stumbled upon this in USA Today. It made me wonder what is this? As long as I have been in this line of work, porn has been a problem in the work place. I remember the times well when I could recognize the internet traffic of certain computer users on the basis of identified graphic material. To give an indication: probably 95% of the computers I have examined (which includes a few networks as a whole) contained evidence that people were visiting porn or erotic sites and material during work hours. In fact, where I could appreciate a bit of nudity in my times, it started to feel like work, just because of the sheer amounts of pornographic and erotic (or so you wish, soft-pornographic) material me and my colleagues would encounter on a daily basis.
In recent years I have been witnessing employers hardening up on the subject and take serious steps to prevent, detect and sanction such practices during work hours: acceptable use policies, network traffic monitoring, email monitoring, blocking of access to certain sites and where things were identified, some employees (for instance at Air New Zealand) were dismissed.
Did it change anything? Apparently not at least according to this article below in the USA Today.
More than a decade after employers began cracking down on those who view online pornography at work, porn is continuing to create tension in offices across the nation — in part because laptop computers, cellphones and other portable devices have made it easier for risk-takers to visit such websites undetected.
Devices providing wireless access to the Internet appear to be giving the porn-at-work phenomenon a boost even as employers are getting more aggressive about using software to block workers' access to inappropriate websites. About 65% of U.S. companies used such software in 2005, according to a survey by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute, up from 40% in 2001.
Many employers say that because it's so easy to access porn on portable devices — even those that are company-owned and outfitted to block access to adult-oriented websites — they are increasingly concerned about being sued by employees who are offended when co-workers view naughty images.
With wireless devices, close monitoring of workers is "impossible. There's nothing you can do," says Richard Laermer, CEO of the public relations firm RLM. "Liability is the thing that keeps me up at night, because we are liable for things people do on your premises. It's serious. I'll see somebody doing it, and I'll peek over their shoulder, and they'll say, 'I don't know how that happened.' It's like 10-year-olds. And it's always on company time."
Through the years, surveys have indicated that many workers run across adult websites or images while at work, but few say they have done so intentionally.
About 16% of men who have access to the Internet at work acknowledged having seen porn while on the job, according to a survey for Websense by Harris Interactive in 2006. Eight percent of women said they had. But of those who acknowledged viewing porn sites at work, only 6% of men and 5% of women acknowledged that they had done so intentionally.
These figures actually surprise me if only because they do not seem to match with my own experiences. And of course one could think now that this is because me and my colleagues are hired to investigate such behavior. Well here is the strange part: usually we were hired to investigate suspected fraud. As part of a standard routine we would also do a quick scan of the graphics on a computer and that's where the 95% bingo on the porn front comes from.
When it comes to portable devices, employers can use blocking software if they have provided the equipment to workers, says Richard Chaifetz, CEO of ComPsych, a Chicago-based employee-assistance provider. However, there is little they can do if employees have their own BlackBerrys (RIMM) or other devices. In such cases, he says, some employers have begun restricting the use of employee-owned laptops or cellphones during work time or meetings.
"This issue is huge," Chaifetz says. "It's becoming a bigger and bigger problem."
I was sort of surprised reading this. The issue is huge probably in that it is harder to monitor such activity. And now as an employee put yourself in the shoes of your employer. You are paid to work eight hours a day. Rules have already softened up in most companies in that a certain amount of personal usage of internet facilities is allowed. Porn sites is however another thing.
A string of lawsuits
Meanwhile, porn continues to create conflicts in the workplace.
There has been a string of lawsuits filed recently by workers who say they've felt harassed by others' viewing of porn on the job. And in a twist, a few lawsuits have been filed by workers who believe they were disciplined unfairly for visiting porn sites on company time...
...Sometimes, employees who were punished or fired for viewing adult-oriented websites at work have struck back.
The recent litigation surrounding porn-at-work complaints has many employers scrambling to come up with better strategies for discouraging workers from viewing such material.
About one in four companies have fired an employee for misusing the Internet, according to a 2005 survey by the American Management Association. Some employers have adopted a zero-tolerance policy; others impose progressively more serious penalties when they catch an employee viewing adult websites...
... Even though companies have the right to monitor (employees' Internet use), it's just not cost-effective" for many. "This tends to come up when somebody sees (adult content) over somebody's shoulder."
... Julie Albright, a sociologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and author of the upcoming article, says employers are right to be alarmed about adult content in the workplace.
"A lot of companies are very worried about a hostile work environment," she says. "Larger companies are more likely to have codes-of-conduct policies and are more likely to block sex websites, but smaller companies may not."
In the article special emphasis is placed on harassment and employment law issues. While these are most certainly areas that are of great importance, there are simpler approaches to this issues that are in my view just as important to consider.
Whilst I do not know the figures for the USA situation here are some issues besides harassment and acceptable use that I have come across that should also be taken into consideration regardless of the size of a company.
In several cases whereby substantial pornographic issues were identified on employees computers, there turned out to be more that just the innocent downloading and viewing of porn.
Substantial amounts of time were more than once spend on this hobby during day time. In several cases, once we identified the extent of the traffic to pornographic sites and the time spend "selecting material for the private collection" we would look for additional clues. This is what was found:
claiming overtime where lots of time was spent on porn, the work still needed to be done, deadlines needed to be made. So what do you do than? Employees would start claiming overtime.
In one of the cases an employee was found to have spend on average about 5 hours a day on visiting pornographic sites. He was always working late and took work home. Initially the man did not claim overtime. On one social event however the wife, having had a few wines made a point with the employees boss about how he was always making overtime and worked in the evenings and weekends without getting paid for it. The employer in his goodness arranged for this to change and started paying out overtime. Up until a point where he started to get doubts. Was he that far of the mark in his job descriptions? And how come it was just this one employee? He started asking around in the office and the indications soon were that there was more going on. Female employees complained about catching the guy while busy watching porn. One employee was the unpleasantly surprised witness of the man watching the porn in well let's say a "more active fashion".
use of office equipment to save the collection. More than once we have found employees using CD-roms and rewritables. Nowadays, this will mist likely be replaced by using memory sticks and portable hard drives.
Loss of productivity of other employees where bandwidth is is being used for substantial video downloading.
Downloaded malware, spyware and trojans, browser hijacks and other issues that could compromise the network security of the company.
Especially the last is an issue in smaller companies. Where larger sized companies will usually have (by now) a substantial program to prevent and detect such activity on their company equipment and internet gateways, smaller sized companies more than once suffer from inadequate security.
However, with what is being outlined in the article we have another issue. Using personal equipment during working hours. The article continues
For some, the risk is a rush
Researchers and psychologists who study Internet users' behavior say those who view online porn at work are doing so because they get a rush out of taking risks, engage in self-delusional beliefs that they won't get caught and, in some cases, suffer from addictive behaviors.
The rising use of mobile devices such as video phones could exacerbate the problem, they say.
"This dilemma is going to get much worse, given the capacity of handheld, electronic devices to download porn," says Carleton Kendrick, a psychotherapist in Millis, Mass. "That will eliminate an employer's opportunity to check which workers have been going to porn sites on company computers."
Michael Leahy, who used to work in computer sales for employers such as IBM, Unisys and NEC, agrees that mobile devices make it easier for workers who are bent on accessing porn sites to do so without their employers' knowledge.
He says that because of advances in mobile technology, employers' efforts to block or monitor workers' Internet usage can be circumvented easily and that efforts to block access to adult-oriented websites can be futile because so many new sites are popping up.
Leahy, 49, who says he is a recovering sex addict, says his employers never knew that he spent hours viewing pornography on his laptop during work hours.
"I always hid it. I always used laptops, and I'd look at it behind closed doors," says Leahy, who lives in Atlanta and is a speaker and writer on the issue of Internet pornography. "The biggest impact was the risk I brought to businesses in terms of sexual harassment or other claims and the lost productivity. Even with blockers and filters, I could view it."
Similar responses were found in the comments on the article.Personally, I have nothing against people watching porn, but while we all understand that when an employee supposedly to be out on the road selling stuff but in fact having a beer with his friends is theft of time, we seem to forget that in a sense and especially where things get obsessive as above, the same applies, and that is besides the harassment and security risks.
Perhaps those with "an addiction" could just for once try to stand in the shoes of their employer. If you waste time because you are constantly stoned or drunk, you don't function, are a potential liability, and will need to go. Why not make the same applicable for "porn addicts".
Monday, 08 October 07 - 10:35 AM (GMT) By John ML Dierckx in General
08 October 2007
Operation Vico
LYON, France – INTERPOL is making a public worldwide request for assistance in identifying a man photographed sexually abusing children in a series of images posted on the Internet, the first time the organization has made such an appeal.
Although the original photographs had been digitally altered by him or his accomplices to disguise his face, specialists from the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) in Germany working with INTERPOL’s Trafficking in Human Beings unit have been able to produce an identifiable picture.
Despite extensive global efforts to identify and locate this individual through INTERPOL’s network of 186 National Central Bureaus and specialist units, the man’s identity and nationality still remain unknown.
Wanted
Search for this man photographed
sexually abusing children
INTERPOL is seeking the help of the public to try to identify this man, photographed sexually abusing children in a series of images posted on the Internet.
The photos shown here are from a series of around 200 pictures involving 12 different young boys, believed to have been taken in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003.
These pictures have been produced by specialists from Germany’s federal police force, the Bundeskriminalamt, working from originals found on the Internet, which had been digitally altered to disguise the man’s face.
Extensive police efforts worldwide to identify the man have so far failed and Interpol is now enlisting the support of the media and the public to help identify him as a priority.
Anyone with information on his identity or whereabouts should contact their local police or INTERPOL’s Trafficking in Human Beings Unit via email.
) but most of all I have been involved in a new startup, the Arcis Group. In December 2008, I broke my relationship with 
) for every search engine that chooses it as one of the ten best results for your search. So a five star (
