“How did they contact you?”
“Someone made a massive deposit into my personal account. Then they sent a follow-up email threatening to report me and that I would go to jail for embezzlement. I tried to track its source and return it, but I couldn’t figure out who.”
“Don’t you know any forensic accountants?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to bring anyone else in the firm into it.”
Now that she’s begun to tell me what happened, it surprises me how easily she lets the story flow. She’s not hesitant like she was before. She’s pulling her walls down and allowing me in. I feel even more motivated than ever to protect her because she’s finally showing me she trusts me completely. I don’t want to do anything to ruin that. It means more to me than I expected it would.
I need my brother to dig back further into the bank records. I suspect this has been an issue for far longer than he and I thought.
“When did this start,chiquita?”
“Two and a half years ago.”
I can’t believe how much rage bubbles inside me. To say I’m pissed someone’s been coercing her that long is a massive understatement.
“What did your father have to say about it?”
“I hinted at it, but he always blew it off. I even flat out told him, and he suggested I give him the money.”
“From what I can see, you didn’t. That’s probably one of the best decisions you could make.”
“I know. I hate saying I don’t trust my father implicitly, but I don’t. They knew I spoke to my father about it. I’m convinced someone’s secretly listening to my conversations. Their emailsmention things they shouldn’t know unless they heard me say them.”
“Is that how the information about my deal leaked, and you knew about this all along?”
“No. I searched and found the cameras and microphones about two months into this. I was careful to make sure the cameras never saw me get close enough to record me inspecting my office and the conference room. I’d position people with their backs to the cameras and put things in place to muffle the microphones when certain clients came to the office. You were one of them. The camera and microphone my father installed in the conference room remained on. I couldn’t shut that off.”
She grimaces and swallows as she crosses her arms. It’s an unconscious reaction to protect herself. It’s our instinct to guard our vital organs when we feel unsafe. She looks away from me as she begins again but soon meets my gaze.
“That leak came internally, and I believe it was my father’s assistant. I’m uncertain yet. Everything points to her, but I never found definitive evidence. I don’t know if she did it at my father’s request or independently.”
“What sorts of things have they said in their emails?”
She grimaces again and shivers. I step closer and wrap my arms around her. She tucks her head and burrows her face against my upper chest as she continues her story.
“Mostly they’ve stuck with business threats of interfering with the various contracts. They’ve laundered money through my accounts many times, like you said, making it appear as though I purchased goods or services from businesses. I received nothing in exchange. They controlled me by showing me they were one step away from lodging professional ethics claims against me or reaching out to law enforcement. They’ve been doing this the entire two and a half years.”
“How frequently does this happen?”
“Something usually comes in once every couple of months. The longest they’ve gone without intimidating me is four and a half months.”
“Do you have any suspicions about who it is? You said it was a syndicate out of Paris that contacted you, but you really think it might be one based in the U.S.? Could it be the Kutsenkos? How do you know they’re supposedly based in Paris?”
“It’s a Parisian banking number. It goes back to a lesser-known bank.”
“Do you believe they’re also laundering money through that account?”
“Yes. I suspect it’s passing through several stages before it arrives at its final destination.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not a forensic accountant, so I could be missing something obvious. I’m inferring all of this. It’s the amounts that come in. When it’s supposed to look like dividends, it’s random amounts. They’ll let it sit for a few weeks, then it’ll disappear in a series of small transactions. It’s as though I’m paying for normal day-to-day items. The deductions appear like clothing stores, the grocery store near my apartment, a cell phone bill. It could be a cleaning service or handyman. They mask them by using actual businesses’ names. It’s originating somewhere, then it’s passing through the Parisian accounts to ones in Switzerland. From there, they’ve made it look like I’m drawing money from my investments. It goes out through those fake purchases. It has to make it to them after at least that stage.”
She shakes her head but shrugs at the same time. “I truly don’t know. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past anyone, but I don’t have a short list of suspects. I know there are syndicates that exist that I couldn’t even imagine.”
“What makes you think they’re American?”
