(By Victor Hartman)More than 25 years ago, I was sitting in an FBI Academy classroom soon to become a newly minted FBI Agent. I heard a presentation on the legendary but notorious Charles Ponzi. I thought to myself, how stupid for someone to get caught up in such a “transparent” scheme and certainly this is the kind […]
(By Jack Bigelow and Joe Koletar) A Wall Street Journal article by Maria Armental describes “The Curious Case of an ‘Oxford’ Man,” in which Steven Wessel is described by a U.S. Attorney as “…much less an investment banker than a serial liar.” According to the article, Wessel conducted a classic Ponzi operation. Investors were persuaded […]
(By Jack Bigelow) I was scanning my emailed Washington Post Headlines when an article by Drew Harwell grabbed my attention. It was titled, “Tarnished by the Enron scandal, can this brand be saved?” Whoa! Having been a part of Andersen for more than 27 years, I knew that this was Big News. And it was: […]
(By Jack Bigelow) Colleagues Daven Morrison and Joe Koletar have kicked off a discussion of lessons learned from the Richard Nixon resignation of 40 years ago (see their posts below). Daven describes the behavior of deception (behavior exercised in spades throughout the sordid Watergate coverup leading to the President’s resignation as impeachment and trial were […]
(By Joe Koletar) My friend and colleague, Daven Morrison, recently posted a piece on deception (see below) and why it is quite common human behavior, to one degree or another. We see deception in many areas of our lives. A child may “make up” an imaginary friend they can talk to and play with. Little […]
(Repeat of a LinkedIn Posting of August 14: Nixon Resignation @ 40: Lessons for the Risk Officer on Deception, Caveat Emptor and Politics) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140814204036-5071179-linkedin-and-nixon-deception-caveat-emptor-and-politics (By Daven Morrison, MD)Richard Nixon resigned as President 40 years ago. His presidency, his personality and his actions mark a low point in Americans’ trust of leadership. Only a few years […]
(By Daven Morrison) As the world turned and watched the World Cup, it was witness to an unpleasant and ugly foul: the biting of Giorgio Chellini of the Italian national team by Luis Suarez of Uruguay. Although the deed wasn’t seen by the referee (an important aspect of fraud to which we will return later) […]
(By Daven Morrison) In the 1960s in my hometown of Chicago, protestors chanted “the whole world is watching”. They brought attention to the fact that what had been done by the police relatively invisibly was now exposed to not only the local Chicago news but the entire world. What had been previously dismissed and hidden […]
(By Vic Hartman) After a 25-year career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) I have only recently returned to the private sector. As a private citizen with considerable public sector experience, I have read the previous posts on mortgage fraud with great interest, and accordingly, want to advance the discussion with some observations. As […]
Mortgage Fraud: Now on the FBI’s Less-Wanted List: Posting IV and Conclusion (By Joe Koletar and Daven Morrison) (See three previous posts for more on this subject.) We suspect that many factors drove the FBI’s decision to reduce the priority of mortgage fraud investigations; we are exploring five of those possible factors in this series […]