Bribe, Swindle Or Steal

Sir William Browder (“Bill”), a financier turned justice advocate, is our guest for this episode of our ongoing series on extreme wealth. Bill has been the engine behind the Magnitsky Act, a law that for the past 12 years has empowered governments to seize the assets of foreign leaders who abuse human rights — a significant countermeasure against corruption and atrocity that has exasperated Vladimir Putin and oligarchs in Russia, where Bill was once a leading foreign investor. His experience working in (and subsequently abandoning) Russia allowed him to see inside that culture and economy, and have led him to conclude Putin’s military conquests as a dictator’s efforts to protect his unfathomable stolen wealth — and his own neck. Bill Browder is the founder of Hermitage Capital Management, a firm that became the top foreign investor in post-Soviet Russia. For nearly 20 years he has been the target of Russian prosecution efforts that have drawn round condemnation from the international community, as he continue

The author and philanthropist Jennifer Risher continues our series on extreme wealth by telling the story of her ear-popping rise from a middle-class Microsoft employee in the early ‘90s to an unexpected multimillionaire. The stock options she accrued with her husband, David — a fellow Microsoft employee who went on to join Amazon and who is now the CEO of Lyft — gave Jennifer immediate entry to a world of privilege that, as the child of a working-class household, she’d never expected to join. Her experience showed her the peculiar nature of personal wealth: an agent of tremendous power that, she finds, does more to amplify people’s character than to alter it. Jennifer Risher is the author of “We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth,” which aims to illuminate discussions of money that are often cloaked in taboo, guilt, and secrecy. She and her husband founded the #HalfMyDAF movement, which seeks to encourage wealthy people to make greater charitable gifts in their lifetimes.

In this episode — another in our series on extreme wealth — the journalist Steve Fishman discusses his reporting on Bernie Madoff and the collapse of Madoff’s $65 billion ponzi scheme. Steve doggedly pursued the story even after the financier was sent to a federal prison in North Carolina. Eventually the two men connected for a series of phone interviews that gave Steve a unique insight into the truths and lies that enabled Madoff to con investors at an industrial scale. Steve explains that greed was but one motivation for Madoff, an apex Manhattan insider who never forgot humiliations he suffered during his youth in Queens. Steve Fishman is a longtime journalist who lives in Brooklyn. He covered Bernie Madoff first as a staff writer at New York magazine and later as the host and creator of the podcast Ponzi Supernova. His latest podcast series, The Burden, investigates decades of sketchy convictions won by Louis Scarcella, a formerly celebrated NYPD detective.

This week we debut a special project within Bribe, Swindle or Steal: single-topic episodes that focus on extreme wealth. For years Alexandra Wrage has worked on corporate compliance and anti-corruption efforts, a field that provides a front-row view into human corruptibility. In these episodes, she digs into the practical, philosophical, political, and even spiritual roots of why people risk everything—from scandal to criminal charges—for the allure of money, even when all of their material needs are more than covered. She will explore some surprising challenges of wealth alongside the ways in which greed changes people and extreme wealth changes the rules that we all live by. Her first guest in this series is Clay Cockrell, a therapist in New York City whose Walk and Talk Therapy practice specializes in treating very wealthy clients. The problems they bring to therapy give him a unique insight into the privileges, the anxieties, and the perils exclusive to the 1%.

In this episode from 2020, Randall Eliason, law professor and former Assistant U.S. Attorney provides an excellent account of the days leading up to the sentencing of political operative Roger Stone. The Department of Justice’s unprecedented interference in--and reversal of--its prosecutorial team’s recommendation led to the resignation from the case of all four prosecutors. Over 2000 former DOJ officials called on Attorney General Barr to resign in the wake of his interference in the case. This episode was originally published on 4 March 2020.

A 22-year veteran of Treasury and consultant to the Dept of Justice, John Madinger sheds light on some of the money-laundering schemes he has uncovered and why the Breaking Bad car wash scheme probably wouldn’t have worked. This episode was originally posted: December 27, 2017

Brian Klaas, Associate Professor at University College London and host of the award-winning podcast “Power Corrupts,” joins us to discuss his book “Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us”. Brian describes research on who is drawn to positions of power and how power impacts us, including potentially re-wiring our brains. This episode was originally published 30 March 2022.

David Jackson, a senior reporter with Injustice Watch, discusses his work exposing corruption, which has led to both indictments and legislative reform.

Jonathan Turner, former Vice President, Ethics & Compliance, at Smith & Nephew in Memphis, discusses the admissions scandal that has rattled several top-tier U.S. universities and ties some of the lessons learned back to the work of compliance professionals. This episode was originally published 2 October 2019.

Anand Mangnale of the OCCRP joins the podcast to describe his investigation into the practices of the vast and powerful Adnani Group in India, the spyware discovered on his phone as soon as the story began to break and the subsequent efforts to silence him, including bizarre charges of financial support of terrorism.

Declan Hill discusses the pervasive and sinister nature of match-fixing and how we can prevent sport from being turned into theater. This episode was originially posted on 2 August, 2017.

Rob Koehler, WADA veteran and current Director General of Global Athlete, joins the podcast to discuss the epidemic of doping in sports, the imbalance of power between athletes and administrators and the IOC's startling decision to allow Russia to compete in the Paris Games in spite of its invasion of Ukraine. This episode was originally published 15 February 2023.

My guest today is Melissa Goldin. Melissa is a NY-based news verification reporter with the Associated Press where she analyzes and debunks fake news. 

Sally Dennis, former President of Rugby Canada and current Canadian representative on the Council of World Rugby, describes her role in the professionalization of sports governance, where challenges remain—​ and rugby's arguably unique invulnerability to match fixing!

Mahmoud Elsobky, one of the two winners of this year’s TRACE Prize for Investigative Reporting, describes his team’s high risk infiltration of a human smuggling ring that preyed on—and defrauded—those desperate to leave Syria.

Diana Henriques, award-winning journalist and author, discusses the traits of fraudsters and the menace of reputation laundering.

Paul Massaro of the U.S. Helsinki Commission discusses the scope of doping in international sport, the foreign policy implications and the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA) offered in response. (This episode was originally published on 20 March 2019)

In recognition of the recent honor of Sir Bill Browder KCMG with the title Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George for his significant contributions to human rights and anti-corruption, we are revisiting a 2017 interview with Bill. He describes the brazen fraud and violence of Putin’s Russia, the death of Sergei Magnitsky, and the passage of the Magnitsky Act. This episode was originally published on 31 May 2017

Today’s podcast is a recording of a talk given by Drew Sullivan of the OCCRP at the University of Maryland. Drew is the co-founder and editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (the OCCRP), a global network of journalists working collaboratively to evaluate and mine enormous amounts of data to expose corruption. The OCCRP is also a past winner of the TRACE Prize for Investigative Reporting. Special thanks to the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland in the School of Public Policy and the Philip Merrill College of Journalism for letting us record the event. Originally posted 11 May 2022

Jessica Warwick in Norton Rose's Ottawa office joins the podcast to talk about the Arapakota decision and what it means for anti-bribery enforcement in Canada.   (This episode was originally published 21 June 2023)