Of all the investigations in his 24 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Daniel D. Roberts remembers the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping the most.
He remembers initially hoping that the case would be resolved quickly, maybe a case of a teenager out too late with her friends. Nine months later, after he walked her back to her parents and watched their tearful reunion, he remembers being impressed with the way she recalled important details to help bring her captors to justice.
Roberts, 50, has to rely on careful attention to details in his new assignment, as principal and director of Rehmann’s governmental investigations and compliance for the firm’s corporate investigative services.
He started the job on Monday, in which he will probe into various forms of insurance fraud, including arson schemes. Although he is unlikely to return missing children to their parents, Roberts still has to apply to his new post a lot of the same crisis management and investigative skills he used at the FBI.
“There was quite a bit of overlap in what I did at the FBI and what I will do here,” Roberts said in a telephone conversation. “A lot of detective and special agent work. It is really working out well.”
Particularly, Roberts followed money and paper trails while looking into political corruption from the Chicago office. He was assigned to the Chicago office from 1987 to 1996, according to his FBI profile. There, he was also a primary SWAT team member for more than seven years, and was also extensively involved as an FBI firearms instructor.
Most recently, Roberts was the assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division. The position at Troy, Mich.-based Rehmann, an umbrella company that also operates Rehmann Financial, the broker-dealer, brings Roberts back to his Michigan roots. A Detroit native, Roberts was a police officer in Franklin and Oak Park before being selected for the FBI.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Roberts said, recalling the Smart case and his work in Chicago. Especially not fraud schemes motivated by greed.
