On Thursday, Saint Mary’s College welcomed L. Christopher Knight from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to campus for a lecture on forensic accounting. Knight works in the Indianapolis field office and is a certified public accountant and a certified fraud examiner. During his lecture and presentation, Knight informed students about career opportunities with the FBI.
The FBI is the primary sector of federal law enforcement with the largest jurisdiction over both national and criminal security. The FBI has 56 field offices in the U.S. and around 63 international legats. International legats are offices that represent the FBI but are located outside of the U.S. Even though the FBI operates all over the U.S., much of the FBI’s research is done in Indiana, Knight said.
According to Knight, the FBI employs around 37,000 people. Of that number, one-third work as special agents while the other two-thirds work as professional staff.
Knight began his talk by discussing the benefits of working for the FBI.
“There is a good work-life balance,” he said. “You know you’re going to get the best of everything.”
In addition, he said many careers in the FBI offer a higher level of autonomy compared to similar jobs in the public sector.
Knight’s primary work is related to criminal investigations.
“Typically, they are fraud cases, but they could be other priorities, or other violations the FBI works,” he said.
Although Knight specializes in fraud, there are many other areas of practice within the bureau.
“Potential fields include areas involving litigation support,” Knight said.
The scope of litigation support contains fraud prevention but also encompasses practices such as family law, bankruptcy and valuation.
Knight shed light upon the role of forensic accountants in bankruptcy cases.
“They’re going to help gather those assets, determine what creditors they’re going to look through financials,” he said.
A key role of forensic accountants is investigating fraudulent activity in bankruptcy cases.
“If somebody was to commit a fraud on the bankruptcy court, they’re gonna try to hide assets,” Knight said. “The most common type of bankruptcy scam we see is when creditors want relief but don’t disclose all their assets.”
As the primary federal law enforcement agency within the U.S., the FBI has a very large jurisdiction.
“Outside of working criminal cases … [which includes] fraud and public corruption, think about international terrorism,” he said.
Knight emphasized the importance of thinking about these issues from both a criminal standpoint and a national security standpoint.
“The FBI will want to help, maybe prevent those next domestic terrorism attacks,” he said.
However, domestic terrorism is not the FBI’s only public safety concern.
“Another national security thing would be espionage,” Knight said.
As well as espionage, the FBI works with corporate, investment, healthcare, bank, bankruptcy, mass marketing and money laundering fraud. Out of these, bankruptcy is the most common type of fraud.
