Article by 20/20 Canadian Manufacturing & Exporters’ Magazine

A worker breaks his back roofing, gets hospitalized for three months, and is off work from his manufacturing job for a year. His neighbour, a long-time acquaintance, lets slip he is working under the table for cash, while at the same time receiving workplace injury benefits.

As his employer – who is obviously concerned about the overall productivity of your operations – what would you do?

Desmond Taljaard makes it his mission to provide companies with the answer. As vice president of corporate investigations and security services with AFI International, Taljaard oversees internal investigations into workers’ compensation issues. Much of his work involves investigating the validity of claims and working with employers to see if there is fraudulent activity or workplace injury fraud.

“I would define it as someone feigning an injury in order to gain benefit when they are not entitled to that benefit,” says Taljaard, who estimates there could be as much as $100 million spent each year investigating potentially fraudulent claims in Ontario.

And while many cases do turn out to be fabricated, Taljaard adds that a high percentage end up being legitimate claims. “Someone will be hit by a forklift. Someone will hurt their back.”

When an incident occurs, certain red flags start to jump out. For example, complaints of pain may not match the case, or colleagues may see a supposedly injured employee out and about. Investigations, however, have made even easier by a growing culture of connectedness and social media. Public profiles like Facebook are much less intrusive than surveillance.

“People freely post ‘broke 90 today on the links’ as their status update,” says Taljaard, a former policeman and detective. “Colleagues know each other better than human resources or employers in most cases, and they’re the ones who feel the pressure of a lost employee.”

And when these cases are caught, there are consequences.

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As a Gold Partner of the EAC and CME symposium on Workplace Safety, Health & Wellness – Claims Management, Fraud and Your Bottom Line: The Real Cost of Risk, AFI would like to invite and offer you a promo code to receive a discount.

Desmond Taljaard of AFI will also be in attendance and presenting Factors to Consider When Investigating Claims of Workplace Injuries

Please find further information here or contact aferguson@afi-international.com to have a brochure emailed to you.

To register simply click this link https://eac.cmemec.ca/mpower/event/loadevent.action?e=278 and enter promo code “afipromo” in small letters and you will receive the member price of $275 before June 1^st and $325 after June 1^st.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Drugs in the workplace is not a new issue and certainly not one that can be easily resolved, however there is a disturbing trend evolving in some workplaces with respect to drug usage and distribution that employers need to be aware of. For years now our organization has been retained to provide undercover operatives and investigations to assist employers identify and eradicate the source of drug dealing and usage in their employee ranks. For the most part, these investigations were born out of desperation from the police being too shorthanded to assist employers investigate drug dealing and usage in the workplace claiming these were “internal issues” that needed to be addressed and resolved by the employer. The basic stance from the police is not new and has been repeated consistently in the past; the police are understaffed and overwhelmed with investigations affecting the public and because the issues in the workplace do not often get the public’s attention, the problem is left to the employer to resolve. This approach as evidenced below has begun to change based on a new phenomenon,  one in which professional drug dealers are moving off the streets and into the workplace to ply their trade as they are acutely aware that this moves them off the “law enforcement radar”!

In a particularly disturbing case a few years ago, we were able to successfully identify the source of a client’s significant drug issue set in a large manufacturing organization and upon identifying the source; we were able to get the cooperation of law enforcement. At the conclusion of our investigation, several employees were arrested and based on the strength of the evidence, they all pled guilty. It was during this process that they admitted that their primary source of income was dealing narcotics and they had specifically targeted our client’s company to hire them due to the large employee base in which to push their drug products.  By dealing to the company’s employee base and not selling the drugs on the street, they knew the likelihood of attracting any police attention was very slim. Had it not been for the client taking charge of fixing the problem and retaining our services to conduct the investigation, the subjects would have a very successful operation still ongoing today. We have also found individuals who are working through temporary employment agencies with the same strategy of penetrating a large organization in order to have a stable client base for their drug trafficking operations, knowing that if discovered in all likelihood the maximum result would be termination of their employment; a very unfitting consequence for such a serious issue.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/29/feds-arrest-dozens-in-drug-bust-at-boeing-plant/

Sept. 29: U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger, left, with FBI Special Agent in Charge, George Venizelos, and DEA acting Special Agent in Charge Vito Guarino speak during a media availability at the Department of Justice. More than three dozen people have been charged in a prescription drug sweep that included a raid on a Boeing plant near Philadelphia that makes military helicopters.

PHILADELPHIA –  Federal agents raided a Boeing plant that makes military helicopters in suburban Philadelphia on Thursday and charged more than three dozen people with distributing or trying to get prescription drugs, among them powerful painkillers.

The arrests were made by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration at the 5,400-employee plant in Ridley Park, where workers build aircraft including the H-47 Chinook helicopter and the V-22 Osprey. The plant, part of Boeing’s Defense, Space and Security unit, is also the headquarters for its Rotorcraft division.

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