Fraud Museum Game: Blazing the Trail in the Fight Against Fraud

Sponsored by Fraud Magazine

At this very moment, a fraudster somewhere in the world is plotting their next scheme, putting a fresh twist on a classic or devising something entirely new. It’s why the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) studies past fraud cases and the people who perpetrate them. The more we know about financial criminals and how they operate, the better equipped we are as anti-fraud professionals to reduce fraud worldwide. At past ACFE Global Fraud Conferences we featured some of the most notorious fraudsters of our host cities — Seattle’s Worst Fraudsters and the mobsters who built some of Las Vegas’ most famous casinos (and skimmed the profits from them too). The last time we were in Nashville for the 33rd Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference in 2022, we recounted tales of country music’s fraud scandals. This year, we return to Nashville for the 36th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference with a different point of view.

Fraudsters aren’t the only ones with lessons to impart. Sometimes we need to look to the other side of the equation, to the fraud fighters who’ve blazed trails by foiling fraudsters and their schemes. Over the years, Fraud Magazine cover stories have featured fearless individuals who’ve fought all manner of financial crime — sometimes at a great expense to their lives. Whether they've worked in law enforcement, blown the whistle on wrongdoing at work, or exposed public corruption as intrepid journalists, these individuals have blazed trails and a set a course for their fellow fraud fighters to follow. We hope their stories will inspire you to blaze your own trail in the anti-fraud field.

The ACFE’s Fraud Museum, located at our headquarters in Austin, Texas, features artifacts, memorabilia, documents and other pieces of fraud history collected by ACFE founder and Chairman Dr. Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA.

To participate in this year’s game, read about the anti-fraud heroes who are blazing the trail in the fight against fraud below and answer the questions in this quiz to be entered for your chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card. The game begins on Sunday, June 22, and closes on Tuesday, June 24 at 11:59 p.m., Central Time. Only attendees of the 36th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference are eligible to participate. Please read the official rules before submitting your entry. The winner will be notified via email.

Damian Williams, Fraud Magazine cover, July/August 2024

When Damian Williams was first sworn in as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2021, he vowed to make fighting public corruption and financial fraud his top priorities.  

He made good on that promise. During his tenure as U.S. attorney, Williams prosecuted crypto crooks like FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Celsius CEO Alexander Mashinsky. Williams’ work tangling with the crypto Wild West spurred The New Republic to dub him “America’s Top Crypto Cop.” 

Corrupt politicians also found themselves in Williams’ crosshairs. Former New York Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin and former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez were indicted on various bribery and fraud charges.  

During the press conference announcing charges against Menendez, Williams said, “My office remains firmly committed to rooting out public corruption without fear or favor and without any regard to partisan politics. That’s in our DNA.”  In 2025, Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison. 

Williams has blazed trails for fraud fighters in other ways. He was the first Black person appointed to lead SDNY. When given the opportunity to hire more staff, he chose to augment the office’s behind-the-scenes work with experts to collect and analyze data so that investigations could run more efficiently. He piloted a whistleblower program that offered individuals involved in fraud non-prosecution agreements in exchange for their cooperation with investigators. 

For his dedication to fighting financial crime, Williams was presented with the Cressey Award in 2024 at the 35th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference.

Sarah Carver, CFE, and Jennifer Griffith, CFE, Fraud Magazine cover, March/April 2024 

While working in the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) field office in Huntington, West Virginia, case mangers Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver grew suspicious of lawyer Eric Conn and judge David Daugherty. They observed that a high volume of Conn’s disability claims was funneled to Daugherty, who approved most of them. As Carver told Fraud Magazine in the March/April 2024 cover story, “It was almost like our management was catering to Eric Conn cases.”

The two women sounded the alarm to their supervisors to no avail. They sent numerous emails detailing their suspicions. They contacted U.S. Congressional representatives and local news media. They wrote letters to the governor of West Virginia and the president of the United States.

Finally, reporter Damian Paletta took note. His story caught the attention of the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General, which investigated the case. Carver and Griffith testified before the U.S. Senate about their discovery.

Carver and Griffith had uncovered a massive fraud. Conn bilked the SSA of $550 million in fraudulent disability claims — the largest in the agency’s history.

Carver and Griffith experienced fierce retaliation. They were ostracized at work; actions against them ranged from reprimands to threats of suspension. A judge working with Conn hired a private investigator to follow Carver.  

Today, Carver and Griffith are outspoken advocates for whistleblowers, pushing for reforms to protect people. In 2024, they received the Sentinel Award at the 35th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference.   

Miranda Patrucic, Fraud Magazine cover May/June 2023

In the cover story for the May/June 2023 issue of Fraud Magazine, investigative journalist Miranda Patrucic recounted how her editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) would tell her to “Get me a miracle.” She surmised that those miracles would come through hard work. “I really learned that if I turned every stone, I would get my miracle each time and I would find this one fact, this one document, one piece of information that really makes the story that was impossible to find,” she told Fraud Magazine.  

That commitment to the truth led her to expose former Montenegro president Milo Dukanovic’s hidden assets and involvement in organized crime. The leader of the tiny Balkan country only had a salary of $1,700 a month, yet he’d amassed millions of dollars in real estate, stocks and other business deals. To Patrucic, something didn’t add up, and she went on a “wild goose chase” to uncover the truth about Dukanovic.   

Patrucic has said that her sense of justice came from growing up in Bosnia during its war with Serbia in the early 1990s. And indeed, that sense of justice has allowed her to break major stories on corruption in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and arms trades in the Middle East. Patrucic’s quest for justice and perseverance are the reasons she was the recipient of the Guardian Award at the 34th ACFE Annual Global Fraud Conference.

Xavier Justo, Fraud Magazine cover, September/October 2023 

In 2015, Swiss banker Xavier Justo was thrown into a Thai jail for 547 days on a bogus charge of blackmailing his former employer, PetroSaudi. But the reality wasn’t that he’d blackmailed PetroSaudi; he was unfairly thrown in jail in retaliation for blowing the whistle on his colleagues’ involvement in the massive 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. The sovereign wealth fund had been set up in 2009 to drive new investment in Malaysia. The country’s former prime minister, Najib Razak, was chair when $4.5 billion had been stolen from the fund.   

Executives of Justo’s former employer had allegedly helped set up a joint venture with 1MDB and embezzled $1 billion from the fund. Justo supplied British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown with thousands of documents from PetroSaudi’s servers that revealed the theft of the investment fund. Justo’s courageous act set off a dozen investigations connected to the fund around the world.   

As Justo recounted to Fraud Magazine in the September/October 2023 cover story, he and his family have struggled to rebuild their lives as it’s been difficult for Justo to obtain a job or pay rent in the wake of his ordeal. In 2023, Justo was recognized by the ACFE for his act of bravery with the Sentinel Award. 

Thulisile Madonsela, Fraud Magazine cover, July/August 2021 

In 2016, South Africa’s Public Protector Thulisile Madonsela published a report titled “State Capture.” The report detailed how the brothers of the influential Indian Gupta family colluded with then-South African President Jacob Zuma to hire ministers and directors of state-owned companies to obtain benefits for their family business. 

Madonsela’s investigations into Zuma’s time in office revealed that he’d pilfered 500 billion rand (about $30 billion) from the state between 2009 and 2018. He was forced to step down under the threat of impeachment in 2018. 

Madonsela blazed a trail as the first woman to hold the public protector position from 2009 to 2016. The position is one of six state institutions established in the 1990s to protect democracy in South Africa. And Madonsela made good use of that title, winning accolades for her bravery in exposing fraud and corruption. She helped establish the Zondo Commission in 2018, a public inquiry to investigate allegations of state capture, corruption and fraud. 

Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in 2014. In 2021, Madonsela received the ACFE’s Cressey Award for a lifetime of achievement in the detection and deterrence of fraud.  

Madonsela told Fraud Magazine in 2021 that she saw her position as an opportunity to extend justice to the ordinary person whom she calls Gogo Dlamini, or “Grandmother Dlamini” in the Sotho language, her description for the average grandmother who lacks the economic means or knowledge of how sophisticated systems work. 

Daphne Caruana Galizia, Fraud Magazine cover May/June 2020 

In October 2017, Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated by a car bomb. She had fearlessly uncovered corruption in her home country’s ruling elite.  

Receiving threats was familiar territory for Caruana Galizia and her family. Her tireless efforts to expose corruption in Malta made her a target. “When she published her stories and the government reacted hysterically to it, she took that as a cue that there was something more and that she should keep pushing. … She knew the best way to deal with people like that was to stand up to them and not to give into them,” her son Matthew told Fraud Magazine in a 2020 cover story honoring his mother. 

In 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released the Panama Papers. Caruana Galizia searched those records and discovered offshore wealth tied to the Maltese prime minister’s inner circle. She also uncovered a mystery company in Dubai called 17 Black Limited and alleged on her blog that it was connected to Maltese politicians. Months after her report, Caruana Galizia was murdered. Reuters and other news media outlets discovered that Yorgen Fenech, a prominent Maltese businessman, owned 17 Black. 

Three men were arrested in connection to Caruana Galizia’s death — George and Alfred Degiorgio and Vincent Muscat. A suspected middleman was arrested in November 2019 who accused Fenech of paying for the assassination.  

She was posthumously awarded ACFE’s 2020 Guardian Award. 

Dan McCrum, Fraud Magazine cover March/April 2021, and Pav Gill, Fraud Magazine cover March/April 2022

Financial Times (FT) reporter Dan McCrum investigated German fintech Wirecard for six years, discovering that it had been disguising fake profits by paying out money for worthless businesses. McCrum exposed a 250-million-euro hole in the fintech’s balance sheet in FT’s blog series, “The House of Wirecard.”  

Wirecard accused McCrum and his colleagues of conspiring to publish falsehoods to lower its stock. Wirecard published fake correspondence between McCrum and other whistleblowers to support the market manipulation claims. It sued FT and McCrum after its offices were raided by police in 2019.

But McCrum wasn’t alone in his efforts. Pav Gill, a lawyer for Wirecard, blew the whistle on the now-defunct fintech. Gill became suspicious of his employer when it hired an underqualified accounting and finance department manager who then lied about a local subsidiary’s profit projections.

Gill advised his company to conduct an internal investigation in March 2018, but Chief Operating Officer Jan Marsalek took over the investigation. Marsalak was later implicated in much of the company’s financial deceit. Gill faced intimidation tactics and was forced to resign from Wirecard. 

Wirecard executives had Gill and his mother followed and interfered with Gill’s job interviews. He provided FT with evidence of his ex-employer’s fraud. He also supplied evidence to German regulators and other law enforcement agencies. 

Gill was the ACFE’s Sentinel Award winner in 2022 and McCrum was ACFE’s Guardian Award recipient in 2021.