Security breach can be HR’s worst nightmare

What is going on here? This was the reaction of the president and a number of board members of a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization operating a chain of retirement and nursing homes. Phone calls had been pouring in from prominent business people and philanthropists across Canada concerned about their director of fundraising.

Preliminary inquiries revealed the unfolding of a massive fraud being perpetrated by the director, who had been contracted six months earlier to raise funds for the construction of a new retirement and nursing home project. Outside counsel was consulted and investigators were called in immediately.

The probe that followed uncovered a sophisticated scheme, whereby the director had worked in “fundraising capacities” for numerous organizations for several years, living an extravagant lifestyle out of hotels and leasing vehicles at the expense of her employers and various individuals she came into contact, and in some cases developed personal relationships, with.