Saints or Sinners? Whistleblowers’ Difficult Position in the Asia-Pacific Region

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Saints or Sinners? Whistleblowers’ Difficult Position in the Asia-Pacific Region

Whistleblowers can be divisive characters. Celebrated by some as heroes and denounced by others as snitches, few other elements that come up during a fraud investigation can spark such polarizing labels. During her session at the 2016 ACFE Fraud Conference Asia-Pacific, Jessica Sidhu, CFE, Llb, explored the precarious position whistleblowers are in. “Is a whistleblower a good person or a bad person? Is he a traitor or is he a patriot?” she asked the audience. “Only when you’ve answered this question will you be able to take a whistleblower seriously.”

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Clare Rewcastle Brown Takes Conference Attendees Through Twisted Tale of 1MDB

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Clare Rewcastle Brown Takes Conference Attendees Through Twisted Tale of 1MDB

Despite not being physically in the room, Rewcastle Brown managed to lay out the intricate timeline of the 1MDB scandal that allegedly begun in 2009 through present day. She told attendees that she initially came into the scandal through her work investigating deforestation in the Sarawak region of Malaysia. As she started following trails of corruption tied to development and deforestation there, they all started to lead upward. What she found was the beginning of a colorful and tangled web of international shell companies, a high-profile Malaysian financier and agent, a wife with a penchant for designer handbags and a Hollywood blockbuster.

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Mindset of the Fraudster: What We’ve Learned in 25 Years of Interviewing

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Mindset of the Fraudster: What We’ve Learned in 25 Years of Interviewing

Some of the recent news stories from just this week highlight the broad range of frauds committed around the world:

We read these stories, we balk at the outlandishness and, if you are a fraud examiner, you dissect the scams and attempt to untangle the webs in hopes of learning what could have been done differently.

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Investigative Journalist Who Exposed 1MDB says “We’re Seeing a Swing of the Pendulum” on Worldwide Corruption

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Investigative Journalist Who Exposed 1MDB says “We’re Seeing a Swing of the Pendulum” on Worldwide Corruption

Brown will address anti-fraud professionals from the Asia-Pacific region at the 2016 ACFE Fraud Conference Asia-Pacific at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, 20-22 November. Despite having an arrest warrant issued for her by a Malaysian court, Brown remains optimistic that corruption on a global scale can be defeated. She said, “I do think we’re seeing a lashback and 1MDB is going to be just one example of enforcement agencies hitting back.”

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Asia-Pacific Conference Keynote Sees "Swing of the Pendulum" in Global Corruption

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Asia-Pacific Conference Keynote Sees "Swing of the Pendulum" in Global Corruption

One of the keynote speakers for the 2016 ACFE Fraud Conference Asia-Pacific, Clare Rewcastle Brown, is all too familiar with the reach of global corruption. Rewcastle Brown is an investigative journalist who has begun a heated international dialogue by publishing accounts alleging corruption occurring in Malaysia.
"I think we're seeing a swing of the pendulum. I think that 1MDB has cropped up at perhaps the right place, the right time," she said. "This whole off-shore financial structure that's been allowed to grow ... the whole thing's got out of control and I think governments all over the world are starting to realize they've lost control."

 

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