Fraud In The Film All The Queen's Horses

Rita Crundwell was able to steal over $53 million dollars over a span of 20 years from a small town called Dixon. In the documentary, All the Queen's Horses, they explain how she is able to commit such a large municipal fraud for such a long period of time without being caught. Crundwell worked as the city’s comptroller and was very well trusted in the community. There were six legitimate city of Dixon bank accounts, however, Crundwell added a seventh fake account to execute her fraudulent activities. The seventh account had a name which made it appear like it was just another city account. She would routinely move funds from other accounts into the capital development bank account and then transfer the money to the secret account by creating

In the documentary, they explain how there was essentially no separation of duties. Crundwell picked up the mail, made the deposits, updated journals and ledgers, prepared and signed checks, moved investment money, and reconciled bank accounts. She was the person who oversaw all of the functions which allowed her to be able to commit fraud without being detected. Additionally, Crundwell would make the books so complex that other people would not understand. People would have to go to her to ask questions about them, and because she was a trusted person, they believed she was telling the truth about the complicated books. In addition to opportunity, incentive played a role. Once Crundwell began living a more lavish lifestyle, she was willing to continue committing fraud to keep up her new way of life. She had always loved horses and finally had the money to buy great breeds of horses who went on to be world

First, everyone trusted her and many people said she was a kind person. The people in Dixon had various thoughts of where we got her money from. Some believed it was from the horses and the high prices she would sell her champion horses at. Others heard that she inherited money from a deceased boyfriend or family. Crundwell had told people that her parents were investors in the Campbell Soup company. All in all, no one truly was questioning the magnitude of her wealth and where it came