What Fraud Examiners Can Learn About Report Writing from a Journalist’s Plagiarism Case

When investigating a financial fraud case, anti-fraud professionals know the importance of following established steps and best practices. From beginning an investigation, through collecting evidence and conducting interviews, they follow generally accepted guidance and document each stage in their final report. This diligence is important not just for financial fraud cases, but for other types of fraud — such as academic and journalistic fraud.

In his session, “Der Spiegel’s Relotius Report: How to (and Not to) Write an Investigation Report,” at the virtual 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe, Paul Milata, Ph.D, CFE, walked attendees through the case of Claas Relotius, a journalist for the German media outlet Der Spiegel who was discovered to have plagiarized a number of his pieces. Milata, the director of Nemexis, focused primarily on the report that Der Spiegel publicly issued after their investigation and the ethical missteps the investigators made during their investigation.

The case
Der Speigel, founded in 1947, is an established German weekly news magazine with a reputation for exposing scandals and being a reliable source of investigative journalism. According to Milata, Der Spiegel also prides itself on employing a robust team of 80 fact-checkers. Relotius was employed by Der Speigel in 2017 and wrote exclusively for their “Society” section beginning in 2018. That section was not traditional news, but focused more on longer, feature stories.

Relotius’ lies came to light when he was working with a freelance reporter, Juan Moreno, on a piece about U.S. border crossing. Moreno was on the Mexican side of the border with migrants and Relotius claimed to have infiltrated an anti-immigrant militia group in Arizona. Moreno noticed inconsistencies with Relotius’ reporting and emailed the editor of the “Society” section to raise his concerns. Moreno was rebuffed by the editor but persisted and emailed the editor again, but this time copying the deputy editor. Moreno then flew to the U.S. and met with the militia group Relotius claimed to have interviewed. The militia members said they never met Relotius. Moreno then brought his concerns to the acting editor-in-chief. Relotius forged an email to support his claims. Finally, the deputy editor met with Relotius where he confessed to fabricating the story.

The ignored red flags
Once the report came out, it became clear that Der Spiegel had failed to do due diligence on a number of matters involving Relotius — possibly because he was considered a sort of wunderkind in journalism circles. “He was not just a reporter among many … he was the holder of a record number of journalism awards,” said Milata. Later, it came out that he had only received 19 of the 40 awards he claimed he had. He also had been fired from another media outlet before coming to Der Spiegel. If Der Spiegel had conducted a background check prior to employing him, or researched the awards, they could have discovered his lies before he was even hired.

Also, while employed by Der Spiegel, Relotius claimed to have traveled to the remote Pacific island of Kiribati for an assignment. The flight had a layover in Los Angeles on the way there — which is actually where Relotius got off. If Der Spiegel had checked records with the flight carrier, they would have seen that his flight to Kiribati, and his return flights, were canceled since he missed the leg to the island.

The resulting report
Milata showed conference attendees how he analyzed Der Spiegel’s report by comparing it to the ACFE’s report writing guidance outlined in the ACFE Code of Professional Ethics and the CFE Code of Professional Standards. He specifically looked at 1) conflicts of interest; 2) scope; 3) reporting format; 4) evidence; 5) professional competence; and 6) making a statement of guilt or innocence. The first misstep Milata noticed was the conflicts of interest from the authors of the report.

“Both [the ACFE Code of Professional Ethics and CFE Code of Professional Standards] put a lot of weight on the issue of conflicts of interest,” he said. A diligent fraud examiner would research a case before taking in on to make sure they wouldn’t have a conflict. However, in Der Spiegel’s case, two of the three report writers were employees of Der Spiegel — one of whom was promoted to a position that was vacant due to the fraud being exposed. The conflicts of interest were never addressed in the final report.

Milata found the scope and reporting format to be acceptable but noted issues in the evidence presented. Despite employing 80 fact-checkers for the magazine, only one full-time checker was assigned to the “Society” section. The report did correctly identify that as an issue, but the report also said there was no attempt to cover up evidence of the fraud — despite the fact that Moreno attempted to alert editors multiple times before being taken seriously. “That there was no cover up by senior staff is contradicted by the evidence,” said Milata. “Why did no one forward the allegations of Moreno to the fact-checking department?”

Milata also noted that evidence has to come from a reliable source to be believed. The report had no supporting documents, the authors had conflicts of interest and the fact that Der Spiegel had never investigated the falsified awards, flight records and a number of other things casts doubt on the reliability of any evidence presented in the report. “In all three points, I am simply not convinced [of the report],” said Milata.

He also criticized the analysis of the evidence the report presented. “There is a long list of misunderstood evidence in the report,” he told attendees. “The commission [did] not understand the relevance of the facts they’ve collected … some of the recommendations are focusing only on extremely narrow portions.”

Milata found the professional competence lacking due to the wide scope of the report compared to the narrow background in journalism that the authors possessed. The report also failed on the final ACFE report guidance that no opinion on guilt or innocence of parties should be expressed. Der Spiegel’s report said that Relotius was guilty, but that the rest of the staff were innocent, within the first paragraph.

Ultimately Relotius was sued by Der Spiegel not for the plagiarism fraud, but because he had solicited donations for two Syrian children he wrote about and pocketed the money instead.

Milata’s session served as a reminder to fraud examiners that it is important not only to conduct an ethical investigation, but to write a thorough and transparent resulting report. A report with relevant and correct analysis and recommendations is necessary to repair the issues that allowed fraud to occur in the first place.