Model Building

Introduction.

All complex inquiries start with and are shaped by a model or plan. Each fraud recovery model must be custom-built from the bottom up. Hastily-prepared, 'top-down' reactions to a problem as multi-faceted and nigh impenetrable as a newly-discovered serious fraud must be rejected. An analyst's 'feeling' for, or purported 'intuition' about, how to solve a fraud puzzle are hazardous.

Each model must be built to withstand the stress of high risk and be malleable enough to sustain the effects of dynamic change. When a person starts to search for a solution to a complex fraud – "What he knows, is that he knows nothing."¹ The solution will not come from speculation. It can only come from sustained, well-organized and well-managed work.