Collaboration and Trust Key to Reporting on the Panama Papers

Collaboration and Trust Key to Reporting on the Panama Papers

Bastian Obermayer’s life changed a few years ago when he received more than 11 million documents from an anonymous source. The collection of documents would later be known as The Panama Papers.

Obermayer, deputy head of the investigative unit of the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, took attendees at the 2018 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe through the story of how more than 200 investigative journalists in 70 countries helped wade through the 2.6 TB of data he was given. In his address to the hundreds of fraud fighters in attendance, Obermayer stressed not only how large the undertaking was, but how important it was for the journalists to work together.

Read More

When and How to Approach Law Enforcement and Prosecution

When and How to Approach Law Enforcement and Prosecution

You have a fraud you need to investigate and will most likely bring for prosecution. When should you approach law enforcement or a prosecutor? Law enforcement wants cases as soon as possible, while consultants want the case brought to them first. Management wants to retain control as long as possible. What do you do? And, what are the best ways to deal with the reporting of fraud in your company?

Read More

Why a Strong Corporate Ethical Framework is Good for Business

Why a Strong Corporate Ethical Framework is Good for Business

“The message is quite clear — the world is changing, and with that change there is an expectation from a wide range of stakeholders,” said Laura Davies in her session on corporate ethical frameworks at the 2017 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe. “There has been a big breakdown of trust between business and the general public.”

Read More

Using a Risk-Based Pre-Employment Screening

Using a Risk-Based Pre-Employment Screening

“I don't know how it is in your jurisdictions, but in Austria and Germany, there’s a good culture of trust,” said Bernhard Maier, CII, director of BM-Investigations E.U., at the 2017 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe. “We prefer to trust people. And it’s a convenient way, to trust people and not to question what they write on their CVs.”

However, as Maier explained, it's become more necessary to check applicants' backgrounds for more than their qualifications.

Read More

Linguistic Identity Matching Expert Will Address Attendees at European Fraud Conference

Linguistic Identity Matching Expert Will Address Attendees at European Fraud Conference

When dealing with names, anti-fraud professionals must think both about the source language and the language it is being transcribed into. Would a name that originally is written in Russian Cyrillic characters and placed on an Egyptian watch list have the same sound and root name if then translated into English or French?

Victoria Meyer, CFE, ACCA, Director of the Swiss Business Academy, discussed this potential problem during her session, “Linguistic Identity Matching” at the 27th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference June 14, 2016. She'll be joining the ACFE again to speak at the 2017 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe, March 19-21 in London.

Meyer is the author of Linguistic Identity Matching, which will be available for sale in the bookstore at the 2017 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe. The following is a glimpse of what she shared with attendees in 2016.

Read More