Forensic and Fraud Investigations PLLC

Social engineering has been named the top fraud genre of 2025, consistently ranking as the most prevalent and damaging form of fraud. Staying informed about the latest scam tactics is essential to protecting yourself.

Visit our Fraud in the News page for insights other emerging fraud issues.

https://forensicandfraud.com/social-engineering-top-fraud-genre-of-2025/

“Our future role will involve more collaboration with organizational leadership to predict and mitigate risks before they result in losses,” Marasco said. “We’ll also see a greater emphasis on proactive fraud prevention and internal control design, making forensic skills valuable outside of traditional investigative scenarios.”

Forensic accounting demand surges with AI, fraud risks The global forensic accounting market is set to hit $42.6B by 2033, fueled by fraud risks, AI adoption, digital finance, and growing corporate oversight.

Ponzi Schemes

A Ponzi scheme is an illegal business practice where new investors’ money is paid to and described as income to earlier investors, but is actually a distribution of capital. A basic investment scam raises money and disappears but the Ponzi scheme stays in business by circulating investor funds with little or no legitimate investments.

Our forensic accountants “follow the money.” We reconstruct the scheme tracing the movement of funds into and out of bank accounts preparing cash flow analyses to identify the sources and use of funds to help in the recovery. We identify and investigate related parties and companies, including possible shell companies.

Ponzi schemes are the oldest and most common type of investment fraud, because they can take any shape and be run by anyone.

Divorce and Family Law

Seldom do both spouses have equal knowledge of marital finances and many times the money spouse capitalizes on this advantage by planning a divorce by having time to hide money or dissipate assets to achieve a more favorable settlement. This can be accomplished in many ways, including the use of a closely-held business.

Closely-held businesses frequently pay for family or personal expenses and can employ schemes using a controlled vendor, ghost employee or other ways to disguise the profitability and proper valuation of the business.

Common red flags of marital fraud include:

• Secretive about finances and controlling with money

• Income declines with onset of marital difficulties but expenses do not

• Multiple entity business investments and related party transactions

• Refusal to produce certain documents, falsely dated documents and/or deleted files

• Intentional confusion about money trails