In June 2014, the CEO of Omaha-based Scoular Company sent a series of emails to his company’s controller to let him know that the company was in negotiations to buy a Chinese company. The emails highlighted the sensitivity of the matter and ordered him not to speak about the deal “in order . . . not to infringe SEC regulations.” The CEO of the 120-year-old agricultural commodities company then gave the controller the email address for their contact at KPMG and directed the controller to email their contact to get the wire details necessary to effectuate the deal. The CEO even provided the controller with the KPMG contact’s phone number so that he could verify the wire information. The controller did as asked and soon enough wired $17.2 million to a Chinese bank account to complete the deal. The only problem was that the CEO had never sent the emails, and the KPMG contact was part of the scam.

Originally published in The Brief, Winter 2022, Volume 51, Number 2 by the American Bar Association.