When Miranda Patrucic first started out as an investigative journalist, her editor Drew Sullivan would tell her, “Go get me a miracle.” Patrucic never quite understood but she was soon to discover what he meant after being assigned to do a profile of Milo Dukanovic, the longstanding leader of the small Balkan nation Montenegro.

“I didn’t know anything about Montenegro, and [here I was] deciding to go investigate a prime minister, the most powerful person in the country,” recalled Patrucic to another packed opening session at the 34th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference in Seattle on Tuesday.