FWIW, I am a Certified Public Accountant and have taken dozens of continuing professional education courses on fraud as well as assisted on several engagements concerning fraud.
There are many ways to perpetrate fraud, so it is only pure speculation at this point as to how AM was able to embezzle millions of dollars from his firm. The exact method depends on what internal controls had to be circumvented (if any) in order to perpetrate the fraud and what role the family played in the internal accounting of the firm. I have seen firsthand cases where small practices entrust an owning member of their practice with accounting responsibilities, even though they have no accounting background, in order to avoid having to pay an outside accounting firm for accounting services other than payroll processing and annual tax return preparation.
If AM or another family member were in charge of the day-to-day accounting responsibilities with little to no oversight, it would be easy for him to circumvent controls and take millions over the course of months or years (most likely) without anyone being the wiser. Methods of fraud in these circumstance may include writing out checks to false vendors or straight to himself, if so bold; opening up a secret bank account in the firm’s name, directly depositing funds or transferring funds from the firm’s main business account to that account, and drawing on those funds for personal use; or misusing a firm-issued purchasing (or credit) card.
I really hope that the forensic accountants’ report will be made public so that we can eventually learn what happened, though I suspect that it will remain private. In many cases, fraud like this ends up being resolved outside of the criminal courts because small practices want to avoid the public scandal. Of course, this is already a public scandal, so…
All MOO.