That night, I stopped avoiding anything.
I called our chief financial officer.
Then our head of human resources.
Then our legal director.
“Everyone needs to come in.”
“It is almost midnight,” my CFO said.
“I know.”
“Is this an emergency?”
I looked at the documents on the screen.
“Yes.”
Within an hour, three people were sitting across from me.
I placed the first file on the table.
“Start with Martin Collins.”
My CFO opened it.
Then another.
Then another.
His expression slowly changed.
“Daniel…”
“Keep going.”
We found inflated overtime.
We found unexplained expenses.
We found equipment purchases that never reached company inventory.
We found vehicles being used outside approved business purposes.
We found contracts awarded to companies connected to family members.
And then we found something much bigger.
A series of payments had been routed through outside companies.
The names looked unfamiliar.
But the addresses weren’t.
They led back to people connected to the Collins family.
