Cedarburg defeated 19 teams from 14 Wisconsin high schools on Monday to win the fourth annual Lakeland College Fraud Competition.
Finishing second was Lake Mills, followed by Oconomowoc and De Pere. Other schools that sent teams to Lakeland’s campus were Big Foot (two), Chilton, D.C. Everest, De Pere, East Troy (two), Grafton (two), Greendale, Lake Mills, Menomonee Falls, Monroe, Oconomowoc (two), Oregon, Plymouth (two) and Sheboygan South.
The high school teams, made up of nearly 100 accounting students, analyzed the case of Melissa King, a convicted embezzler in New York who stole $42 million from a construction workers union’s employee benefit funds.
The visiting students participated in breakout sessions during the morning. Then, after lunch, the four finalists presented their findings on King’s crimes, the accounting breakdowns and failures and the students’ specific recommendations for how this fraud could have been prevented.
There were 12 judges, including two Lakeland faculty and representatives from local companies such as ACUITY, Johnsonville and Kohler Co.
Lakeland’s Fraud Competition has steadily gained popularity among state high schools. Two years ago, the students dug into the infamous Koss headphones embezzlement case, and last year, they tackled the case of a former Dixon, Ill., controller who stole millions.