Executives · Safety Officers · HR managers · Lawyers
Corporate investigations into workplace theft
Investigate missing stock, equipment and unexplained losses. INVESTIPOLE checks access, movements and specific incidents before attributing responsibility.
Confidentiality. Before any quotation, the request is assessed in light of observed discrepancies, the reason cited, and the strictly necessary means.
Theft in company: what to do?
A negative inventory shows a loss, but not yet the culprit.
Theft within a company affects goods, raw materials, tools, cash, vehicles, fuel, payment cards, or commercial documents. Losses may be occasional or repeated, committed by a single individual or facilitated by several, from both inside and outside the company.
When faced with suspicion of theft, the initial response is crucial. Accusing too early exposes the employer to a fragile procedure; waiting allows the unknown shortage to persist. Private investigation takes over when internal audit, inventories, and controls are no longer sufficient to explain the discrepancies.
Investipole has been handling these cases for nearly 20 years for SMEs, retail chains, logistics companies, construction firms, and legal departments. All your detectives have at least 10 years of experience. The report documents an operating procedure; the qualification and sanction remain the responsibility of the company, its lawyer, and the judge.
Identify the type of theft
Goods, cash, fuel or deposited property: which investigation to choose?
The nature of the property, its usual circuit and the time of its disappearance dictate the useful checks.
Theft by an employee
Packages, cash, tools, expense notes or resale: a staff member appears to be involved, without certainty at this stage.
Theft of goodsFR
Unknown mark, incomplete pallets, missing parcels between receipt, storage, preparation and delivery.
Issue: to identify the exact stage where the flow breaks.
Fuel theft
Siphoning, filled cans, fuel card loaned, full unrelated to the kilometres travelled.
Issue: to correlate consumption, rounds, and observed operations.
Misappropriation of company property
Vehicle, tooling, payment card or client file handed over for work and then used for another purpose.
Issue: distinguishing theft, breach of trust and misuse.
Warning signs
What signs should make you suspect internal theft?
A loss may also result from an input error, an unreported break or a logistical defect. Repetition and concentration of deviations make the difference.
Targeted stock discrepancies
Some high-value references disappear, always in the same area, with the same team or at the same stage of the flow.
Recurring schedules
Anomalies after closing, during a break, at the respite or just before the carrier's passage.
Unprocedural exits
Bags, parcels or items loaded without a slip, vehicle stopped off route, unjustified meeting in a parking lot.
Conflicting internal traces
Cash cancellations, assets, discounts, badges, exit vouchers, fuel cards or inventories that no longer match.
Photo of illustration: merchandise output observed from the public space.
On the ground
Link an object, a person, a place and a time
The surveillance is aimed at a precise sequence: taking of the property, loading, transport, handing over to a third party, storage or resale. Your detectives stay in public space or places open to the public, do not enter any private place, do not cause the act and do not interpel anyone.
A solid finding fills no void by supposition.
A possible arrest is the responsibility of law enforcement, seized by the company or its lawyer; your detectives are not apprehending anyone.
Investigation method
How to prove theft in a company: four steps
The strategy crosses legally available internal data with the necessary external findings, without general monitoring of staff.
Confidential analysis
Nature and value of goods, frequency, places, niches, flows, authorised persons and measures already taken are studied with a limited circle.
Breaking point
Your detectives seek the moment when the asset leaves its normal circuit: reception, storage, cash register, dock, vehicle, site or delivery.
Targeted observation
Static monitoring, discreet surveillance, open source research and cross-checking are limited to niches that can answer the question asked.
Report and decision
The report separates observations, photographs and context. Direction and counsel confront him with internal exhibits before any disciplinary, civil or criminal action.
Evidence, sanctions and complaints
Theft in a company: criminal punishment, gross misconduct and proof
A material sequence
Take, load, move, deposit, surrender to a third party, observable use or resale, with dates and photographs.
Internal items
Inventories, cash registers, exit vouchers, schedules, access rights, tours and accounts obtained regularly.
Police, justice and lawyer
Your detectives don't search, question and pronounce themselves neither on guilt nor punishment.
Investigation cases
Theft in a company: examples of investigations carried out by Investipole
Real, anonymized and simplified missions. Each file is framed in its own way, and the follow-up always depends on the facts.
Logistics · High value stocks
Parcels leave the warehouse before any recording
One company finds discrepancies concentrated on some costly references, without being able to locate the break between preparation and shipment. The analysis of inventories and time windows reduces the hypothesis for certain purposes of service.
Targeted surveillance documents packages moved out of the planned wharf, loaded in a separate vehicle, and handed over to a third party. Photographs, schedules and journeys are returned without extrapolation.
The management and his lawyer bring the report closer to access rights, preparation vouchers and stock data. The operating procedure is understood, the secure flow, and the follow-up decided on facts rather than a mere accounting disappearance.
Trade · Cash and refunds
Cancellations hide retained payments
A network of outlets reports an abnormal increase in assets and cancellations on a site. The investigation first isolates recurring schedules and operations, then only observes useful sequences.
Several sales are cashed, while a cancellation is recorded after the customer's departure. Investipole detectives do not touch the caisse and cause no purchase: the report describes what is visible.
The company reconciles the findings with its software and accounting. The file allows correction of authorizations, measurement of documented harm and consultation with the social council before any decision concerning the persons concerned is made.
BTP · Vehicle and equipment
Company equipment is used for private projects
A building company observes accelerated wear of its tools and mileages incompatible with the schedules. Limited time windows allow us to see the loading of identifiable equipment in a company vehicle.
These equipments are then used on several paid private interventions. The report establishes dates, places, visible materials and duration of operations, without entering property or filming personal life.
The lawyer distinguishes unauthorized use of a returned property, possible diversion and possible competing activity. The company also strengthens its exit records, its rules for making available and the traceability of returns.
Industry · Excluded hypothesis
The investigation shows a procedural failure, not a theft
After several missing in inventory, a manager suspects a night shift. The first observations show no merchandise output.
Aligning reception schedules, pallet movements and transmitted documents reveals a systematic entry discrepancy during transfers to a temporary area. The assignment ceases as soon as the subtraction hypothesis loses its coherence.
The report restores the absence of suspicious behaviour and the observed organisational anomalies. Employees escape an unfounded accusation, and the company concentrates its resources on the logistics process and training of transfer teams.
Nearby situations
What type of theft matches the observed facts?
Each situation calls for its own overlaps: inventories, fleet data, surrender documents or social procedures.
Interventions everywhere in France
Warehouse, depot, site, store: a single timeline.
A flow of goods can cross several sites, several carriers and several regions. Investipole organizes useful field relays and gathers the findings in a common chronology.
Management and their lawyer therefore have a single point of contact, a uniform method and a consolidated report.
Management and HR managers Issues
Company theft: your questions
General principles, to be adapted with your lawyer according to the contract, collective agreement and facts.
Company theft: what to do if you suspect it?
Do not publicly accuse, keep internal records, chronology of deviations and limit the number of persons informed. Your lawyer then helps choose between complaint, private investigation, security measures and disciplinary proceedings.
How to prove theft in a company?
By linking a verifiable discrepancy to a material sequence. Inventories, cash journals, delivery notes, testimonies, images of a regularly implemented system and detective findings complement each other. A single accounting discrepancy never identifies an author.
When to hire a private detective for theft?
Where objective, repeated or concentrated deviations are resistant to internal audit. Recognizable references, time windows, locations or flows provide a framework for a short and proportionate mission.
Company theft: serious misconduct or gross misconduct?
In most cases serious misconduct, which deprives the employee of notice and compensation for dismissal; in addition, gross negligence requires an intention to harm the employer, who is rarely retained for theft. A minor larceny, committed by a former employee with an irreproachable past, may not even constitute serious misconduct.
Filing a complaint for company theft: when and how?
The complaint is lodged at the police station, in the gendarmerie or by mail to the public prosecutor. Only the police and the judiciary can compel a person to appear, place him/her in custody or search. The time of deposit is decided with your lawyer, depending on the urgency and the elements already gathered.
Theft by a temp or contractor: what to do?
The user company does not have disciplinary power: the facts are reported to the temporary work firm or to the claimant, the only ones authorized to sanction. The complaint remains possible, and the investigation documents the facts in the same way.
How to fight company theft?
By prevention: rotating inventories, segregation of tasks, cash clearances, exit control, memorandum of service reminding the rules, video protection installed in the rules. The private investigation intervenes when these barriers no longer explain the losses.
And if no theft is found?
The report mentions this, and then the mission stops or redirects itself to a logistical, accounting or organizational cause. This outcome avoids an unfounded accusation and unnecessary expenses.
How much does a private detective cost for company theft?
The pricing of a private detectiveFR in the event of corporate theft ranges from €90 to €120 excluding VAT per hour depending on several criteria, with a free quotation. A full day costs around €975 excluding VAT; a five-day all-inclusive package amounts to €4,750 excluding VAT. Details of a private detective's rates.
Confidential contact
Unexplained losses? Describe them.
Prepare the nature and value of the assets, dates, locations, affected flows and checks already carried out. Investipole will indicate what can be verified, by which means and at what cost. Write to contact@investipole.fr.
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