Fraud Talk

December 2017 - Sean McCleskey, J.D., a former Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service and the current Director of Organizational Education and Measurement at the University of Texas' Center for Identity, shares the details of the largest identity theft case to hit the city of San Antonio, Texas. McCleskey discusses the case from investigation to prosecution and predicts the challenges fraud examiners will face with identity protections in 2018.

November 2017 - Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, called them “the biggest scam ever.” Others say they’re the future of digital technology. In this episode of Fraud Talk, Emily Primeaux, CFE, Fraud Magazine Associate Editor, interviews Jordan Underhill, J.D., CFE, ACFE Legal Writer, about Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) — investment vehicles that offer digital assets called “tokens.” The token sale is similar to a Kickstarter campaign, except it uses the technology behind bitcoin to verify transactions.

October 2017 - This month, Andi McNeal, CFE, CPA, ACFE Research Director, interviews Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope, CPA, filmmaker and Associate Professor of Accounting at DePaul University. Together, they discuss Pope’s latest documentary, “All the Queen’s Horses”, a film examining bookkeeper Rita Crundwell and the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history.

September 2017 - In this episode, health care fraud experts Jacqueline Bloink, CFE, CHC and Jerri Rowe, CFE, examine the high cost of health care fraud, not only in monetary terms, but in peoples’ well-being as well. They also discuss setting up their new health care group within the ACFE Community.

August 2017 - In this episode, entrepreneur, bestselling author, blogger and TV/radio host Amber Mac discusses how emerging consumer technology will affect the landscape of fraud examination. Mac will also be addressing these topics, and more, during the 2017 ACFE Fraud Conference Canada.

July 2017 - Hal Humphreys, CFE, owner of FIND Investigations and Brian Willingham, CFE, owner of Diligentia Group, discuss how they each found their way to the field of private investigation.  

June 2017 - In this episode, fellow CFEs Tiffany Couch and Janet McHard recall their first meeting and share their stories of opening up their own practices. Couch, CFE, CPA/CFF is the principal of Acuity Forensics and McHard, CFE, CPA, MAFF, CFF, is the founding partner of McHard Accounting Consulting LLP.

May 2017 - This month's episode features an interview with Pamela Mantone, CFE, CPA, CFF, and Director at Elliott Davis Decosimo in Chattanooga, Tennessee, about a credit union employee who funneled more than $350,000 in fictitious loans into manufactured accounts.

April 2017 - In this episode, David Weber, J.D., CFE, Academic Director of Fraud Management programs at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, discusses his unique relationship with convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff.

March 2017 - Andrew Snyder, LMFT, CSAC, speaks to white-collar criminals before they go to prison in his popular “Prison Life” podcast. In this episode of Fraud Talk, we discuss insider trading, the high-profile Scott London case and how he thinks insider traders rationalize their crimes.

February 2017 - In this month's podcast, Walt Manning, CFE, President of Investigations MD, discusses the role technology currently plays in fraud investigations and gives his predictions about the future.

January 2017 - In this episode of Fraud Talk, Bret Hood, CFE, the director of 21st Century Learning & Consulting, explains how fraud examiners can suffer from choice paralysis when receiving large amounts of information through data analytics.  

December 2016 - In this interview with David Debenham, J.D., LLM, MSc, CFE, DIFA, C.F.I., C.F.S., Co-Chair, Supreme Court of Canada Practice Group, Co-Chair, Fraud Law of McMillan LLP, he discusses the impact of Canadian privacy laws on fraud investigations as established by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and the Digital Privacy Act.

November 2016 - In this interview with Steve McFarland, CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, he shares some commons scams he has seen targeting seniors and other consumers and discusses how to prevent them.

October 2016 - To commemorate the 50th episode of Fraud Talk, ACFE VP and Program Director Bruce Dorris, J.D., CFE, CPA, and ACFE VP of Education John Gill, J.D., CFE, highlight three news stories and what they mean for fraud examiners.  

September 2016 - In this interview with Kelly Todd, CFE, CPA, CFF, Vice President at Forensic Strategic Solutions, we discuss a corruption case in a public school system in North Carolina. The district lost more than $3 million after a local company sent the district phony invoices and then kicked back some of the money to the director and other employees of the district’s transportation department.

August 2016 - From the complexities of multi-layer authentication to simple practices like electronically wiping equipment before disposal, Liseli Pennings, CFE, training director of the ACFE, shares some ways that organizations can protect themselves from becoming victims of identity theft.  

July 2016 - This month, we speak with Laura Hymes, CFE, ACFE Managing Editor, about two cases discussed in the Bribery and Corruption Casebook

June 2016 - Mary Breslin, CFE, CIA, president of Empower Audit, shares the lessons she learned from her very first fraud case and the red flags she spotted within the first 10 minutes of a routine audit.  

May 2016 - Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE, Senior Paralegal at the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, explains how two embezzlers — one of a small community bank and the other of a credit union — committed crimes against their employers, and the preventive measures each institution could have used to deter these schemes.