Growth in All the Wrong Places: Navigating Fraud Challenges in the Emerging Marijuana Industry

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Growth in All the Wrong Places: Navigating Fraud Challenges in the Emerging Marijuana Industry

“Welcome to campus, for those of you attending this session,” said Justin Breidenbach, CFE, CPA, Associate Professor of Accounting at Ohio Wesleyan University during his Wednesday morning session. Breidenbach streamed his presentation from his office on the empty Ohio campus on the last day of the virtual 31st Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference.

Also an accounting consultant with his own firm, Breidenbach Consulting Services LLC, he wasn’t tasked to actually speak about accounting. “So, how does a CFE, CPA, full-time professor get into something like this?” The “this” he was referring to is marijuana fraud. “There’s a lot of stigma and curiosity about this topic,” he said.

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Don't be a Typhoid Mary: Health Care Fraud During a Pandemic

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Don't be a Typhoid Mary: Health Care Fraud During a Pandemic

In the early 1900s, a woman named Mary Malone, an immigrant from Ireland, began work in New York City as a cook for a large family. While working in the home, 11 people got sick with typhoid fever. A sanitary engineer — we would call them an investigator or tracer today — traced this outbreak to Mary. He discovered that Mary had worked with eight other families, seven of which who also experienced outbreaks of typhoid fever. And thus, she was given the moniker Typhoid Mary.

“What was interesting about Mary was that she didn’t show any symptoms,” said Jacqueline Bloink, CFE, a consultant and speaker at the virtual 31st Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference.

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Seen on the Screen: How COVID-19 Might Shift the Anti-Fraud Profession

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Seen on the Screen: How COVID-19 Might Shift the Anti-Fraud Profession

“I believe COVID-19 will change the anti-fraud field by increasing our reliance on data analytics, electronic documentation and digital communication. In-person interviews and access to physical assets, such as inventory and offices, are going to be rare as companies continue to shift to remote work. The anti-fraud field must continue to evolve its methods detect and investigate fraud as the fraudsters are already finding new methods and reasons to conduct fraud through the new normal.” — Keith Louie, CFE, Senior Auditor at PayPal

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Matthew Caruana Galizia Says Guardian Award Will Help Continue and Protect His Mother's Legacy

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Matthew Caruana Galizia Says Guardian Award Will Help Continue and Protect His Mother's Legacy

“The Guardian Award recognizes my mother’s work, not just as a personal achievement, but as a legacy that belongs to all journalists, all people who fight fraud, to all people who protest corruption all over the world,” said Matthew Caruana Galizia during the Tuesday morning General Session. Matthew accepted the posthumous 2020 Guardian Award on behalf of his mother, journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered in a car bombing in Malta in 2017. “My mother herself is now beyond all harm, but the Guardian Award honors her life’s work. In doing so, it helps to protect this legacy.”

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The Cyber Sickness No One Wants ... Ransomware

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The Cyber Sickness No One Wants ... Ransomware

Between 2009 and 2010, Iran’s nuclear program was the target of a devastating cyber attack. A virus took control of centrifuge controls in facilities across the country, causing thousands of machines to break. The hackers weren’t satisfied yet, though. To add insult to injury, they reportedly hijacked the facilities' workstations and used them to play AC/DC … loudly.

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