A Wave of Embezzlement?

DATELINE: Recently!  Unless you’re reading this in an archive or you’re a parrot and this is on the bottom of your cage!  And if you are a parrot and you can read and you’re also in a cage you should probably do something about escaping!

Manufacturing concerns all over SpinDizzy are performing fine-grained internal audits after a rash of what appears to be embezzlement.  Equipment marked as broken, corroded, or otherwise unfit that was to be disposed of as scrap is being found to be in new (or in some cases better than new) condition.  Investigators theorize that employees have been diverting equipment from their employers for resale or to send it off world to lower technology areas.

The first audits don’t bear this theory out.  Purchasing and use records all line up with the disposal reports.  “Everything to be scrapped is old enough and used hard enough, every machine should be a cracked, dull pile of rust,” said Archibald Leech, Senior Auditor of Leech Bros. Accountancy.  “It’s as if someone is stealing the old stuff and smuggling in new to replace it.”

Rest assured, neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night shall keep this reporter from getting the story.