My Life as a White-Collar Criminal
by ilene - July 25th, 2010 3:59 pm
My Life as a White-Collar Criminal
Courtesy of Sam Antar at White Collar Fraud
Last Friday evening, Marcia MacMillan from CTV News Channel (a 24-hour news network in Canada) interviewed me and asked me what it’s like to be a white-collar criminal and what role, if any, did morality play in my decisions to commit crime.
You can watch the interview by clicking on this link.
Reflecting on my own white-collar criminal mind leaves no doubt that money is not the only motivating force compelling hardcore criminals to commit crimes. There was also a passion for the act, a sense of accomplishment, that made me enjoy committing my crimes. It is perhaps the same positive feelings of success that law-abiding citizens experience for a legitimate job well-done.
To better understand the behavior of white-collar criminals, take morality out of the equation. During my years at Crazy Eddie, we never had a single conversation about the morality of our actions. We did not give a damn about right and wrong.
Hardcore criminals don’t question their unethical and immoral conduct. Laws, morality, and ethics are weaknesses of other people. They don’t factor in except by limiting society’s behavior. In our society, morality dictates that people are entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Ironically, the “benefit of a doubt” limits the behavior of law-abiding citizens while giving criminals greater opportunity to commit their crimes. After all, no one likes to be called "a paranoid" or "impolite."
Our late President Ronald Reagan used to say "trust, but verify." That initial trust gives criminals the freedom to take steps to evade detection. For example, Joseph T. Wells, founder of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, described certain steps I took during Crazy Eddie’s audit to successfully execute my crimes:
Crazy Eddie’s auditors were provided a company office during their examination. They had a key to lock the desk—which they kept in a box of paperclips on top of the desk in full view. After the auditors left for the day, Eddie’s cohorts would unlock the desk, increase the inventory counts on the work-papers and photocopy the altered records. Were the auditors stupid? No, just too trusting. After all, no one wants…
PwC Might Have to Pay for Those JP Morgan “Oversights”…
by ilene - June 9th, 2010 7:45 pm
PwC Might Have to Pay for Those JP Morgan "Oversights"…
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Play with rats, get the Black Plague. That’s all I’m saying. It’s about damn time someone ask the question "What the f*#k were the auditors THINKING?!"
PricewaterhouseCoopers is facing an inquiry by accounting regulators into its failure to notice that JP Morgan was paying up to £16 billion of clients’ money into the wrong bank accounts.
Last week the Financial Services Authority fined the investment bank £33.3 million — the largest penalty that the City regulator has imposed — for breaches of client money rules under which customers’ funds became mixed with the bank’s own cash over a seven-year period.
PwC, JP Morgan’s auditor, is now likely to be drawn into another inquiry by the two professional bodies that oversee accountants, the Financial Reporting Council and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
In addition to serving as principal auditor, PwC was retained by JP Morgan to produce an annual client asset returns report — a yearly certification to prove that customers’ funds were being effectively ring-fenced and therefore protected in the event of the bank’s collapse. But PwC signed off the client report even though JP Morgan was in breach of the rules.
If you recall, JP Morgan likes to play with client money. Illegally.
Remind me why we even have auditors again?