Embezzlement is financial fraud and is often carried out in a premeditated, systematic and/or methodical manner with the explicit intention of concealing the activities from others, usually because it is carried out without other people. 'knowledge or consent. Embezzlement “often involves a trusted person misappropriating only a small proportion of the total funds they control in an effort to minimize the risk of detection of misallocation of funds or resources. If successful, embezzlement continues for years undetected. It is often only when a relatively large proportion of the funds are needed at any given time or used for another purpose that the fraud is discovered (Wikipedia). This essay will present the schemes of John F. Doorly and Minnie Mangum as examples of embezzlement and discuss preventative measures. Starting in 1973 as a clerk, John F. "Jack" Doorly rose to the level of chief operating officer of trust management company Tenens Corp. ., dba Essex Street Associates, where he managed the assets of more than 100 heirs of the late Boston-area industrialist Frederick Ayers for 33 years and earned their trust to the point that his operations were not closely scrutinized. significantly (Marquet).According to court records found by Marquet, Doorly spent the past seven years systematically transferring trust funds into his own accounts, had the company charge personal credit cards and overcharged the trusts for its services and expenses, all totaling $61 million. In order to conceal his plans, Doorly sent fraudulent statements to members of the Ayer family. He also used them to mislead external auditors and limited the scope of their au...... middle of paper ......y (Marquet). Internal controls such as segregation of duties are common defenses against embezzlement. This greatly reduces the risk of theft, due to the added difficulty of organizing such a plot and the likely need to split the profits between the two employees, reducing the gain for each. Another obvious method to deter embezzlement is to regularly and unexpectedly transfer funds from one trusted person to another while the funds are supposed to be available for withdrawal or use, to ensure that the amount total funds are available and no portion of the savings has been lost. been misappropriated by the person to whom the funds or savings were entrusted (Wikipedia). If the Doorly and Mangum companies had implemented just one of these techniques, it would have been more difficult for them to be victims of embezzlement.