Kozlowski's $6,000 Shower Curtain Added to the ACFE Fraud Museum

Dennis Lynch, former Tyco VP and Chief Litigation Counsel, delivers the infamous shower curtain to ACFE Chief Operations Officer Jeanette LeVie.

AUTHOR'S POST

Mandy Moody, CFE
Content Manager

Corporate greed at the executive level has destroyed hundreds of companies, drained stockholders of their investments and left innocent employees without work. Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow from Enron; Bernie Ebbers from MCI/WorldCom; and Dennis Kozlowski at Tyco have become household names, and too many exemplify what can go horribly wrong when the tone at the top goes askew.

Dubbed the “archetype of avarice” by The New York Times, Kozlowski could have written the book on how NOT to set an ethical tone at the top. This gold and burgundy shower curtain, which was hung in his maid’s bathroom at his residence on 5th Avenue in New York, was reported to cost more than $6,000.

However, his lavish lifestyle did not stop at bathroom décor. In 2001, he reportedly threw a $2 million Roman-themed party for his second wife’s birthday in Sardinia. According to the Times, Jimmy Buffet played the guitar and an ice sculpture of David was displayed urinating Stolichnaya vodka. He owned impressionist paintings and a 130-foot yacht that was originally built for the 1934 American Cup.

His empire came crashing down when he was indicted for tax evasion on a $14 million piece of artwork. This led to a larger internal investigation into his business practices at Tyco. In 2005, Kozlowski was convicted of stealing nearly $100 million from Tyco and was sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in prison. He served the minimum sentence of eight and a half years, and was released in 2014.

You can view the shower curtain in all its glory at the upcoming ACFE Global Fraud Conference in Nashville, June 18-23, in the Traveling Fraud Museum Exhibit. Remember, you can still save $100 if you register by May 10!

Volkswagen Exec Arrested: Dissecting the Fraud Triangle

AUTHOR'S POST

Mandy Moody, CFE
ACFE Content Manager

Steve Morang, CFE, CIA, CRMA, Senior Manager at Frank Rimerman & Co LLP, began his session at the ACFE Global Fraud Conference last June asking attendees to raise their hands if they believed the Volkswagen executives didn’t know anything about the fraudulent emissions tests built into more than 11 million of their diesel cars. Only one person raised his hand. That one person may have a hard time defending himself today since the FBI arrested a Volkswagen executive (a compliance head) on conspiracy charges.

No matter if you think the executives did know about the manipulation or not, there are lessons to be learned from dissecting what could have possibly led to an ethics failure that cost $35 billion in market capital in just five days.

One way to analyze the scandal is to place it into the Fraud Triangle. Identifying the pressures, rationalizations and opportunities, as Morang did, shines a light on the dark areas that plague many companies' ethical cultures.

Pressure
According to Morang, the former CEO’s management style was ruthless. Martin Winterkorn wanted the German car giant to be the No. 1 car maker in the world and that meant making it into the U.S. marketplace with their diesel engine cars. The tone at the top was to get it done and get it done now.

In a 2015 CNBC article, Bernd Osterloh, a supervisory board member for Volkswagen, was quoted as writing in a letter to staff, "We need in future a climate in which problems aren't hidden but can be openly communicated to superiors. We need a culture in which it's possible and permissible to argue with your superior about the best way to go."

The article goes on to reference former company executives describing “a management style under Winterkorn that fostered a climate of fear, an authoritarianism that went unchecked partly due to a company structure unique in the German motor industry.” Upon Winterkorn’s resignation in September of 2015, he said that he was “not aware of any wrongdoing.”

Rationalization
To the people responsible for the manipulation of the engines, Morang said the tampering was done for what the employees under pressure thought was the greater good. They were using the same utilitarian ethics that I described in a previous post. There was a mentality that it was okay to bend the rules so that Volkswagen, and the investors, could come out ahead. In other words, the ends (larger profits, notoriety and reputation) justified the means (fraudulent emissions tests).

Opportunity
When an employee or group of employees (the investigation is still ongoing) discovered that the diesel cars could be wired to cheat emissions tests, the legs of the Fraud Triangle moved quickly into place. By adding the pressure to enter the U.S. market with the rationalization of putting the company above all else, in addition to the opportunity to fool emissions tests, the slippery slope soon looked like an easy path to take.

By understanding the pressures, rationalizations and opportunities that contributed to the actions taken either by a few or many, the top, middle or the bottom, anti-fraud professionals can take away practical tools to use when examining their own company’s ethical culture.

Fraud Fighters to Hear From Actor Richard Dreyfuss, U.S. District Judge and More

GUEST BLOGGER

Sarah Hofmann
ACFE Public Relations Specialist

Academy Award-Winning Actor Richard Dreyfuss, Judge Jed S. Rakoff, New York Times investigative journalist David Barboza and other experts will address more than 3,000 anti-fraud professionals gathering for the 27th Annual Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) Global Fraud Conference in Las Vegas, June 12-17.

Most recently acclaimed for his portrayal of notorious fraudster Bernie Madoff in ABC’s miniseries Madoff, Dreyfuss immersed himself in the role. On portraying the ringleader of the $18 billion Ponzi scheme that would bankrupt hundreds of people and organizations, he said, “I’ve never played such a vivid and living legend of monstrosity … His ability to inflict pain on others was unbelievable.” Dreyfuss is not only known for his acting, but for his political and social activism as well.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff, U.S. District Judge of the Southern District of New York, has made a name for himself rejecting Securities and Exchange Commission settlements with big banks and fighting for the Department of Justice to crack down on fraud, specifically suggesting individual executives should be held accountable in lieu of the corporation as a whole. In an interview with Fraud Magazine, he explained, “While the government never approved fraud per se, it helped create some of the conditions that invited fraud.”

Other keynote speakers include New York Times investigative journalist and author David Barboza, body language expert Steve van Aperen and Halliburton whistleblower Anthony Menendez, CFE, CPA. Convicted fraudster Roomy Khan, who was involved in the Galleon Group insider trading scandal, will also address attendees. She will speak without receiving compensation from the ACFE.

The conference is the world’s largest gathering of fraud fighters and will feature more than 80 educational sessions presented by top experts in the anti-fraud field. Educational sessions will focus on subjects including cyberfraud and cybersecurity, white-collar crime, anti-bribery and anti-corruption practices, risk management, and fraud detection and prevention.

Don’t miss your chance to hear from experts on today’s most pressing fraud and corruption issues. Visit FraudConference.com for more information, video clips, articles and live updates from the conference.

Wall Street Jed(i) to Keynote ACFE Global Fraud Conference

AUTHOR'S POST

Mandy Moody, CFE
ACFE Media Manager

The man “waging a one-man war on bank-friendly SEC settlements.”

“The judge known for holding Wall Street to account.”

“He has the courage of his convictions.”

These flattering descriptions tell me a few things about upcoming conference keynote speaker Judge Jed S. Rakoff, the U.S. District Judge of the Southern District of New York. First, there actually is someone out there who is trying to hold Wall Street’s wanderers accountable. Second, the media is capable of paying compliments. And, lastly, that he has a few things in common with many of the attendees I have met at the ACFE Global Fraud Conference over the past few years.

More than 3,000 fraud fighters from the around the world will all come together to network, learn and share war stories exactly like the ones Rakoff has fought at the 27th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference, June 12-17, 2016, in Las Vegas.

But, the agenda doesn’t just stop with Rakoff. He will be joined by other keynote speakers including:

• Steve van Aperen, Body Language Expert
  Van Aperen has appeared on CNN, Access Hollywood, The News Room and many other programs and is affectionately referred to as the “The Human Lie Detector”. He is known as an expert in the field of behavioral interviewing, reading body language, detecting deception and changing behaviors through rapid induction hypnosis. He has conducted behavioral interviews on 68 homicide and two serial killer investigations and consults his services to Fortune 500 companies, police departments, intelligence agencies and government departments throughout the world on how to read body language and detect deception by analyzing verbal, nonverbal and paralinguistic behaviors.
• David Barboza, Investigative Journalist, The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize Winner
  Barboza has been a correspondent for The New York Times based in Shanghai, China, since November 2004. In 2013, Barboza was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting “for his striking exposure of corruption at high levels of the Chinese government, including billions in secret wealth owned by relatives of the prime minister, well documented work published in the face of heavy pressure from the Chinese officials.” He was also part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. In 2002, he was part of a team that was named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Enron scandal.
• Tony Menendez, the "Accountant who Beat Halliburton"
  Menendez is widely recognized for his decade long legal battle with Halliburton as a corporate whistleblower under Sarbanes-Oxley. Despite having no formal legal training, as a pro-se litigant during the appeals process, he ultimately prevailed in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. An in-depth profile of Menendez published by ProPublica provides insight into what motivated him to stand up against a corporate behemoth while shedding light on the difficult journey so many whistleblowers experience after coming forward.

Along with the keynotes listed above, the ACFE Global Fraud Conference will pack in more than 70 educational sessions, three Pre-Conferences, three Post-Conferences and an unlimited amount of networking into five days. I look forward to seeing you, and hearing even more stories about your individual fight against fraud, at the conference in June. Register by March 28 to reserve your spot and receive the latest savings.

Treasury’s Crackdown on High-end Property ‘Secret Buyers’

GUEST BLOGGER

Martin Kenney
Managing Partner of Martin Kenney & Co., Solicitors

The New York Times recently published an article describing a forthcoming clampdown by the U.S. Treasury Department on "secret buyers" snapping up high-end real estate.

As recently as July last year, the U.K. TV company Channel 4 conducted an undercover investigation into precisely this problem in London, generated by the suspicion that secret buyers, predominantly Russian and Chinese, were using London property portfolios as a money laundering methodology.

The undercover sting, which The Guardian newspaper covered in some detail, clearly portrayed the scale and depth of the problem facing both the U.S. and U.K. The documentary revealed a London estate agent effectively being told that a Russian 'buyer' had obtained his money via corruption, linked to Russian pharmaceutical contracts, and as a result his payment would have to be in cash. Unfazed, the estate agent confirmed that hiding the client's identity would not be a problem; furthermore, he had access to a law firm that would facilitate the deal.

These sorts of transactions have been going on for some time: the only surprise is that it has taken so long for the authorities to act on them. Other than some concerns over the regulators’ over-emphasizing the time scales and geographic regions that would initially be targeted, I applaud this as a first step towards greater scrutiny and additional transparency. As a lawyer specializing in cross-border asset recovery and the representation of victims of global economic crime, it seems mind boggling that complicit professional enablers are still willing to run the risk of incarceration at a time when due diligence is at the forefront of any reputable organization’s business model.

The mechanics of constructing hidden ownership via shell companies is not the issue. How the money laundering takes place and the methodologies used is immaterial, too. The biggest takeaway of this problem is the need for regulators to continue upping their game in response to the few bad apples who continue to bring professions into disrepute. Once this investigation takes shape, the common threads linking webs of deceit will flag complicit professionals. It is imperative that they are brought to book: only then will the message get through to deter those tempted by these shady deals.

Martin Kenney is Managing Partner of Martin Kenney & Co., Solicitors of the British Virgin Islands, a specialist investigative and asset recovery practice focused on multi-jurisdictional fraud cases. MartinKenney.com | @MKSolicitors