Stealing Business
Employee theft comes in many different forms. About five years ago, we were hired by a local business owner regarding the theft of his clientele. The man owned a recruiting company that filled federal government contracts. He had several employees working for him who handled most of the contract negotiation and assignments.
However, a couple of weeks prior, two of these employees quit suddenly, without giving any notice or explanation. It was then that he realized that many of his long-term contracts that these two employees oversaw, had recently terminated their relationship with his agency. This made him very suspicious, so he asked for our help.
We performed a digital forensic examination on the two company workstation computers the employees used when at the client’s office. The evidence we obtained from these machines indicated that one of the employees had used his computer to set up his own government contract agency online. The digital evidence trail showed that the two men had since been luring the client’s business over to their own company. This went on undetected for many months, so the client’s losses were now in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Our investigator also determined that the two men had downloaded a copy of the client’s confidential customer list before they left, so the scheme was likely continuing off site. We referred the client to a business attorney to prepare a cease-and-desist letter and a lawsuit against the two men.