Collaboration and Trust Key to Reporting on the Panama Papers

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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.

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29th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference Sessions Announced

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29th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference Sessions Announced

More than 3,000 anti-fraud professionals will gather in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 17-22, 2018, for the 29th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference to power up their network, boost their skills and recharge their careers. You can now customize your schedules by choosing from more than 100 educational sessions across 13 tracks. The wide range of topics touches on nearly every facet of occupational fraud — from contract fraud to cross-border investigations to the Paradise Papers — with sessions for all levels of experience. Here are a few highlights:

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Artificial Intelligence Expert to Speak at World's Largest Fraud Conference

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Artificial Intelligence Expert to Speak at World's Largest Fraud Conference

Martin Ford, futurist and author of The New York Times best-seller, "Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future," will address more than 3,000 attendees this June for the 29th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference in Las Vegas. An expert on artificial intelligence, job automation and accelerating technology in the workplace, Ford will impart what he's learned in his 25 years of experience in the fields of computer design and software development to anti-fraud experts from around the world.

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Working with Data Analytics to Track Tax Evasion

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Working with Data Analytics to Track Tax Evasion

Tax fraud is a problem that affects every country around the world. As the Panama Papers and subsequent Paradise Papers exposed, many individuals and organizations use anonymous shell companies and intermediaries to move money to jurisdictions with favorable tax laws. Some of this is done legally, and considered tax avoidance, but tax evasion is done illegally, making it fraud. In his session at the 2018 ACFE Fraud Conference Middle East, Varun Mehta, CFE, discussed some of the challenges of tracking down tax fraud and how data analytics can be an invaluable tool in that fight.

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Investigating Common Fraud Schemes in the Middle East

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Investigating Common Fraud Schemes in the Middle East

In 2016, The Huffington Post and its Australian partner, Fairfax Media — led by reporters Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie — published the results of a months-long investigation of Unaoil, a firm that helped big multinational corporations win government contracts in areas of the world where corruption is common. The investigation spanned two continents and revealed that billions of dollars of government contracts were awarded as the direct result of bribes paid on behalf of firms including Rolls-Royce, Halliburton, Samsung and more.

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The Growing Threat of Business Email Compromise

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The Growing Threat of Business Email Compromise

“In the good old days when I started my career, my life was much easier,” said Issam Zaghloul, CISSP, CISA, CGEIT, Head of Information Security at Majid Al Futtaim Holding. He has been working in the cybersecurity field in one way or another for the last 16 years. The work was easier, he explained, because there wasn’t as much data to track, and it was all stored in centralized locations. In other words, things were simpler and much more straightforward.

Today, however, we eat data for breakfast, according to Zaghloul, and our systems of tracking, moving and storing data have become infinitely more complex.

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