"What is that?" Anabel asked.
"I think five million dollars is missing.” He said, and Anabel stiffened. "Five million dollars?” she repeated.
“Yes, ma'am. I...I'm con...confused at the moment.” He stammered.
“Report to my office immediately.” Anabel ordered. Panic surged through her. She was still celebrating her success. How could they be losing that huge amount of money?
"What is that?" Desmond asked as he noticed a shift in her facial expression even though he heard her mention a big amount of money.
"I'm in trouble. My financial officer just called to tell me that five million dollars is missing."
"How is that possible?"
"He's coming to explain. Sorry for the distraction."
"No, don't worry. I don't have a problem with it." Desmond said, and just then, the financial officer stepped in.
Anabel folded her arms and asked, “You said five million dollars is missing."
"Yes, ma'am." He answered.
"How did this happen?” She asked, and the financial officer sighed, rubbing his forehead.
“Everything was fine. I was receiving all payment notifications as usual. But when I transferred thirty million dollars to the production sector, I noticed something was off.”
"Off how?” Anabel asked.
“Five million dollars is missing,” he admitted. “I began to check the balance on every payment received, and it seems correct. But that amount is unaccounted for. I don’t understand where it went.”
"So what is your plan now? How can we know where it went to?" Anabel asked, and the financial officer couldn't come up with anything. He was totally confused.
Desmond saw they were struggling to come up with anything and decided to assist.
"Am I permitted to talk on this issue?" Desmond asked.
"Go on," Anabel said without hesitation. That was when Desmond knew she had started believing in him.
He turned to the financial officer and asked, "When did the problem start?”
"Everything was okay yesterday. If there’s a missing amount, it has to have happened today.” He replied.
Desmond nodded and thought for a moment. “Print out the bank statements for today, and compare them to the system’s payment notifications.”
“The system’s payment notifications have always been accurate." The financial officer said. “We have been using them for years without any issue.”
"What are you saying? Just do what Desmond said. Print the bank statement for today and compare them.” she ordered. For the first time, Anabel was standing with Desmond's opinion.
The financial officer nodded and hurried back to his office. He quickly placed a request for the bank statements, and within minutes, they were sent to him.
As he scanned the document, his heart dropped.
Something was wrong. No payments had been received since morning. Nothing had entered the company's account until an hour ago.
This wasn’t just a missing transaction. This was deliberate. Someone had interfered.
He rushed back to Anabel’s office with the documents.
“We have a serious problem,” he announced the moment he stepped inside.
“What is it?” Anabel asked in curiosity.
He placed the bank statement on her desk and began to explain, “Payments stopped coming in early this morning. The system reported transactions correctly, but according to the bank, no money was actually deposited into our account until an hour ago.”
“That means someone rerouted the funds.” Desmond said.
“Are you saying that someone embezzled five million dollars?” Anabel asked in panic, and the financial officer nodded slowly. “That’s exactly what it looks like.”
"This is unbelievable!" Anabel exclaimed.
“Then we need to find out who did it.” The financial officer said.
"How do we go from here?" Anabel asked.
"The system director needs to be questioned. The problem is from the system department. One of them must have hacked through the system." Desmond said, and both Anabel and the financial officer turned to Desmond, shocked.
How did he suspect the system immediately? The system was hacked the previous day, but Max has resolved it.
"The system was attacked yesterday by hacker, logging all user's out and prevented them from logging in or creating account. But the head of system department have resolved it. He stayed overnight to work on it." Anabel said.
"Call him." Desmond said.
"Are you suspecting him?" Anabel asked.
"It happened under his nose. I think he should know something about it."