<p>In a recent article from the <i>Annals of Applied Statistics</i>, Cox discussed the main phases of applied statistical research ranging from clarifying study objectives to final data analysis and interpreting results. As an incidental remark to these main phases, we advocate that beyond <i>cleaning</i> and <i>preprocessing</i> the data, it is a good practice to <i>audit</i> the data to determine if they can be trusted at all. A case study based on Ghanaian Official Fishery Statistics is used to illustrate this need, with Benford's law being the tool used to carrying out the data audit. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.</p
