Episode 56: Tracing Funds Related to Retail Theft Rings with Robyn Shaw
In this week's episode, Leah talks with Robyn Shaw about her time working with Colorado's 4th Judicial District Attorney's office as their financial analyst. Join us as we discuss Robyn's career and the kind of cases she works on at her current business.
Robyn formerly worked as a forensic accountant in Colorado’s 4th Judicial District Attorney's office located in Colorado Springs, Colorado where she worked on over 40 criminal investigations. Her 20 + years of experience in accounting includes audit and accounting services for government entities and privately held business entities in a range of industries. She has over 7 years of experience as a forensic accountant.
Robyn holds the Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and Certified Public Accountant (CPA) credentials as well as earning the Forensic Accounting Certificate from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. She is a winner of the 2015 and 2017 Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Distinguished Achievement Awards. She was also awarded the 2020 Civilian Achievement Award by the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in Colorado.
Connect with Robyn:
Company website: https://www.factsfiguresforensics.com/
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynshaw/
Email: robyn@factsfiguresforensics.com
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Transcript:
Intro (00:00):
Welcome to the investigation game podcast brought to you by Workman forensics
Leah (00:07):
As a CPA and a CFE who uses her knowledge and experience to help people. She began her forensic career in Colorado's fourth judicial district attorney's office. As a volunteer after two and a half years, they created a paid position for her as an investigative financial analyst. While there she worked closely with the attorneys in the economic crime division on cases, dealing with embezzlement contractor fraud and other financial investigations. She also assisted in the prosecution of two retail theft rings and with the financial pieces in other types of cases in 2018, she left the DA's office to open her own forensic accounting firm. Her focus today is about raising fraud awareness, educating about fraud prevention and helping small business owners that are victims of employee embezzlement. Thank you for joining me today, Robyn. Yes. So one of the things I noticed and really loved about your bio when I was putting that intro together is that you started off in the area of fraud investigation by volunteering at a district attorney's office. So will you tell me more about this? Like how were you able to volunteer with them? I mean, how did that even come about and then what did your volunteer work there? Entailed? Okay.
Robyn (01:15):
Uh, well, it's actually kind of a long process and it began back when I was in college. In my auditing class, we had a certified fraud examiner come in present and he talked about all sorts of careers related to fraud fighting and whatnot. And he mentioned forensic accounting. So I decided that's what I wanted to do. So I graduated and I worked in public accounting, but I really didn't have a lot of forensic experience and whatnot in the forensic partners told me that I needed to build up my skills. So fast forward several years, I was working in the auditor's office for the city of Colorado Springs. And I attended a presentation put on by the district attorney's office. And at the end of their presentation, they mentioned that, oh, we take volunteers. So I thought, well, that's something I want to look into. So I looked into it and, uh, I applied in, I got accepted.
Robyn (02:10):
Uh, I had been a CFE since 2011, so that was in 2012 that I started volunteering and the district attorney's office, the fourth judicial district covers two counties. And it's the largest in the state because of that. But it's got the smallest budget in the state. So they use a lot of their, uh, volunteers for tasks like siling or putting bank information into spreadsheets and whatnot. So I started by doing that, but because I was a CFE, I was able to do some analysis and answer some questions that the attorneys had, which before, you know, a lot of the volunteers were helpful, but they won't see a fee. So they didn't know what they're looking for. So it kind of worked into a bigger position because of that. I was able to help answer questions and actually the case we'll discuss later on, I was a volunteer at the time, um, because I had started with the office and the attorney recognized that, Hey, uh, there's some skills that you can help with this case. So that's kind of how that, that worked out.
Leah (03:16):
That's awesome. Yeah. I, um, so my staff and I volunteer with the Tulsa police department, they have a financial crimes unit and people are normally surprised that there's volunteer opportunities at the state level, but they're definitely, I mean, you have experience with that. I have experienced with that. Uh, the area that I haven't, um, I had kind of looked into volunteering, but the federal level is a little different that they don't really have volunteer opportunities there, but I, I think it's a great way to just get to, you know, my, when I first started volunteering for T uh, Tulsa police department, I just wanted, I mean, I was working my own cases, but I wanted to see more. I knew if I could see more cases than I could get more efficient. And so, you know, they, they were more than happy to have my help. So, and now the only cases we do pro bono are those that come through law enforcement, um, just for lots of reasons. But anyway, plus I, I think they get, you know, a lot of interesting, interesting cases that we wouldn't necessarily get to work when we have to charge a fee. So I think it makes it a little more diverse, especially the case we're going to talk about. Yes. Okay. But
Leah (04:26):
Before we get, and to that, how did the volunteer work ultimately turn into a job?
Robyn (04:31):
Well, um, I've been there for two and a half years and, you know, I was working full time, but at the same time, so basically I worked at the auditor's office and then took my lunch and went over to the DA's office. Cause they're both in downtown, Colorado Springs and a big case had come along. It was, uh, another embezzlement case. Um, and they asked me, can you volunteer more? I said, I'm sorry. I can't, I'm only one person I need to eat and sleep and stuff like that. Right. Yeah. So, uh, they looked into their, uh, their budget and they did some, uh, moving stuff around. So they made me a investigative financial analyst. So they offered me the position and I was like, well, yes, I want to do this. Um, I like auditing, but I like this more. So, so I went over and did that because of it. Um, it was a high profile case and they really, they needed it to move forward a lot faster. It did take a long time to investigate, but that was because most of the time I was a volunteer, but that's how it was full time. We moved it along.
Leah (05:38):
Yeah. Awesome. So you had worked in public accounting prior to this and then the auditor's office. Um, and so what area did you work in at, uh, in public accounting?
Robyn (05:50):
Um, well in public accounting, I did a little in taxes and that's why I learned that I do not like taxes. It was a hard thing. Um, a customer through their tax return at me. And it wasn't just a little 10 40 easy. It was a big file. So I was like, no, it's not that they owed money. Firstly, it was a misunderstanding. They hadn't communicated everything they should have and it worked out in the end, but still I was like, I don't want to be in that position. So I went into auditing. Um, I really enjoyed the investigation, but I really struggled with the issues that re regular auditors have scope in materiality, which is I wanted to go down that rabbit hole and figure out why this happened, or I want you to know why somebody is doing it, not just fix the problem after, but identify the problem so you can fix,
Leah (06:46):
Yes, I have stroke with the same. I did some work for our state auditor's office, uh, because I wanted some audit experience cause I had tax experience, but nobody ever threw their tax return at me. So I hung in there for several years in tax. But uh, yeah, in working for the state auditor's office, I did, I, I, it took me a little while and I, I hope auditor's listening to this. Don't get upset with my, but this is how it ha how I had to think about audits so that I wouldn't do that. I had to think about it as a teacher grading a paper, instead of someone like a mentor, helping someone, you know, uh, and that was really difficult for me. So I did that in addition to working in forensics for about nine months and said, I'm done, I get it.
Leah (07:34):
I get it. Um, so having worked in this field with law enforcement is a really different perspective for like a lot of the fraud investigators we've had on the show. And I feel like that's something that you and I both have in common cause I've worked with law enforcement and then also from the private sector. So I'd like to talk about that a little bit. Um, what are some things that you feel like you learned by working with law enforcement that you maybe wouldn't have learned like from, you know, PRI private sector? Do you know?
Robyn (08:03):
Um, a lot of the, uh, investigation skills that go beyond what an auditor does. Um, a lot of interviewing skills. I got to watch other interviews while in the office. And so that was fascinating. They weren't always related to my cases, but, um, I enjoy that. Uh, I enjoyed learning about the, the process of how something moves through the investigation at the police department or the Sheriff's office and then how it goes through the district attorney's and then how they prosecuted and how I pose on, um, through like, uh, the court system after that. Um, there was, yeah, there was a lot of that interesting people and mostly it was, it was hard dealing with all the skeptics. Everybody tries to maintain a positive outlook on, but it's hard sometimes you don't want to always think the worst of people, but I like to still think the best of people, even though some of the people I worked with didn't
Leah (09:07):
Yeah. I mean, it is hard because it's like a hundred percent of your sample of the population is doing stuff they shouldn't be doing. So I think that's, it's, it's difficult. I definitely saw that in my experience as well. It was, it was definitely difficult to maintain a positive attitude or like, I don't know. I would kind of wonder, does anybody do this right? Does anybody care about like being a decent human being? Um, and you mentioned that about watching interviews, I've done that at the police department and yeah, it's usually not about financial crime stuff, you know, but I would just see these interviews going on and I just have to say, I am always amazed or when I was there, I was always amazed by just how comfortable the police officers were talking to people who may not even be in the right minds or are high on something or something really traumatic had just happened, you know? And they're having to, like, I don't know the interviews I watched and they're all recorded at Tulsa at TPD. And so the ones that I watched, it was just really amazing to see, they know this terrible thing this person did, but like they treated them with such dignity. I just, um, that was pretty amazing. I know that that maybe not everybody's experience, but I just remember thinking in the interviews like, wow, that just takes a lot of patience and to sit there and go round and round with them.
Robyn (10:33):
They're very good at what they do.
Leah (10:35):
Yes. Very and, uh, you know, and like kind of being in that detective, uh, office space, um, a lot of them have done a lot of interview training and getting to watch them, which we don't do that a lot in, in our practice.
Robyn (10:51):
Exactly. Yeah.
Leah (10:51):
We are looking at the numbers. I don't know about you.
Leah (10:56):
Right, right. So, um, what are you, what do you think are some things that maybe law enforcement could learn from forensic accounting or fraud investigation professionals that might help make their investigations simpler or more efficient, maybe more enjoyable?
Robyn (11:12):
I think it would be helpful for them to have access to certain tools to make their lives easier because they're very good at what they do, but they're usually generalists where they, they do every kind of case, even if they do just financial crimes. Sometimes they get pulled off on other cases, but by having a tool to like go through the bank statements to OCR, optical character, recognize them the data to put it into a spreadsheet so they can analyze it a lot faster would help them. So maybe the case wouldn't sit so long on the desk where they, I don't want to touch that. You know, it's huge, but having a tool would help them get, get through it faster, help it move along in the courses.
Leah (11:56):
Yeah, for sure. Is there a particular tool you use to do that, to OCR that you'll talk about if it's proprietary, that's fine. I'll share ours.
Robyn (12:04):
Um, I use Omni page and bank scan. Okay. Um, I discovered bank scan back at, uh, when I was at the DA's office, I went to one of the fraud conferences and I learned about all the other companies that offer software like that. And I had done some research in, we weren't really able to afford that. So I found another alternative and that was bank scanned. They still weren't able to afford it, but now there's my own own firm owner. I can use banks again and I love it.
Leah (12:36):
That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I know that, um, bank scan does work a lot with law enforcement. Um, I know we use it at the state. Uh, I don't know about Tulsa police, but um, and then in our, in, at Workman forensics we use money thumb, and I really like money though, but okay. So question for you. This was not prepared, so I apologize in advance, but for your check pays, have you found anything that helps make that more efficient entering check pay use, or do you still have to do that by hand or have somebody do that by hand?
Robyn (13:08):
Well, bank scan has the derivative called file scan. I haven't used it yet, but it's something similar to be able to identify the pays on the checks. I don't know how well that works, especially with some of the handwriting I've seen. Right. That's our problem. The only thing I've ever found that was really lucky and by accident. Um, well actually that wasn't in there either. I was thinking of the debt files from Wells Fargo. Those are pretty awesome, but those don't include checks either. So actually the answer would be minimal. I don't, I don't have anything other than trying to, to read them yourself. And sometimes that's difficult when you have somebody that has really bad handwriting for you have really poor quality images.
Leah (13:54):
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. We had a case a couple of years ago and the, it was a elder exploitation and the lady was in her nineties. She was like 95 years old and she still hand wrote all of her checks. And so I remember my team, we had several people entering her different accounts and they're like, we can't read these, but our data processing specialist, who's been with me about five years. She could interpret them. So bless her heart. She was tasked with entering all those payees. Um, but I remember those were like really difficult, but I'm, I'm still on the lookout. So if anybody listening knows of anything that will help read, especially, I mean, even just, um, like printed checks, I mean, I'll take the hand. Okay. Fine handwriting. One's fine. But like something that'll read those handwritten, I mean the printed checks that would just save a lot of time, but maybe I'll have to look into that.
Robyn (14:48):
Cause they offer remote deposit. Now a lot of banks, somehow they're doing it where they can at least figure it out the amount when it's typed in and sometimes handwritten stuff. I don't know. There's something out there that has to be, I would love to know too.
Leah (15:03):
I found a software a few years ago that claimed that they could do that. But then whenever I started asking for pricing, it was like $150,000.
Leah (15:14):
Yeah. It's like, um, I don't think so. Thanks.
Leah (15:25):
But, um, are there any other tools or techniques or resources that you use that you think are helpful in your investigations?
Robyn (15:34):
Nothing comes, nothing comes to mind.
Leah (15:37):
Do you do a lot of your work in Excel?
Robyn (15:39):
I do.
Leah (15:40):
Yeah. That's the go-to.
Robyn (15:42):
I know that that was because of my experience in the DA's office. I did everything by hand. Well, sometimes I was lucky I could get the software to OCR it correctly, but most times it was faster just to hand enter it and then put checks and balances in to make sure I did it right.
Leah (16:01):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Excel is very low cost.
Robyn (16:06):
I would live in Excel if I could.
Leah (16:09):
Right. Right. So with your experience, do people ask you the question? You know, cause I get this a lot from clients, but do they ask you like, why are white collar cases not prosecuted or a high priority? So, and if they do, what do you tell them?
Robyn (16:25):
So I would start by just telling them that, uh, white collar crimes are never considered a low priority. Sometimes these cases are difficult to prosecute because they involve a high volume information and it takes time to go through them. It's not like a two week, you know, go through and you're done. Sometimes they involve complex accounting and business concepts that are difficult to understand. So the detectives might take a little longer to understand it. Uh, also an office, either a police department, the Sheriff's office or a district attorney's office, they only have so many resources and they have to allocate them on the cases that make the biggest impact. Now, not, not meaning that it's biggest dollar amount, but biggest impact. So you might have a contractor fraud case that there's, you know, 15 different victims and each one of them lost only a thousand dollars. So really it's only a $15,000 case, but there's a lot of victims. So this makes a really big impact to prosecute a case like this, you know? And it could be, you know, when one case where there's, you know, high dollar amount and those are nice too, they'd like to prosecute those, but they do what they can with what they have. And I have to tell people that, you know, I will do my best with what's provided.
Leah (17:47):
Yeah. It's in experience as well. I love how you word that, that it's not that it's not a priority or, but you're right. Just all of the time delays and uh, in what you explained and um, yeah, totally, totally get it. So what about the clients who, um, whenever they discover that employees sealing from them and they just want them arrested and put in jail, what do you tell them?
Robyn (18:21):
Well, I have to say that not everybody wants to put them in jail, which is surprising to me cause that's my first reaction, like suddenly to jail, some religious organizations or charities just want their money back. And so they feel that if you put them in jail, they're not going to pay me. And that's not really how it works. And as far as, you know, arresting them and putting them in jail again, like I said, it's a long process to get through the case. But, uh, a criminal case is a little different than civil because they have a different standard. They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. So they have to make sure all the ducks are in the room for your case before they can send them to the jail. And the other complication is that a judge's job is to make the victim whole again.
Robyn (19:10):
And so my seeing, seeing that, making them whole again, would make their, make them have their money back. That's what the issue is. So they feel that sending them to jail well, the defendant can't pay you your money back. So they hesitate to put them in jail because of that. Now both you and I know that rarely does the defendant have the money to pay the victim back. So that that's a hard thing for the victim to wrap their head around. I do tell them that, you know, you can help your case by providing the information in an organized format. You know, that that helps save time. So they detect it. Doesn't have to go through the, the huge box of whatever and try to find whatever you can pull out key items and maybe offer a timeline of the case. What happened that will help them, uh, understand it and be able to work your cases.
Leah (20:05):
Yeah. And I'm sure that that's where you come into play and create so much value is helping put that together. And especially since you know, what law enforcement is looking for, I know that's been valuable for us to, uh, or for our clients. Yeah. Um, you know, it's funny, I, because of this dilemma you want the victims want the person who's stolen to pay and who's stolen from them to pay. And then the, but then at the same time, if you put them in jail, they can't make money to pay it back. And the whole restitution thing, you know, are you going to get like pennies for the rest of their lives or whatever. And, um, so there's a local nonprofit in Tulsa that is actually for substance abuse. And so for men, but they work to like to work through their, um, addiction and substance abuse issues.
Leah (20:55):
And the court will actually sentence them to this if they choose if they, but they have to self admit, but still, you know, that way they're not going to prison for substance abuse. Anyway, it's been really helpful. I used to serve on their board. And, uh, so it, it did, I remember a few years ago when I was still serving on the board, I thought, I wonder if there's a way that we could like harness this idea for white collar criminals, you know, for those embezzlers where maybe they can serve their sentence by also working and then the, you know, for this non-profit and then the proceeds can go back to the victims. Haven't made it very far on that idea, but that's something, you know, just throw that out there now, do I think that they would choose to go work instead of going to jail as their sentence? I don't know, but, um, anyway, maybe for like a reduced sentence or something, because you know, at the end of the day, I don't know. I think if you're right, do the victims want them to have a criminal record or they want their money back? I don't know. So anyway, I think there's a solution out there for this. I just haven't really put a whole lot of time to that idea, but all right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right
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Leah (23:48):
Welcome back to my interview with Robyn Shaw, Robyn in preparing for this episode, you mentioned that you worked a large case for the DA's office, uh, that involved a lot of tracing. So first do you want to, uh, well, I want to hear the story. I want you to share the story, but also maybe just for people who have never had to trace a bunch of money, he just kind of want to explain what that concept is.
Robyn (24:10):
Sure. Um, well this case happened early on in my career at the district attorney's office. It was 2005 through 2000 13th of June or something like that. Um, it was a retail theft ring and the case was called just computers. And, uh, let's see, it was the first of its kind in Colorado. We hadn't really dealt with anything that big or a process like this. So it involved five defendants. And, um, they actually had to break up the trials because our part room wasn't big enough for all five defendants in literature, hazing, all the people, you know, so, um, the trials actually happened. Three of the defendants went to trial in December of 13 and the other two were in January 14 just to get an idea of that timeframe. So just computers was a repair store, uh, that repaired computers, but it wasn't really, yeah, that was their, their sign.
Robyn (25:09):
And that was what they supposedly did, but what it actually was, was offense or they bought stolen property and that sold it. So drug addicts or those needing cash would steal things from stores in the area, some of the big box stores or stores that didn't have very good security. So these people are called boosters. So the boosters would take the stolen items to just computers, or they would return the stolen items to the stores, um, and get gift cards because stores were not giving out cash at that time without a receipt. So then the boosters would take these gift cards to just computers as well. So just computers would buy all these items for cash and then they would listen on eBay and then they would take the sale proceeds from those items and it to their PayPal account and from PayPal. And then we transferred the money to their bank account and then they would go to the ATM's withdraw the cash and the process would go around and wrap.
Robyn (26:12):
So when they issued a search warrant for the stores, that was kind of interesting, the store and the homes, they found them stuffed with all these stolen items and gift cards, and then shipping labels. Uh, one of the defendants actually had been living in the store for some reason, I guess, to keep an eye on everything, but they were being so successful that they hadn't already put everything. They had so much stuff that came out of their safe. We actually donated a semi-trailer tractor, uh, to hold everything, oh my God, the attorney said to develop a color coding system to keep track of where everything came from, because it was key in, you know, chain of custody and keeping track of, you know, where it came from and who, who it went to. They ended up, uh, having to have many accounts, PayPal accounts, because there were so many defendants and so much activity.
Robyn (27:05):
They couldn't just have one guy doing everything. Um, so I, I tried and I have to jump around, but as I dive into it now, uh, the records, what, uh, not me involved in my, my small part of the case, uh, was the tracing like, like you said earlier, they detectives and all that, they did a lot of hard work and they did investigative interviews and all that good stuff, but I took the records and then I trace things through. So the records involved, you know, bank records, PayPal records, E-bay records, plastic jungle records, which is a online card sales service. Uh, it involves ups labels, us postal, service labels, and cellphone text messages, which are tons of them. So, oh, there were probably about 40,000 lines of data that I had to go through in those records. So taking the bank records and identifying actually the bank records would be the end.
Robyn (28:09):
So starting with the eBay records, I was able to identify the items from the stores through, uh, ID numbers and tags and stuff. And then from E-bay E-bay would assign a tracking number to it. And if the item was sold, it would also have a ship to address and the name and such. So I was able to trace the labels, either the ups or the USBs labels to the items on eBay. So it originated from just computers and it was sold on eBay. So the ID number in eBay would go to PayPal and then I could see the funds and the PayPal. So it tied those two. Now tying PayPal directly to the bank was a little more tricky, but because I could see that say there were $10,000 in PayPal sales and they transferred at 9,500. I was pretty sure that that was the sole offense because there weren't any legitimate sounds going through there.
Robyn (29:09):
Right. And then just that seeing the bank records, seeing the money from the call come in and seeing the ATM withdrawals come out, no assisted with this is we had a undercover agent operative, whatever you call him. Um, he had some items that were donated to him by a couple of the stores and they had serial numbers and he actually sold them for cash to these guys. And so then I traced that, that item, those items through. So I, the shipping label and I saw where it went and I saw it being listed to eBay and sold. And then I saw the phones and it went around. And so it was very helpful to the attorney to be able to prove, you know, what was going on. So these defendants were charged with various things from money laundering to theft, to, uh, criminal or computer crimes.
Robyn (30:07):
And then the overall Coca statute, which is similar to the Rico statute, uh, the national, uh, racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act, but it only for Colorado. So they had to meet several of these little charges to meet the big charge. Two of the five defendants actually appealed their convictions under Koka, um, which is the Colorado version of Rico, which is the racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act. So they brought him before the Colorado court of appeals. And the defendant said that the people fail to establish their design element in money laundering. So, uh, they used the court of appeals, use my testimony to show that there was Mon money laundering, the tracing of the funds and how it went through the process.
Leah (30:58):
Okay. So, um, I, I'm always curious how these cases like come to light. How was it discovered that this just computers business was offense and you know, all of that, like, do you know if retailers reported like that they had had significant theft or how, how did it,
Robyn (31:19):
Well, it was initially discovered, um, in an unrelated arrest, um, somebody was arrested and they sang like a Canary or whatever. And they mentioned that, you know, they would sell it. I think it was a drug case. They would sell stuff to this, just computers to get cash, to go buy drugs. And so they heard that, so it kind of put their, their radar up. And then they heard a couple more people once they were arrested, talk about this. So they thought we should look into it. So they began looking into it and they realized that, oh, these stolen items are going here. So then they approached the retail establishment. So like a home Depot didn't know that Safeway was suffering the same problem or what other big store. And so then they all got together and then they formed the, uh, uh, division actually investigated. And so they moved forward from there.
Leah (32:13):
Interesting. Yeah. We've had several of these come through Tulsa, uh, within the last few years. And I know there's an organization for retail investigate, um, yeah. For retail investigators, like loss prevention, uh, professionals within like, you know, the best buy and, or, uh, grocery stores or whatever, um, or large gas station chains and things like that. So, um, so what was the, do ha were you able to put together a total dollar amount of what was stolen, um, or the amount that you traced?
Robyn (32:46):
Yeah, it was hard to pinpoint an exact amount on one thing because the funds were flowing in such a circle, but I know that the E-bay sales for one of the defendants was, you know, just over 38,000 and then the other one, um, would have been 608,000. I keep in mind, this was, uh, 2009 through 2013, because we can only get records going back so far. Uh, the gift cards total about $394,000. And those were so sold on E-bay and plastic jungle.
Leah (33:19):
Wow.
Leah (33:21):
So over a million dollars.
Robyn (33:24):
Yeah. And literally it was just, it was going round and round and these guys would just live off the proceeds, but it was funny how he got reinvested so much. Yeah, exactly. Written message. I mean, I would love to have a total of, you know, what did, uh, store X lose? I mean, I'm sure they have totals, but they wouldn't be able to say it. This is the total that went to just computers. So I think it would be really hard to quantify, but it was definitely upwards of a million.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And were these guys, you know, you said that they reinvested a lot of the proceeds, which will just, I like that term. I think it's funny. Um, so like they were putting the money back in, were they living any kind of extravagant lifestyle or they were they really just running? I mean, just really putting the money back in and then just living basically. I mean, you said an employee was living in the store or one of the guys was,
Robyn (34:26):
Yeah. Uh, one was one, two of the defendants were father and son. So they just live their lives, you know, not extravagant. I mean, they didn't drive fancy cars or anything. They just, this was their business. They had to be there probably 24 7. So somebody had to live there because somebody would come to the back door and that's where the sales would happen, you know? Cause they wouldn't come to the front door and all that.
Leah (34:52):
Interesting. So did the two defendants that appealed their cases? Did they succeed?
Robyn (34:58):
Nope. The convictions were upheld.
Leah (35:01):
That's awesome.
Robyn (35:02):
It was awesome. Uh, because they, they prove money laundering using this tracing method and how I helped them explain that. So they, they actually said in the transcript that they, they found my testimony helpful. So that was good. I'm glad it made a difference.
Leah (35:20):
Yeah. So you did testify on this case.
Robyn (35:23):
I did.
Leah (35:24):
Did all Five defendants go to trial or just a few
Robyn (35:27):
We had three and one and two and the others. So it was two trials. It was like repeat. Yeah. I think that was good. Yeah.
Leah (35:36):
That's interesting because in a lot of our cases are cases that have traced, oh, I guess I just haven't traced anything that had to do with, uh, like inventory items like that. So that's really interesting, like the way that you trace the shipping label to E-bay to PayPal and, and connected all of those dots.
Robyn (35:55):
Cool. There was, yeah, there was another case that I had worked on. It was the second retail theft bring, but this one involves cell phones. These people would drive up and down. I 25, which is the mean interstate between Denver and Colorado Springs. And they would hit cell phone stores along the interstate, steal them. And then they would tell one eBay and PayPal. So it was a similar process of tracing everything through. But cell phones have a, I N E I number that's unique to the phone and these fraudsters, if you will, when they would list the money, they listed the last six digits of that number. And so I was like, awesome. I can trace this through. It's great. Yes. So
Leah (36:39):
Good. Yeah. Cause connecting those dots for, um, you know, uh, law enforcement and a da to prosecute beyond a reasonable doubt. I mean, you have to have those items to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, uh, you know, it
Robyn (36:55):
Makes it easy for the jury then understand. Yeah.
Leah (36:58):
Because I actually was doing, uh, another, like I was interviewed on a podcast just yesterday and we were talking about how accountants who and auditors, who haven't really had much experience with law enforcement. A lot of times they're very interested in what the general ledger says and what these accounting entries say, but you have to trace it to cash, like show how this individual benefited. And so essentially what you did was, I mean, on a very detailed level, this is how we know that these weren't legitimate sales. And um, so I think that's really important. And I, I, to me, that is the definition of tracing is that you're going to take one item and connect all of these dots, showing how the benefit didn't go to the person who actually owned the product or own the business.
Robyn (37:47):
Well, in addition to that, you have to have the couple items that the attorney or whoever can use to prove it all went all the way through, but then you have to be able to summarize everything that went through. So that's
Leah (37:59):
True. And then for money laundering, you have to have specific item tracing usually as well. Right? Yeah. So very, very interesting, great case. So glad you shared it with us. Um, so I really appreciate your time chatting with me today. And if any of our listeners want to connect with you or learn more about your work, what is the best way for them to do?
Robyn (38:21):
Send me an email? I will answer you.
Leah (38:23):
Awesome. Okay. Well, we'll make sure to put that in the show notes so they can connect with you and you're on LinkedIn. I think I've seen quite a bit of yeah,
Robyn (38:32):
I am. I'm very active on LinkedIn.
Leah (38:35):
Yeah. So make sure to follow Robyn on LinkedIn and that's R O B Y N. I love the way you spell that Robyn Shaw. And uh, so anyway, yeah, this was just so, so great. Thanks for sharing with us and look forward to talking to you again soon.
Robyn (38:50):
Thank you for having me. It was definitely pleasure.
Outro (38:56):
Thank you for listening to the investigation game. For more information on any of the topics brought up on this show, visit Workman forensics.com. If you enjoyed our show, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. You can also connect with us on any social media platform by searching the Workman forensics. If you have any questions or topic ideas, please email us@podcastatworkmanforensics.com. Thank you.