Revenue Agent
Krista began her IRS career in the Small Business/Self-Employed Division, examining individual and small business tax returns.
About Krista Shelton
Ask the question. Get the records. Follow the money. Get the answer.
Krista Shelton has spent her career doing exactly that.
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Meet Krista
Forensic accountant. Fraud investigator. Educator. Founder.
Krista Shelton, CFE, is a forensic accountant, fraud investigator, former IRS Special Agent, entrepreneur, educator, speaker, and founder of Focused Forensic Solutions.
Her career has taken her from examining tax returns to federal criminal investigations, courtrooms, conference stages, private forensic accounting engagements, and conversations with people who simply know that something about the money does not add up.
Across all of it, the job has stayed remarkably consistent: get the records, understand the facts, follow the money, and explain what the evidence means in a way people can use.
The professional arc
From tax returns to federal criminal investigations
Special Agent
She later served for more than a decade with IRS Criminal Investigation, working financial crimes involving tax fraud, money laundering, financial records, interviews, surveillance, warrants, case preparation, and courtroom testimony.
Forensic Accountant
Today she applies that investigative discipline to private forensic accounting work: identify the right question, obtain the right records, trace the transactions, test the assumptions, and let the evidence drive the conclusion.
Financial investigations are not won by assumptions. They are built by documents, corroboration, interviews, and the discipline to keep asking whether the evidence proves what you think it proves and the discipline to keep following the money.
Focused Forensic Solutions
The firm behind the investigations
Krista founded Focused Forensic Solutions, where she and a team of experienced former federal investigators handle complex forensic accounting matters.
Entrepreneur, educator and speaker
Make the facts concrete.
Krista has trained professionals on financial records and investigations, helped coordinate financial crimes education, contributed to the Midwest Anti-Money Laundering Conference, and spoken for legal and professional audiences on forensic accounting, charity fraud, peer-to-peer payment platforms, fraud awareness, and financial red flags.
Her teaching style is built around the same thing that makes a good investigation work: show the document, explain what it means, tell the story behind it, and give people something they can recognize and use when they return to their own work.
Beyond the numbers
There is more than one side to Krista.
Krista is the sixth generation living on her family farm, established in 1856. She is an accomplished tennis player, a local champion in cornhole and billiards, loves to sing and play guitar, and has enough competitive energy to make almost anything more interesting than it probably needs to be.
She is also a proud super aunt, a role that belongs beside every professional credential on this page.
Community matters
Krista serves as President of Lettuce Dream, a Maryville, Missouri nonprofit social enterprise that provides career education, job training, and community-inclusion opportunities for people with disabilities while growing fresh hydroponic produce year-round.
Her community service has also included work with Second Harvest Community Food Bank and General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC). In 2023, the Maryville Chamber of Commerce recognized her volunteerism with the Fred Von Behren Good Citizen Award.
Use what you know. Make it matter.
Bring Krista to your audience
Real investigations. Clear explanations. Memorable stories.
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