Читать книгу Thou Shall Not Steal - Rod Fulenwider - Страница 4

Ruger Crain had served eight years in the U.S. Navy. Once he completed his eight years in the Navy, Ruger, his wife and their newborn moved from San Diego California back to his home city of Dallas Texas. Three days after leaving the Navy he went to work in Dallas as an adult probation officer for the State of Texas. His probation case load consisted completely of felons. The felony cases he supervised ranged from minor felonies to drug use, drug distribution, fraud, extortion, rape, murder as well as other felonies. Ruger and his wife, Lee-Ann, had made a plan when starting work with the State. Ruger would work for the state for one year and determine if he was going to work in the government sector or go to work in the private sector. Ruger had tested and processed with a number of government and state agencies and was waiting to determine which group he would work for. Ruger received several rejection letters so he reached out to find out to find out why he was being rejected. He received the same answer from several agencies related to why he was being rejected. He was told that even though his test scores were superb, his fitness tests went well and his psychological all went good he was not being hired because he was a white male. The agencies were focused on hiring racially diverse candidates and Ruger did not fit the bill. Once the year with the probation department was over Ruger went to work for an upscale national retailer. He started with the retailer as an internal investigator and promoted to the position of assistant loss prevention manager responsible for internal investigations, supply chain/logistics, physical security and credit card fraud. Ruger’s team faced a number of different types of crimes. One of the serious threats was the internal crook – the employee that always seemed to think he or she was entitled to certain goods. They also dealt with credit card thieves, cargo theft, fur theft, armed robberies and a vast assortment of other crimes. Ruger intended to stay with the retailer and eventually to retire with them. One day he received a phone call from a head-hunter wanting to discuss a manager’s position with another company in the Dallas area. Ruger was very loyal to his boss and found the phone call very unnerving. After several days Ruger told his boss, Gary Smith, about the call from the head-hunter. Gary informed Ruger that Gary was the one who gave the head-hunter Ruger’s name. Gary explained that it was his job to get Ruger promoted and that the company did not have a position to promote Ruger into nor did he see a promotional opportunity on the immediate horizon. Gary said that it was time for Ruger to promote and that Ruger would be foolish to not move on this position. Ruger followed Gary’s input, interviewed with the company and was hired as a Loss Prevention Manager by Lawson’s Emporium in Dallas Texas. Ruger and Lee-Ann thought the position at Lawson’s would be great for the family. The office was only two miles from their home which meant Ruger could make it home for lunch with his wife and with Elizabeth their baby daughter.

Ruger reported to work at Lawson’s in this newly created position with an understanding of several key elements. Lawson’s was a long-term American company that had 8,300 domestic store locations, they also had outlet stores, repair centers, hardware stores, credit centers, automotive repair stores and 500 distribution centers and warehouses across the United States. Ruger was responsible for all aspects of loss prevention and safety for the Dallas Logistics Center. The key elements were physical security, investigations, shortage reduction, inventory control and safety. Six weeks after Ruger was hired the company had also hired an LP Manager in Los Angeles by the name of Brandon Donoghue. Brandon and Ruger were told by their boss that both of them were test cases for the company. Prior to Brandon and Ruger beginning work with Lawson’s, when there were issues within the supply chain then the company would send store side loss prevention personnel to deal with the problem. All actions taken by store side personnel were reactive with zero thought at being proactive or long term solutions related to loss prevention issues. The company realized that specialization within the supply chain was needed so Brandon and Ruger were hired to determine what the real issues were and what programs were needed to move the company forward. Ruger had two bosses. He reported to, Kathy Moore, who was the Dallas Director of Operations. Ruger also reported to Samuel (Sammy) Black from the corporate office. Sammy was the Director of Loss Prevention for Supply Chain and Sammy also had two bosses. Sammy reported to the Vice President of Loss Prevention and he also reported to the President of Logistics. Brandon and Ruger spoke with each other every week but did not actually meet in person until they had worked together at Lawson’s for eight months. Brandon and Ruger were operating in uncharted waters for Lawson’s. Some of the cases that they would work made it seem like they were fighting fights in the old west.

From his first day at Lawson’s Ruger found a multitude of issues and challenges. Kathy had a number of questions and concerns related to loss prevention and how it would blend within the operational structure. Kathy was completely supportive from day one and was intrigued to have a specialist to deal with multitude of delicate issues. The good news for Ruger was that he did not have anyone who had served in this capacity prior to him. This meant that he was not being forced to follow someone who had established bad habits related to professional loss prevention, security or safety. Ruger had a security staff that encompassed eighteen Lawson security associates and a third party guard service that had responsibility for the inbound and outbound trailer security as well as trailer yard security.

Ruger uncovered two major issues within days of beginning with Lawson’s. The first thing that he discovered was related to the Lawson security associates. He noted on day one that the security associates all wore security uniforms that were identical to the local police department. The guards carried all of the same items on their belts that police officers carried except for guns. Ruger asked the guard supervisor, Russ, why the guards carried mace and handcuffs. Russ explained to Ruger that the guards needed these items in case they had a problem with an employee and were forced to subdue the employee. Russ further explained he defined a good day at the office when security was forced to chase down an employee. A great day was defined as a day when security chased down an employee and was able to physically fight an employee. Ruger told Russ that they were likely to have some problems with the philosophy that Russ described. Ruger thought about the situation and after three weeks brought the entire loss prevention team in for a meeting. Ruger collected everyone’s badge, handcuffs, mace and all other items on their belts. Ruger also told everyone that beginning the next day no one would be wearing one of the existing security uniforms. Going forward everyone would be wearing Docker pants and loss prevention golf shirts that Ruger had designed and purchased. Ruger passed out the new shirts to everyone on the team. Three people quit on the spot saying that they could not do the job without their badges, handcuffs and other items. Ruger accepted the resignations effective immediately and shared his philosophy with the team. He made it clear that this facility was one hundred percent staffed with employees and that everyone in the facility would be treated with the deepest respect.

The second issue that Ruger had to deal with was related to the third party guard service. Speedy Quick guard service was the true low-end guard provider in Dallas. It would have been nice to say that Lawson’s was getting what it paid for but that just was not true. Ruger lived very close to the facility which made it very easy for him to observe and drop in on the facility at all hours of the day and night. He had uncovered and addressed multiple times with Speedy Quick. Speedy Quick had not followed the policies and procedures as laid out by Ruger. One night around midnight Ruger stopped by to check on the guard. It happened to be during a particularly low volume level for the facility so there were only a few trailers on the property for the guard to watch. Ruger was able to drive onto the trailer lot, park his car and enter the guard shack without the guard even knowing that Ruger was present. Ruger found the guard in a rather compromising position with a lady. Ruger removed the guard from the property immediately and gave Speedy Quick one hour to send a supervisor to replace the guard. Ruger fired the guard service the following Monday and replaced the guards with his own people.

Ruger had been working at Lawson’s for about forty days when one of those “delicate” matters showed it’s ugly face. He was in his office working on a budget report when he received a radio call from one of the security associates. The guard stated that there was a workplace violence issue in the warehouse and that he needed immediate help. Ruger grabbed his radio and ran to the location in the order filling area of the warehouse. Ruger found a crowd of about twenty-five employees standing around and looking at a single, male employee. Matthew, the employee, had a large pair of cutting shears in his hand. Matthew was waving the shears at the crowd and yelling things at all the people who were present. Ruger began to talk with Matthew so Ruger could determine what was wrong, what had started this situation and what it would take to resolve the situation. Ruger radioed for one of his team to dispatch local police to the building. Ruger and his team knew that this was a fluid situation that could get out of hand quickly. Ruger asked Matthew several questions and attempted to talk Matthew down. Matthew showed that he had no desire to cooperate with anyone and Matthew was becoming more volatile by the minute. This particular facility was old and had several things that the city had “grand-fathered” in as acceptable. Ruger gave one of the security guards a signal to take an action. The guard did as expected and used one of the existing fire hoses to spray Matthew in the chest. The water pressure hitting Matthew caused three things to happen. Matthew dropped the shears which greatly decreased his ability to harm someone. Secondly, the water surprised Matthew to the point that it messed up his plan and he found himself not knowing what to do. Finally, the water bought a small period of time for the loss prevention staff to action and get Matthew to the ground. The police arrived and took Matthew into custody at the same time that the loss prevention team was securing the water. The team was glad that no one was hurt. Ruger was then forced to complete an after action investigation. He found that Matthew had been a problem employee for the past seventeen of his twenty-three years with the company. He found that management would transfer Matthew from one department to another department every eleven months. The facility manager had determined that Matthew was too hard to handle but that no one would fire Matthew. In fact, Matthew’s annual reviews were extremely bland and he was given a minimal pay increase every year. Matthew had two years left until retirement and the managers just wanted him to get to the point of retirement. By transferring him every eleven months not one manager was able to provide a solid evaluation of his annual performance. The managers had found a way to float Matthew in the hopes that none of them had to deal with effects of a problematic termination. Ruger began to interview the witnesses at the scene and employees all seemed to have the same story. None of the employees knew what had sparked Matthew into this erratic and aggressive behavior. Most of the employees said that Matthew had always been a problem and that management just let him get away with it. Employees said that Matthew had been flying off the handle for years but that his problem seemed to have gotten worst in the past year. Ruger and Kathy had a discussion and found a way for Matthew to retire early and they also put together a corrective action plan for the management team. The management team needed to lead in the right manner.

It had been a number of months since Ruger had encountered any major problems. He had been able to get his hands around a number of the issues and had put some practices and procedures in place. Ruger was in his office one day when Will Fortman dropped by to visit. Will was one of the LP managers from Lawson’s specialty division. Will had retired as a Director of Loss Prevention for J.C. Penney’s prior to coming to work at Lawson’s. Ruger knew that Will was extremely good at what he did and Ruger knew that Will had the ability to teach Ruger some new skills. Will explained that he had a problem with a case and needed Ruger’s assistance. Will laid out that his division had a loss of a few hundred thousands of dollars in product. This case became the start of a number of cases where an amount of known loss was one number but reality was that the real loss was much higher – in essence, the first report is always wrong. Will provided Ruger with the address of the Lawson’s facility where the losses were coming from and Ruger asked Will how could there be losses in a building that had been closed for years? This particular location had been built in 1903 and encompassed nine million square feet or warehouse space. The building was a series of five buildings all of which were connected underground by a number of large tunnels. The tunnels were large enough to drive a Ford F350 in the tunnel with room to spare. Will stated that his division had been utilizing this location for a number of years to store out of season goods such as snow blowers during the summer, swim suits during the winter and so on. The known losses were mostly related to home improvement goods but also included televisions, washers, dryers and multiple other types of products. Ruger said he would help but first he would need Kathy and Sammy’s approval. Sammy and Kathy both gave Ruger a green light to move forward and assist with the investigation.

Ruger and Will began to put an action plan together. The building was staffed with two long term Lawson managers, three maintenance technicians and nine Lawson security officers. All fourteen employees had been with the company at least twenty years each and all were now suspects of multiple felonies. Additionally, all fourteen employees were over-compensated for the jobs they were performing. The building was old and was in a part of town where two white guys (Ruger and Will) would definitely stand out. To complicate matters neither investigator knew any of the current building employees, neither investigator had access to the building and neither one had any current working knowledge of the building. The facility manager at Ruger’s building had retired as the maintenance manager at the target facility so Ruger asked John a hypothetical question one day. How would someone get into the target building without being discovered? Ruger did not explain what was going on, he simply asked the question. John told him that John was not sure. The next morning Ruger arrived in his own office to find a set of 30 keys on a key-ring sitting in his office chair. The key ring was labeled with the target building address. Ruger and Will, thanks to the keys magically appearing, now had some form of building access. Ruger and Will knew that they had to get into the building to investigate but since all employees were suspects the two of them were going to have to act alone in order to bring closure to the case. A concern that they shared was the need to know where the security guards were while the two of them investigated the building. The good news was that there were only a few cameras on the entire property. They decided to go shopping. Ruger and Will went to J.C. Penney’s and bought a couple of very cheap suits. They put the suits on and went to the target building. They entered the building and introduced themselves as inspectors who worked for the Department of Occupational Health, Safety and Environment and were there to complete an inspection. Ruger faked a phone call while Will went to inspect the freight elevator. While Will and the security guard were gone, Ruger “borrowed” one of the security radios. Since the radios belonged to the company, and since the investigation was approved by corporate then they did not steal the radio.

Ruger and Will determined that they needed to put some hidden cameras in place to watch the product and see who from Lawson’s staff was stealing from the company. Ruger and Will were able to gain access to building four nights in a row without anyone catching them. They were able to maneuver thru the building quite easily since the guards did not seem to make any effort to watch the product. Ruger and Will did find it interesting that the facility had a brand, new Ford 350 Econoline van. The van was also equipped with official Lawson emblems on each side of the van. They asked themselves, why would a closed facility need a new van? Ruger also uncovered that there was no official inventory record or control log related to the product in this building. Since there did not seem to be any official records this meant that there would be no ability to utilize exception reports as a means to determine exact losses.

The investigators would repeatedly access the facility in order to retrieve the video drives which allowed them to review the previous day’s activities. Given a number of factors the investigators were forced to utilize old school technology such as on-site video footage thus the reason they had to continue to re-enter the building. The video footage revealed a few behaviors that were extremely concerning. The first behavior that was noticeable was that all nine security guards would examine various products while working their shifts. The guards would also drive their own vehicles into the building and load product into their personal vehicles. Two of the guards would load product in the company van and leave the facility. The investigators spent the third week of the investigation following the guards in their vehicles and in the company van. One consistent element of the surveillance revealed that while the guards should have been working at the building they spent time loading company product into the vehicles and delivering the product to their own homes. The hidden cameras also revealed another interesting aspect of the investigation. On at least two days and nights of the week, the guards would take the company van (remember the van had company logos and verbiage on each side of the van) into a couple areas of Dallas. The guards would then pick-up two or three women and take them back to the facility. The women involved were prostitutes and would spend a few hours each night at the facility with the Lawson’s guards. The investigation revealed that on average the facility was loosing approximately $8,000 of product a week with several of the week’s losses exceeding $12,000 a week.

Will and Ruger determined it was time to conclude the investigation and begin to have conversations with each of the guards. The strategy was that Will and Ruger would begin interviewing the guards at midnight on the upcoming Sunday night. The plan was to bring in a third-party guard service with three guards to take care of physical security while the interviews were completed. Will and Ruger would identify themselves as corporate investigators sent by headquarters to complete an investigation and that they would be talking with each guard individually. Two of the third-party guards would assume the job of watching the building while the third guard watched the Lawson guards that would be waiting to be interviewed by Will and Ruger. Ruger also decided that all cell phones would be collected and the guards would not be allowed to make any phone calls until their individual interview was complete. They completed the rest of their plan and intended to use Friday to perform a complete review. Friday morning arrived and as they began their review Will received a phone call. Will’s wife had been involved in an accident on her way to the Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport. Ruger drove Will to the hospital in Frisco Texas where the doctor informed Will that Will’s wife had been killed. Will’s wife, Nancy, was hit by a drunk driver at 7:00 in the morning. The driver’s blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit and the driver had three convictions for drunk driving. Nancy was driving a Toyota Camry and the drunk driver was driving a large Cadillac. Will was devastated by Nancy’s loss and needed to focus on the aftermath of her death. Ruger immediately reached out to Sammy so the company could provide all the support that Will needed. Sammy was able to provide immediate support to Will and he assigned another loss prevention manager to assist Ruger for the upcoming interviews.

Ruger and Will had become close and Ruger wanted some serious revenge for the guy who had killed Nancy. These interviews were for Will and Ruger had no intention of screwing them up. Ruger entered the interviews wanting a pound of flesh. All nine guards were interviewed. Ruger had been trained and certified in basic and advanced courses of Interviewing and Interrogation Training. Ruger followed the course format and outline to the letter – the only thing that he could not totally escape was the part of the training on remaining objective – Bill was in the forefront of Ruger’s mind. All nine guards admitted to stealing from Lawson’s. All nine guards provided details of the first time that they stole from the company, the last time that they stole from the company and to the multiple times that they stole from the company. Each crook laid out how he began to steal and why he stole from the company. Each crook provided a verbal confession and a written confession. Ruger asked each one of these guys at the end of each confession if they wanted to set the record straight? Each guard said yes. Ruger suggested that they put that they wanted to set the record straight in their written confession. Once the confession was complete Ruger asked each crook what it meant to set the record straight. They all said that they did not know what it meant but that the statement sounded good. Ruger told each one of these guys that Ruger wanted the goods back that these guys stole. In addition to the confessions, Ruger took a company truck to each guard’s house and retrieved every item that he could that had been stolen. Once the stolen items were retrieved each crook was arrested by the Dallas Police Department. The goods were brought back to the Ruger’s facility. The product was then placed on pallets, shrink wrapped and labeled as evidence. All of the guards had been treated the same except for, Michael, the loss prevention manager who had oversight for the guards. Michael had been stealing from the company for at least seven years. Michael’s wife was a manager at Lawson’s Dallas Credit Union location. Ruger finished Michael’s confession at 6:30 in the morning. Michael called his wife and had her take the kids to school. He said he would explain everything later but that she would not hear from him for several hours. Ruger had one of his investigators meet them at Michael’s home. The investigator was instructed to bring one of the company’s large cargo trucks to the Michael’s home. By the time they had finished at Michael’s home they had loaded all of the stolen goods into the cargo truck. The products involved included flood lights from the side of the house, law equipment (lawnmower, edger, blower, etc…), multiple tools, a couch, a bed, two ceiling fans (that had been installed in the house), washer, dryer, refrigerator and many other items. Ruger literally had Michael remove the flood lights and ceiling fans from his home – lights that Michael had stolen from Lawson’s and then installed in the house. Ruger told Michael that Ruger wanted it all back. Michael agreed and Ruger started the chainsaw and cut the deck (that was in the backyard and measured 25 feet by 40 feet) into three pieces. The entire process was filmed and Ruger let Michael know that Ruger would use all of this as evidence at Michael’s trial. Michael was then arrested by the Dallas Police Department and taken to jail. It was unfortunate that Michael’s wife had to learn the hard way that her husband was a crook. All nine crooks were convicted and sentenced to prison for their crimes. Ruger’s moral code dictated that everything that these crooks stole had to be returned. In Ruger’s mind to allow these guys to keep anything that they stole would be degrade good order and discipline, thus, I want it back! Ruger did not want it back for himself; he wanted the product back for the good of the company and for the good of the employees who were doing things the right way. It did not matter to Ruger that the products would not be resold by Lawson’s. Ruger looked at things this way. Ruger was not going to let someone steal from Lawson’s and then allow them to keep the products that they stole.

The aftermath: Once the confessions were complete and the arrests were made Ruger filed his report with Sammy. Sammy asked Ruger to correct the reports since there was no way that these guys were using the company van to hire prostitutes and bring them back to the building. Ruger let Sammy know that those were the facts and the confessions were made and written by each of the individuals involved.

With the case complete (pending trials or confessions) Ruger was able to begin an official investigation for Will related to man who had killed Nancy. They directed all of their efforts and skills at the man who had killed Nancy. The investigation became very personal for both men. They conducted two investigations of their own accord. The first investigation was entirely related to the criminal charges and matters of the defendant. The defendant and his family did not seem to take this case as serious as they should have. Will and Ruger found the drunk driver’s families actions highly offensive and decided that a full court press was the only route to take. The rules and procedures for investigators in the private sector are dramatically different than the rules for law enforcement. Will and Ruger figured out quickly that the only way to get the attention of the defendant’s father was for Will to file a major civil lawsuit. You might be thinking how can you pursue the father for a crime that his 24 year old son committed? Ruger and Will saw it this way. The son (the driver of the car) hit Nancy while driving his father’s Cadillac. The driver was travelling at 85 miles an hour (speed limit was 40 miles an hour) when he ran a red light and hit the driver’s door of Nancy’s car. There were no skid marks at the scene. The father was in Hawaii with his wife at the time of the car accident. The question for the father to answer was this: had the father given permission for his son to drive the Cadillac? Keep in mind the father knew of the son’s previous convictions for drunk driving so allowing him to drive the Cadillac meant possible civil responsibility for the father. The defendant’s father had retired as an executive with a multi-billion-dollar Dallas based company. It was clear that the father did not cause the driver to become a drunk driver. In their mind the father was at the very least complicit in helping to diminish or eliminate his son’s criminal behavior. Ruger and Will were able to prove that the father owned homes in Dallas, Hawaii and Los Angeles. The father also had a collection of 13 vehicles across the three homes as well as a number of other assets. Their investigative skills paid off. The son was convicted of man slaughter and several additional charges and given 75 years in state prison. The son and father were both found responsible in the civil suit and the jury found the father to be fifty percent liable. This meant that the father was ordered pay fifty percent of the total amount awarded by the jury. The dad was forced to pay three and a half million dollars to Will. Will used the entire three and a half million dollars to set up a trust fund in Nancy’s name. The trust fund benefited an outdoor animal charity that Nancy and Will had been heavily involved in prior to Nancy’s death. The fund also benefited a college fund at the University of Kansas where Nancy and Will had attended. Will found himself unable to work anymore so he retired and returned home to Omaha Nebraska.

Ruger completed an after action on the initial internal theft investigation and followed up with Sammy then they completed a de-brief of the entire investigation. Sammy said he was pleased with the results of the investigation but he was not a fan of Ruger collecting stolen items from the homes of employees or from other locations. Sammy yelled at Ruger that recovery of product is not how the company does things. Ruger reached out to Brandon to discuss the situation. Brandon had his own story of how Sammy had yelled at him related to case work as well. Brandon and Ruger knew that they were blazing a new path for the company. They knew that they had to stick to their guns and remain true to who they were while moving the company forward in new ways.

In talking with Brandon about the case, Brandon updated Ruger on his case in Los Angeles. Brandon had been working as an operations manager in Glendale when Sammy recruited him to come on board his new team that would consist of Sammy, Ruger and Brandon. Brandon realized that he and Ruger were a true test cases and could be released from the company at any time – no pressure to be in place with a multi-billion-dollar company.

Brandon began to describe to Ruger that the Los Angeles operation was a total train wreck. He found that third party guards and guard dogs roamed the L.A. facility. Brandon thought he was in the most hostile work environment between management and employees that he had ever seen. The previous distribution center director had been promoted to vice-president and relocated to the corporate office. Brandon began to engage the employees in an effort to build trust. He removed the guard dogs and limited the security guards to performing exterior perimeter patrols of the facility. Brandon and Ruger both hired loss prevention agents as a way to improve the safety and reduce losses.

Brandon discovered several odd practices in the distribution center almost immediately. Brandon had no one at the local level to talk to and Ruger was the only person who would give him the time of day. Brandon and Ruger were both good guys who understood Sammy’s vision and they were able to demonstrate a real value that could be added to the supply chain. They shared cases and best practices and worked well together. They also competed against each other in every area available. It was an on-going battle to see who could reduce the greatest percentage of injuries and who could close the most internal theft cases. Brandon would win some months and Ruger would win other months. They created an entirely new company matrix system but most importantly many people began to notice the positive changes that were happening in their facilities. Anyone who has every worked an investigation understands that sometimes cases start very strangely with a small inquiry and then lead to bigger things. Brandon’s started with a new coffee machine in the breakroom and led to him taking down the former distribution center director who had been promoted to vice president of distribution.

Brandon was in the breakroom one morning getting some coffee when the Human Resources Manager asked him how he liked the new machine. Keep in mind this particular HR manager was not the brightest bulb in the bunch. Brandon asked her how she made the purchase and she informed him that she paid for with the pallet money. People who have worked in the supply chain and specificially in distribution centers know that tons of pallets are used and shipped every year. Apparently in the L.A. facility sold the used pallets which is a normal and acceptable practice. Typically the sale of used pallets is a line item element that is used to off-set the purchase of additional pallets. L.A. did not follow time tested practices or procedures. L.A. would sale the pallets and place the money in the human resource manager’s office. The term “slush fund” originated in the mid-19^th century and was a nautical term used to describe the money collected to buy luxuries from the sale of water food called “slush”. Flash forward to L.A. and this was the term used to describe the handling of pallet sales. Brandon knew something was real wrong with this picture and what he was hearing so he set out to discover how much money was being generated from these sales and what the money was being used for – in addition to the new breakroom coffee machine. Brandon gave Ruger a call to share with him his discovery before he called Sammy to share the news with him. Ruger shared that in Dallas the money was collected with official receipts, the money was turned over to accounting who placed the money in an official company bank account and tracked via the company profit and loss statement. Brandon informed Ruger that he and the people in Dallas were stupid Texans and that the L.A. folks had found a better way to do things. He shared with Ruger that they simply locked money in an office and used the money to buy cool stuff. Ruger responded in his familiar Texas drawl, “whaaaaattttt”?

Brandon opened an official investigation and made more discrete inquiries concerning the process for pallet sales. The human resource manager actually had a ledger where she carefully tracked the income amounts and disbursements of this money. Most the purchases from this money were made by the former DC Director. These off the book transactions included a set of golf clubs, a trip to Vancouver, a hotel stay at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego and other business requirements. Additionally, the new DC Director has been casually expressing concerns over some of his predecessor’s general handling of business. The new guy had to be careful since he was a direct report to the former director. Brandon took the director to lunch and learned that there were some real problems with accounting practices at the facility. Distribution centers are at their heart a cost center for the company. Their purpose is to handle and transport goods while keeping costs low and minimizing losses. The director told Brandon that there was approximately $100,000 in damages that had not been recorded on the company books by the previous director. The previous director had been floating the expenses from month to month without booking it as a loss. In fact the previous director had been promoted to his new Corporate Vice President role as a direct result of his profit and loss record in L.A. The new director was unsure how to raise or report the issue to company leadership given the current reporting structure. Brandon was able to attain all of the records related to the losses from the director. Ruger received a call from Brandon one night. Brandon was whispering and sounded like he was in a metal cage. Brandon was in the filing room and had found some damaging information on the former director. The hour was late and Ruger knew that the L.A. facility was closed so he asked Brandon why he was whispering. Brandon told Ruger to shut-up and listen. The next day Brandon covered his finding with Sammy. Sammy was furious and flew to L.A. to take a look at things personally. Brandon picked Sammy up at Los Angeles International Airport and briefed him on their way to the facility. Brandon did not let others know that Sammy was in town. That night Sammy and Brandon collected more information from the company computers and files in L.A. They finished their work around three in morning and Sammy said that he would be flying back to corporate to interview the vice president. There are difficult dynamics that face loss prevention professionals in doing an interview or interrogation on a senior employee especially a vice president. If the loss prevention professional does not get the confession then he or she has accused a senior employment of a crime which could result in immediate termination of the loss prevention professional. Sammy was a former Las Vegas police office and a man of few words. Brandon had done a superb investigation and it was time to put a stop to the problems in L.A. Sammy was able to attain a full confession including financial pay backs from the guard company and guard dog companies. Turns out the former director was a board member of the guard companies and was benefitting financially by not only giving them the contracts but by allowing the companies to charge more than the fair market share for the work. Sammy also was able to get a restitution agreement so that the stolen and ill-gotten money would be returned. Brandon phoned Ruger to provide him a conclusion to the case. The case gave them an overwhelming win in the view of the employees and was a big win for Sammy’s new program. They were not able to relish in the win as there was still work to be done. Ruger’s parting words to Brandon were, “got to go, time to look at markdowns before Sammy calls.” And the adventures continued from there.