Aisha truly deserved to be called Bruce's daughter. In just a few hours, she had dug up financial reports from several years ago and picked out the suspicious entries.
Financial reports from construction groups like these more or less always had problems. Tax avoidance was legal in the United States, and most companies hired professional financial teams to reduce their tax burden. Beyond legal tax avoidance, they could also skirt the edges of the law, making subtle adjustments to financial reports that were harder to detect and shaving off a little more tax.
That was why so many companies' financial reports contained one issue or another. You would never spot them without looking closely. Aisha found several such minor problems in Ward Engineering Group's financial statements, but they were obviously intended for tax evasion. Only the payment sent to Dick struck her as a major problem.
The payment had no clear source, but the amount was substantial. More importantly, it had been personally signed for by the company's general manager, Bob, whose signature was still on the financial report.
While the captured group spent the night in the holding cells, Aisha and Helen investigated the source of the payment overnight.
They had returned after leaving once. After the group that had broken into Williams Real Estate Company was arrested, they entered the company again. Using her formidable hacking skills, Aisha found the real estate company's internal accounts.
Like Ward Engineering Group, this company's accounts were a mess, clearly full of tax avoidance. Yet at almost the exact same time four years ago, there had been an expenditure for precisely the same amount, approved by Williams himself.
In other words, on some day four years ago, Williams's real estate company approved a payment, while the Wardle Engineering Team received one. The