Forensic accounting mysteriesPaper Trail
Follow the money. Investigate embezzlement cases, flag the stolen dollars, name the schemes, and find out what the thief bought.
For teachers
Paper Trail turns forensic accounting into a mystery. Students get a case briefing and a limited number of investigation hours. They choose which records to request, whom to interview, and when to subpoena or search. Then they flag stolen transactions to calculate the loss, name the schemes, and identify assets bought with stolen money.
The three cases
- Case 1, The Booster Club Books (about 15 minutes). A booster club treasurer skims concession cash and fakes reimbursement receipts. A good first case for anyone.
- Case 2, The Overseas Card (about 25 minutes). A finance executive pays her personal credit card with company wires and hides it in cost of goods sold. Inspired by the real Koss Corporation case.
- Case 3, The Reserve Account (about 35 minutes). A city comptroller runs fake state invoices through a secret bank account. Inspired by the real case in Dixon, Illinois, the largest municipal embezzlement in U.S. history.
How to use it in class
Students can play solo or in pairs on any device, with no accounts. Progress saves in the browser. At the end, each student can print a one-page case report with their score and answers. Every case ends with a debrief: what happened, the red flags, the internal controls that would have stopped it, and for cases 2 and 3, the real story with sources.