Emily Hicks

Emily Hicks is a Certified Fraud Examiner and recently-retired federal investigator who draws on decades of specialized training and experience with local, state and federal levels of law enforcement. Her “calling” for service didn’t retire — with scams and AI evolving in sophistication at an alarming rate, she’s pivoted to sharing her vast knowledge in continuation of service to others through writing.

Her debut book "Becoming Fraud Wise" empowers families to protect themselves — especially teens, tweens and seniors, who are most targeted. The content shares valuable tools to recognize scam methods, detect the social engineering tools schemers rely on, and prevent becoming a victim of fraud. She shares resources for opting out and for documenting and reporting problems. Her work is timely, as public funding for fraud investigation is down by a third. She remains committed to leveraging the power of people, data and tools in service of others.

Emily graduated from Northeastern University while working as a seasoned member of a local police department and the Massachusetts State Police. Those roles led to many rewarding years in federal service. She served in public health emergency response coordination leading CDC responses to a Marburg outbreak, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, among others. She spent 20+ years in the inspector general community investigating fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement and ethics. She investigated 9/11 fraud with FEMA-OIG and DHS-OIG, and the manslaughter side of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster with DOI-OIG, among countless other cases. She received numerous awards for her work.

A credentialed member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and a consulting corporate investigator, Emily intends to continue sharing how scams and schemes are evolving with future editions of "Becoming Fraud Wise." In her free time, she enjoys creating and publishing children's books and activity books.