Aside from a few exceptions the North Idaho’s economy is based on hundreds of Small Businesses. We have had the opportunity over the years to work with many in Kootenai County and elsewhere. A majority of our cases involved some type of employee theft. The creativity and brain power put into employee theft makes one wonder about how successful the perpetrators would be if they had put that effort into their duties. Over the last year there have been two high profile cases carried in the Papers that involved employees stealing directly from the till, or never letting the cash get to the till in the first place. When all was said and done the thefts involved thousands of dollars over months of time and involved multiple employees. The establishments that were gypped were all cash and carry types that make this particular type of theft relatively easy to carry out. Our clients tell us that they cannot watch every employee all the time. They are right, yet in the above cases a few simple steps would have gone a long way in deterring the thefts. A simple deterrent for the situation could be a simple inexpensive surveillance system.

Resources stolen from business’s include time, materials, inventory, and cash. Businesses that are relatively new or that are experiencing fast growth are the most vulnerable. Next month we will continue to talk about theft and give some more details on methods and common scams. The bingo man is a perfect example of a case which involves theft of time and resources.

BINGO MAN

One of our clients had an outside sales rep that just could not be effectively reached in the afternoons. Not only that but the sales generated by the Reps afternoon calling were very weak. It was almost like this person would disappear into an abyss after lunch. Now this rep was making a hefty salary plus commission along with company furnished car. We were contracted to find out what was really happening with this person in the afternoon.

What we did was place surveillance on this individual in the afternoons for a period stretching over a month. The first afternoon was basically a bust. We tried following with one agent. Traffic would just not co-operate. There are times when no matter how good you are you cannot follow someone by car and not loose them. The high traffic activity surrounding both store locations made things extremely difficult. The next afternoon we put two cars on our sales rep. We started following him from a store location in Spokane in the early afternoon. He made one stop at a customer for ten minutes and was on the road again. He returned back to the shop for a brief period and then left again. This time was different, earlier the Reps driving was slow and methodical, this time our subject was driving with a purpose which taxed our resources. We followed from Sprague onto I-90. Then off a valley exit to a location several blocks off the freeway. The sales rep parked in the parking lot of a local bingo parlor. We set up observation and the individual went to the trunk of the company vehicle and retrieved a large paper bag and entered the parlor. The time was 2:30pm. A quick check of the sign out front indicated the next bingo game was to be at 3:00pm. Game time quickly came and left. We optimistically thought to ourselves that maybe this is where our sales rep was meeting a client. By 3:30pm this scenario started becoming ever more unlikely. We were authorized by the client to go in and get close. Whereupon I put on my poker face and went on in to play my first game of bingo since a middle school math teacher used math problems as call numbers for us students. Upon entering, I quickly spotted our subject. He was sitting near the front row with an open seat between himself and a frail elderly lady.

I bought twenty dollars worth of games and took my seat between the two. We were in the middle of a “round”. I was playing four cards with six games each on them. The lady to my left was playing eight or so cards and our subject was hunkered over double fisted with a bingo marker in each hand craftily playing fifteen cards. I was starting to sweat a bit, talk about a fish out of water. An elderly gentleman was up on the bingo stand calling the numbers methodically. He would draw a ball, stare at it for a moment, lick his bottom lip and bend toward the microphone repeating the number twice in a cadence reminiscent of a Fort Jackson drill Sgt. We were in mid-game and the old lady to my left was watching me out of the corner of her eye. I just kind of acted stupid, well I guess it really wasn’t an act. I asked the kind lady a couple of “dumb” questions about the game and proceeded on, filled with her kind direction. I wondered if I hit the big jackpot whether the money would be mine or my clients. I already had four in a row on one card, my excitement grew and my mind raced to figure what I would do if I won. My subject was not going anywhere anytime soon. At last, I had my five in a row and I was raising my hand saying bingo. The little old lady, my guardian angle, looks over takes my hand down and quietly tells me we were playing blackout. With my ego deflated and the excitement thoroughly quashed I settled down and remembered why I was really there.

The round ended a few minutes later and I had a brief chance to speak with our subject. I mentioned to him that I was impressed at the amount of cards he could command at one time. He replied he played quit a bit and with practice I could someday master that many cards also. He further went on to add that last Friday afternoon he had won $250. Hmm, that was one to file away. Another round was starting and I had pretty much found out what I was after. I thanked my guardian angle and took leave of the bingo hall. I waited outside until I was certain our subject was staying for the full round. Then we called it a day.

On several occasions, our subject was tracked multiple bingo parlors and we found that basically, our outside sales rep had his own little bingo route in the afternoon. It just depended on which hall was open and on what day.