Fraud Eats Strategy

Scott Moritz

Join us to hear about crime families, penny stock boiler rooms, international money launderers, narco-traffickers, oligarchs, dictators, warlords, and kleptocrats. The Fraud Eats Strategy series is the distillation of experiences, whether it's an accounting scandal, arrests, search warrants, loss of market cap, or all of those things at once – one thing is sure. Failure to consider fraud and corruption risk can upend your strategy and lead to disaster.  

  1. 27 JAN

    Braving Brazil - Operating in the Latin America's Largest Economy in Uncertain Times

    Brazil is a wild and wondrous country. The people are passionate, the celebrations spectacular and the history is rich. There’s a reason Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy. But investing and doing business in Brazil is fraught with rapidly changing, multi-faceted risks. Before 2014, there had been zero prosecutions under the country’s anti-bribery and corruption laws. Then the Lava Jato / Operation Car Wash investigation exploded on the scene and 280 people were convicted of having violated the Brazil Clean Companies Act. Amongst the people charged and 3 convicted in Lava Jato were former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva along with the presidents of Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay and Peru and senior executives of Brazil’s two largest state-owned companies, Petrobras and Odebrecht. It appeared that Brazil was well on its way to corruption reform. But corruption is insidious and political winds shift. Indeed, some of the recent developments in Brazil are nothing short of surreal. After several unsuccessful efforts to be allowed to run again for president despite his criminal conviction, Lula withdrew his candidacy and Jair Bolsonaro was elected president. Then in 2022, Lula was allowed to run again after the Supreme Court dismissed the 4 charges against him. Lula narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in a run off election in October 2022. Bolsonaro did the logical thing, he allegedly plotted to murder Lula. Former president Jair Bolsonaro has been charged with planning to stage a coup and poison the president. He was convicted at trial and sentenced to 27 years. And if you still think investing or expanding your operations into Brazil, you are made of tough stuff. But you may need some advice to navigate the chaotic risk environment that is Brazil.

    31 min

  2. 10/12/2025

    The Rise of Whistleblowing and Retaliation Across Latin America

    It is fair to say that whistleblowing across Latin America has caught on.  In fact, according to NAVEX’s 2025 Regional Whistleblowing & Incident Management Benchmark Report, a median of 2.97 out of each 100 employees submitted whistleblower reports last year. While that may not seem high, it is the highest region by far in NAVEX’s study when compared to the global median of 1.57 or the lowest of the four regions studied, Europe at .67.  Does a higher volume of reports suggest a willingness to come forward without fear of retaliation or is it something else?   The NAVEX report breaks down whistleblower allegations into risk categories.  Workplace Conduct, Accounting and Financial Reporting, Business Integrity, Environment, Health and Safety, Misuse or Misappropriation of Assets and Other.  In Latin America, 2/3 of all reports fell into the category of Workplace Conduct. Underneath these 6 categories, there are a total of 24 risk types including Harassment, Discrimination, Substance Abuse, Compensation and Benefits, Workplace Civility (or incivility, I suppose), Other Human Resources and Retaliation.  Given that 2/3 of what’s been reported on falls within these categories, that seems like a good place to start our exploration of whistleblowing in Latin America.

    44 min

  3. 26/11/2025

    Do High Performers Pose Greater Risk?

    So as we approach year end, many organizations are conducting performance evaluations and are allocating the bonus pool accordingly. And during the performance review process, low performers garner a lot of negative attention as you might expect. Indeed, one of the more widely recognized red flags in efforts to identify fraud risk is that of a disenfranchised employee, often a subset of the low performer pool. But what if I told you that the opposite may be true and it's high performers who pose a disproportionate amount of organizational risk?

    47 min

  4. 11/11/2025

    The Crypto Cringe - Why People Still Avoid Crypto Currency

    I think for a lot of us, when we think about crypto, it still makes us cringe a little bit. And the question and the topic of today's episode is, should it still make us cringe? Whether you're a fan or you're shying away from it, the crypto ecosystem is expanding rapidly. Part of what is causing many to spurn crypto is due to reputational issues. These include the prevalence of crypto-themed fraud, and vulnerability to hacking, which make many retail investors uncomfortable and are keeping some people away. And at the same time, crypto adoption is expanding and the regulatory and enforcement environment has become more favorable to business. This confluence is opening increased opportunities for innovation, but it's also creating opportunities for a wide range of fraud schemes ranging from meme coin scans to sophisticated market manipulation. And some of the most egregious examples of crypto fraud, they continue to be addressed by law enforcement, and rightly so. But civil enforcement by victims and other private parties is equally important in addressing crypto fraud and holding crypto criminals accountable to their victims. It's also important to remember that criminal investigations primary objective is to punish those responsible, whereas making victims whole is secondary and certainly not a foregone conclusion. Civil litigation can really fill that void by seeking recovery for victims of things like pig butchering scams, crypto project, rug pulls, and institutional investment schemes such as those involving crypto startups that failed to execute.

    37 min

  5. 21/10/2025

    Blacklisted Banks and Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Still Want to Invest in Mexico?

    Mexico is a critically important trading partner with the U.S.  Together with China and Canada, the three account for 36.5% of all U.S. imports and 32.1% of all U.S. exports amounting to over $1 trillion of trade each year. And yet, Mexico is always a challenging country in which to do business. The gap became the wealthiest and the poorest is enormous.  Violent crime and gun violence is extremely prevalent. Government and police corruption is widespread, and Mexico is amongst the largest global producers of cocaine, heroin and Fentanyl.  In addition to being a narcotics source country, because it borders the U.S., it is a major narcotics transshipment country.  And all of the money generated by narcotics trafficking has to be laundered.  In fact, Mexican money launderers are amongst the world’s most innovative who make use of a combination of trade-based money laundering, traditional money laundering through cash intensive businesses, bulk smuggling of U.S. currency, the black market peso exchange and other proven and widely used techniques. On a more positive note, Mexico is also a huge trading and manufacturing partner for a wide range of goods including automobiles and car parts, clothing, housewares, precious metals, oil and gas and a huge volume of agricultural products. Mexico is fraught with risk, tensions between Mexico and the U.S. are at an all time high. And yet, our two economies and national security are inextricably linked.  So how do U.S. companies with significant operations in Mexico continue to operate there?  And what should companies who are considering investing in the Mexican market do to mitigate all of this uncertainty?

    34 min

  6. 08/10/2025

    The 10 Keys to Successful Investigations: A Crossover Edition of the Fraud Eats Strategy (Scott Moritz) and Nota Bene (Scott Maberry) Podcasts

    In this special crossover episode, Scott Moritz, President of White Collar Forensic LLC and host of the Fraud Eats Strategy, and Scott Maberry, host of the Nota Bene, discuss important considerations in internal investigations and how integrating each into your process can improve efficiency and lead to better and more consistent results.

    41 min

  7. 02/09/2025

    Without Fear or Favor: The Last of the Watchdogs Revisited

    In March of 2025, Former Inspector General of the Department of the Interior Mark Lee Greenblatt and I discussed the firing of the Inspectors General and its far-reaching implications for the country. With the blizzard of Executive Orders, high profile government firings and other maneuvers that appear to continue to tear down government agencies, it would be easy to forget about firing of the IGs and the long term consequences. Mark Lee Greenblatt is making it his mission so that the American people don’t lost sight of that fact. At the time of the firing of the IGs, we could only engage in conjecture as to what the long-term implications would be. On January 24, 2025, President Trump fired 16 inspectors general of the 16 largest, most complex U.S. government agencies and a 17th, the IG for USAID Paul Martin, 2 weeks later. The number has since risen to 20.

    23 min

  8. 26/08/2025

    Monitorships and Leniency Agreements in Latin America

    Petrobras, Braskem, Odebrecht, Stericycle and other U.S. style compliance and regulatory actions continue to be more commonplace across Latin America in the past decade. Indeed, there has been a tectonic shift in the implementation of leading industry compliance program overhauls following significant investigations and prosecutions. Some of those matters have included the use of legal tools such as monitorships and deferred prosecution agreements. While organizations on the receiving end of what is sometimes referred to in Latin America as a “leniency agreement” and/or the imposition of a compliance monitor may not welcome these measures or the costs. And yet done correctly, they can deliver long term benefits that over time may lead to improved profitability, transparency, stronger ethical culture and improved morale.

    33 min
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About

Join us to hear about crime families, penny stock boiler rooms, international money launderers, narco-traffickers, oligarchs, dictators, warlords, and kleptocrats. The Fraud Eats Strategy series is the distillation of experiences, whether it's an accounting scandal, arrests, search warrants, loss of market cap, or all of those things at once – one thing is sure. Failure to consider fraud and corruption risk can upend your strategy and lead to disaster.  

Information

  • Creator
    Scott Moritz
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    67
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 759492
  • Show Website
    Fraud Eats Strategy