If businesses in St. Joseph find more effective ways of dealing with crime, don’t be surprised.

Current crime trends such as robberies and employee and identity theft were the main topic of the 2009 Business Fraud Prevention Seminar conducted by the St. Joseph Police Department on Wednesday. Speakers included representatives from the U.S. Secret Service, FBI and Buchanan County prosecutor’s office.

Though some of the topics, such as robberies and crime prevention, covered necessary but well-worn territory, others seemed to easily grab the attention of the crowd of store managers and owners.

Covering the ongoing problem with counterfeit money and scams, Special Agent Danny Farris of the Secret Service and Special Agent Andy Thomure of the FBI showed examples through fake money orders and checks from international scammers.

Marti Nurski, president of the Stationery Credit Union, 1402 S. 10th St., said the subject was the reason she attended, so she could pass it on to colleagues and customers.

“(I’m) just trying to keep updated information to take back to my employees ... more information on debit and credit card fraud and debit/credit card scams.”

Other business owners were interested in figuring out how to stop theft in their stores, to which Sgt. Richard Ketchem, a crime prevention officer for the St. Joseph Police Department, provided simple ways on how to make it easier to identify criminals. One of the ways suggested was to make not only security cameras visible, but also to have a monitor showing customers how noticeable they were.

“If you’re simply recording (video) so you can go back later and get it, that’s not prevention, that’s just added information for us to solve the crime,” he said.

Detective Richard Shelton, who organized the seminar, said there have been instances where he’s seen security cameras pointed solely at employees. In a tough economy, it’s understandable why this is happening.

“We’re seeing a terrific rise in the crime of embezzlement, employee theft. I don’t know if that’s the economy or just the opportunity of being able to do it,” he said.

There were many references to the string of bank robberies that occurred in and around St. Joseph in the summer. Mr. Shelton said the cloud of crimes was unfortunate, but was not without a silver lining.

“The good thing coming out of the robberies was (businesses) took a look at their surveillance cameras, and a lot of our financial institutions have updated their security cameras and have gone over to the digital systems,” he said.

Mr. Shelton said the Police Department is available for security examinations and demonstrations for businesses. For more information, call the Crime Prevention Unit at 271-4882.

Andrew Gaug can be reached

at andrewgaug@npgco.com