Missing Copper: Interview Strategy and Disposition in an Internal Theft Case
Over six weeks, roughly $18,000 of copper wire has disappeared from a fenced warehouse yard at a 14-employee electrical contractor. Inventory counts were reliable until last month. Only 14 employees hold yard keys, the gate camera has a nine-day retention window that overwrites nightly, and the yard log shows several entries with no matching work order. One employee, a five-year veteran with no discipline history, has made three cash deposits totaling $9,400 that a supervisor noticed when processing a payroll deduction form. The operations manager wants him terminated today and the police called before lunch. HR asks you to 'just get a confession' so the matter can be closed.
1. What must happen in the first 48 hours, before anyone speaks to the employee?
Read the worked answer
Protect the evidence before it disappears. The camera retention is the most urgent risk: export and hash the relevant footage now, document who exported it, when, and from which system, and start a chain-of-custody log. Pull yard-entry logs, work orders, scrap-yard receipts in the area, and the inventory records that established the baseline - confirm the loss is real and not a counting error.
Do not search the employee's locker, vehicle, or phone without HR and legal review of policy and local law. Do not confront him informally; a hallway accusation contaminates any later interview and invites a defamation or wrongful-termination claim.
Set the case objective with the operations manager and HR in writing: recover facts, protect the company, decide disposition. A confession is one possible outcome, not the goal.
Assign one trained investigator. Brief counsel if prosecution is likely. The cash deposits are a lead, not proof - they have innocent explanations and should be corroborated against timing of losses, not treated as an admission.
2. Design the interview. What approach do you use, and what legal and ethical lines must you not cross?
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Conduct a planned, non-accusatory interview in a private room, on company time, with a witness present. Confirm the employee is free to leave and not under arrest; keep the door unlocked and the session reasonable in length. If the workforce is unionized, honor any representation rights.
Open with rapport and a clear, truthful statement of the purpose - an inventory discrepancy in the yard - then move to open questions about access, procedures, and observations. Introduce evidence gradually and ask for explanation rather than accusation. Use pauses; let him talk. If admissions come, obtain a written statement in his own words, in his own handwriting where possible, with the witness signing as a witness to the statement, not as an author.
Never: promise leniency or no prosecution, threaten arrest or immigration consequences, physically block exit, deceive about evidence in a way that could void the statement, discuss the matter with co-workers, or record where law requires consent.
If he asks for a lawyer or to stop, end the interview and document that he did.
3. What facts drive the choice between termination, restitution, and police referral?
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Apply a written, consistent standard rather than the operations manager's mood.
Aggravating: documented loss value ($18,000 is substantial), apparent concealment, use of keys or access to commit the theft, prior warnings, and evidence strong enough to support referral. Mitigating: five years without discipline, a credible explanation, willingness to sign a statement, and restitution.
Options:
- Termination for cause with documented findings, regardless of prosecution.
- Restitution as a condition of a civil settlement - never as a substitute for reporting a crime the company is legally or contractually required to report (check insurance policy conditions; many require timely reporting).
- Referral to police with an evidence package: hashed video, logs, inventory records, statement, and a timeline.
Avoid offering 'pay it back and we won't call police' if you may later refer - that promise can be used against the company and undermines the case. Make the decision with HR and counsel, document the rationale, and communicate only on a need-to-know basis.