Resilience in Fraud Risk Management

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Resilience in Fraud Risk Management

If there’s one lesson anti-fraud professionals should take from the trials of 2020, Abed Bazzi, CFE, encourages people to grasp the importance of a robust fraud risk management plan. In his virtual 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Middle East session, Bazzi, a partner in the Forensic Services practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, emphasized how both fraud risk and actual fraud have increased within the past year, and he urged businesses to build resilience to be ready to respond during crisis moments.

Bazzi began by explaining how the Middle East experienced a “dual shock” in 2020 due to both the pandemic and lower oil prices. These combined occurrences affected the economic cycles, increasing financial pressures on citizens and companies and heightening fraud risk levels.

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How to Remain Relevant as a Fraud Examiner in a Rapidly Shifting Digital World

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How to Remain Relevant as a Fraud Examiner in a Rapidly Shifting Digital World

Hossam El Shaffei, founder and managing director of Oversight Consulting and Training, started off his ACFE Fraud Conference Middle East session with a question that’s been on many fraud examiners’ minds throughout the past year: How do we efficiently and effectively conduct fraud investigations remotely?

While the pandemic has introduced a lot of new norms and skills to the industry, El Shaffei noted that fraud examiners have also had to navigate new challenges associated with malpractice.

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Interviewing the Fraudster: A Strategic Approach

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Interviewing the Fraudster: A Strategic Approach

Interviewing suspects can be one of the most valuable and illuminating components of any investigation. It’s crucial for fraud examiners to constantly evaluate and improve their tactics and approaches.

In an enlightening virtual session titled “Interviewing the Fraudster: A Strategic Approach” during the 2021 Fraud Conference Europe, Jonathan Davison shared anecdotes from his professional career to exemplify how interviewing has evolved and explained new strategies that viewers might incorporate into their investigations.

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ACFE and Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia to Hold Virtual 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Middle East this April

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ACFE and Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia to Hold Virtual 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Middle East this April

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), in collaboration with the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia, will host the 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Middle East in a virtual format, 7-8 April. This conference will bring together professionals from the Middle Eastern region working in both public and private sectors, and will provide a platform to exchange ideas, expertise and discuss the latest trends and tools in fraud detection, response and prevention.

Attendees will hear from His Excellency Mr. Mohammed El Kuwaiz, Chairman of the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia; Preet Bharara, senior CNN legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York; and Pamela Barnum, a trust strategist and body language expert. They will be joined by other expert speakers who will help attendees explore important cases and trends that have emerged in technological development, risk management and fraud prevention.

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Developing a Culture of Compliance: How Ethics and Risk Management Intersect

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Developing a Culture of Compliance: How Ethics and Risk Management Intersect

Despite the oft-invoked title of “ethics and risk management” for anti-fraud initiatives and professional roles, it’s occasionally difficult to put modes of compliance into practice that explicitly draw links between ethics and risk as symbiotic symptoms of each other. While it may be easy to identify potential risks within an organization, it’s harder to trace those risk opportunities back to an ethical aspect of the company’s culture that may be the foundational cause for a risk.

As part of the virtual 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe, Dr. Attracta Lagan, co-principle of Managing Values, spoke with Dr. Klaus Moosmayer, the executive committee manager and chief ethics, risk, and compliance officer for Novartis, to discuss techniques for promoting an office culture that enhances ethical accountability as a means of reducing risk.

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What Fraud Examiners Can Learn About Report Writing from a Journalist’s Plagiarism Case

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What Fraud Examiners Can Learn About Report Writing from a Journalist’s Plagiarism Case

When investigating a financial fraud case, anti-fraud professionals know the importance of following established steps and best practices. From beginning an investigation, through collecting evidence and conducting interviews, they follow generally accepted guidance and document each stage in their final report. This diligence is important not just for financial fraud cases, but for other types of fraud — such as academic and journalistic fraud.

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Theranos Whistleblower Is Building a Better Way Forward

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Theranos Whistleblower Is Building a Better Way Forward

During the 2021 ACFE Women’s Summit, in the first keynote of the day, the ACFE’s Director of Research, Andi McNeal, CFE, CPA, introduced two women who have been championing the work of whistleblowers, sharing their stories and working to erase the stigma behind whistleblowing.

Erika Cheung and Cynthia Cooper engaged the virtual audience in an enthralling conversation about the ethical underpinnings that drive people to speak up when they see wrongdoing within a company. Cheung was one of the first whistleblowers who reported the medical malpractice at Theranos, which ultimately led to the shutdown of their medical lab. Cooper played a pivotal role in uncovering fraud at WorldCom and is now an influential speaker, consultant and author.

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