The Adrian Project Gives Rutgers Accounting Students a Taste of Real-Life IRS Work

Four companies from around New Jersey are linked by the money they are transferring among each other.

They are making deposits in a way that dodges paperwork, wiring money to accounts on the other side of the country, and filing questionable returns with the same accountant who claims no knowledge of his clients' financial status.

Additionally, a staff member of one of the businesses has told the IRS that her boss has her make withdrawls and deposits in large amounts, but she is not sure where the money is going. At the same time, her boss is sending people to a "training camp" on the other side of the world, and those who attend come back full of anti-American sentiment.

Could this money be fueling a terror plot?

That question was posed to about a dozen Rutgers University Accounting students on Nov. 4 during The Adrian Project on Livingston Campus.

Hosted by special agents and staff of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Newark Field Office and faculty and staff of the Rutgers University Business School, the students spent a full day working closely with the agents to crack the fictional financial crime case before them.

Named after Adrian College in Adrian, Mich., where the program was first tried out, the purpose was to give accounting students a look into another career option, said special agent Robert Glantz, of IRS Criminal Investigation. 

The participating students were chosen by their professors to attend the eight hour program. Over the course of the day, split into four groups, they looked at mock tax returns, bank statements and other financial documents, interviewed characters of interest, and compiled their evidence about the case.

Each group was assisted by an IRS special agent or staffer, who guided them through each step, pointing out clues and explaining how such a scenario would be handled in real life.

The students also did surveillance of their suspects, trailing them around Livingston campus and collecting clues left behind, and went through an hour of weapons training. Using red rubber handguns and real handcuffs, they learned the proper way to hold a weapon and practiced on each other the proper way to handcuff a suspect.

All of this led up to the end of the day, when after all the evidence was collected, the students presented their cases to a "judge" who granted arrest warrants.

They then donned IRS vests, took their false weapons and cuffs and arrested their suspects.

Glantz stressed that the activity was meant to be both fun and realistic, showing that law enforcement can be a job possibility if one is pursuing accounting.

"(We're) opening their minds up to another possibility," he said.

While looking over a log of withdrawls and deposits made from one company, a number of transactions were made in amounts below, but very close to $10,000 over a short time period. The deposits were in the amount of $9,700 and $9,800, for example.

This is called stacking. Anything over $10,000 requires a currency report to be filed, which may not be ideal for someone who is trying to launder money or have it slip under the radar.

"This looks super obvious," a female student said.

"It's very obvious. You'd be surprised at how often we see this," Glantz said.

Jessica Leung, 19, a junior majoring in accounting and English said the program was a lot more interesting than sitting in classes.

"This is so fun," she said.

Leung said she was interested in accounting because it has some job security to it. After a few hours of the program, she said was was intrigued by the possibility of parlaying accounting into law enforcement and government.

"This is an option, it seems really interesting," she said.