Cash Discrepancies: Identifying the Offender Through Detectives | Court-Admissible Proof of Guilt

In the federal state of Bremen, the proportion of theft offences within overall crime stood at 47.85 per cent in 2014 (City of Bremen 47.8 per cent; Bremerhaven 47.9 per cent). A not insignificant share of these offences consists of thefts committed to the detriment of companies – by external perpetrators or by employees themselves – as our investigators at Kurtz Commercial Detective Agency Bremen can attest.

Across all industries, theft within businesses has reached unprecedented levels – ranging from minor items such as office stationery, through software and company data, to all kinds of goods in the retail sector. And last but not least: cash – true to the motto, “Cash is king.”

Employees Show Little Respect for Their Employer’s Property

It is bad enough when one of your employees steals property or cash from colleagues. For an entrepreneur, it is far worse when an employee deceives or steals from the company itself. Particularly in the retail sector, the risk of cash disappearing is high. There are plenty of opportunities, and the perpetrator knows exactly how to enrich themselves unlawfully.

Take the checkout area as an example, as it offers offenders almost limitless opportunities. In cooperation with an external accomplice, a cashier may deliberately “overlook” items when scanning goods in order to later share the stolen merchandise and the resulting profit with the helper. Or individual items are not scanned at all because the customer has the exact amount in cash and is in a hurry to leave. In such cases, surveillance or the setting of traps by our detectives in Bremen can be highly effective. Time and again, we have been able to identify offenders in this way and provide business owners with court-admissible evidence.

Creativity in the Choice of Methods

One of the most frequent offences involves irregularities linked to cash discrepancies. In most companies, cashiers are not required to make up any discrepancies from their own pockets; instead, management bears the loss. As a rule, companies write off the discrepancy as a loss during stocktaking, which reduces the tax burden. Nevertheless, inventory losses still weigh on the company’s balance sheet, and cash thefts represent a direct hit to the employer’s or colleagues’ wallets – who may consequently miss out on pay rises or even lose their jobs due to necessary staff reductions.

Proving cash discrepancies as theft is not always straightforward – certainly not without the assistance of our Bremen commercial detectives. Perpetrators are highly inventive: some remove small, inconspicuous amounts daily, others larger sums at irregular intervals. Some frequently void items that customers allegedly no longer wanted or could not pay for; others process returns of goods they claim to be putting back into stock “for the sake of order”. Not to be overlooked are those offenders who “unfortunately” keep making mistakes when operating the till or who “accidentally” give out too much change. Tracking down such offenders can, depending on the circumstances, be time-consuming and costly, as surveillance may need to be carried out over an extended period with rotating operatives, unless the disloyal employee is caught early on. In persistent cases, the infiltration of a detective may also be considered.

If you are experiencing unusually frequent cash discrepancies that are accumulating to a worrying extent, contact the investigators at our detective agency in Bremen and obtain non-binding advice on a case-specific course of action: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-bremen.de.