Inside Corporate Investigations: Language, Culture, and Whistleblowing with Will Scott Gall

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Why are we so crap. Excuse my bad language, ladies and

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gentlemen. Why are we so bad at getting the. The

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investigations and the convictions and taking it in

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a swift understanding fraud and prosecuting them?

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Yeah, with vigor. So I don't think that's the

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fault of the practitioners. I think they're the ones that are

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dedicating their. Their lives to. To that.

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To public service. Absolutely. You know, kudos to them and

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they're all, you know, doing a fantastic job, but they're doing it

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with no resources. How do you build up, particularly in

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confrontational interviews, how do you build up to the point where the person is comfortable

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telling you, even in an adverse situation,

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they've done something really, really bad? Right.

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That's about building trust with someone whose entire

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future depends on not trusting. Not really trusting you

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is. Is really important. What's the most dangerous

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situation you found yourself in physically as a result

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of an investigation? Welcome to the Intelligence

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Advantage podcast, where I, Gary Miller, get to talk to the

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movers and shapers in the investigation and intelligence industry

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and find out exactly how they got to where they are today.

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Today I am delighted to be joined by somebody I've known

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for a good few years, Will Scott Gall. Will is

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a corporate investigator, intelligence practitioner,

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whistleblowing specialist and a

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master linguist. I'm not going to ask him to say to

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speak in tongue, but I may well ask him

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a few questions about languages. So, anyway, welcome, Will, and thank you for

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spending time with me. Thank you, Gary. Absolutely delighted to

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be here. So let's start you off gently, as they

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say. Thank you. Talk to me a little bit about

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why would a lovely young man from Swindon,

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which I think is where you're from, decide to become an investigator? I've

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always had a strong sense of fairness, so I remember, you know,

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incidents and things at school where things had gone wrong and

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you're kind of trying to work out what had happened. I suppose

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one of those formative stories was when I was the editor of our local,

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like, school newspaper and I decided to run an expose

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on conflicts of interest amongst some of the

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prefects that the older kids who were running. You

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were a controversial young man, weren't you? Yeah, I was. And so I used

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my mouthpiece of the newspaper to expose them

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all for what they were doing wrong. And, you know, I

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felt I was on the side of good right and

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transparency and so, so, so stories like that.

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Can I beg you to share that story? What was the

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naughtiness that was going on at the time? So they would do a walk around

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the school Grounds to check for people

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smoking. And they would let off their friends if they caught

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them. And they were also mostly smokers themselves.

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So while they were doing their walk around, they'd also have a cheeky fag.

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And so I thought that two tier justice system was

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wrong. And I didn't think people who were

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actively smoking should be out there trying to catch smokers. So

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I ran a story without getting any sort of

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permissions or anything like that. And the next day I was hauled up in front

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of the deputy head and given a very

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clear warning that it was not

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appropriate to rat on

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your fellow students. Right. Well, no, to bring the

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powers that, you know, supposed to be the upstanding members of the

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community, to bring them into disrepute. Right. And to challenge

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that authority. So I was. My next cover as

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editor was a black page with the

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word censored all across it. And then I ran a bunch of silly stories about

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things that didn't really happen that weren't controversial. But yeah, that

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was, I guess, my first intro into. So how old were you? How old

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were you at that stage? Probably 17, 18, something like that.

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This was. This is really interesting. This was your first

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example of whistleblowing,

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I guess so I don't know if it was. It was the first.

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But I've always been someone that likes to speak up and

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speak up when I see people in trouble or when I feel

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like something's wrong or going wrong, so. So yeah, that

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has occasionally got me into trouble. Okay, but you were

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in a position as editor of the magazine

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or the newspaper to be able to shine

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some light on it, so. Quite

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right. And I was always interested in history, I was always

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interested in languages. So this kind of the obvious

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options for me leaving university were things like maybe

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going into the Foreign Office or into journalism,

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all those kinds of options. Is that in the family? Do

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you have a history of.

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None of those. None of those things my dad

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worked in. He was an executive at a small business.

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Small, medium sized business. He wanted me to go into investment banking because he thought

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I'd make a load of money doing that. And he's probably right. And when

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that failed, he said I should become a lawyer because I'm very

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pernickety and a smart aleck. So he thought that would be a

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fantastic career for me as well. But no

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offense to you and your esteemed colleagues, I found it a little bit

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dry. The law. Yeah. And how do you know when you're

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at whatever age that the law

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is for you? Particularly if you've had no exposure to it.

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You know, if your dad's a lawyer or you're a cousin or your uncle, but,

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you know, the law is something that you've got to have

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either a particular bent on wanting to do it

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because you've seen something, or maybe, like me, you just fall into it

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by accident, but that's another story.

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But you did Russian at university, didn't you? So where did that come

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from? Where did that desire. My Russian

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career, let's say, started at school and

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I was sitting in my Spanish class, my first Spanish class,

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and the head of languages came in and said, there's too many people doing

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Spanish and not enough people doing Russian. Does anyone want to do it?

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And so, you know, this is part of my character. I was like, oh,

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opportunity, yes, great, that sounds fun. So I

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picked up my stuff, walked out in Spanish, went and joined the

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Russianists and so found it incredibly

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difficult. I still am rubbish at

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speaking it, but endlessly fascinating and

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complicated. And that kept my. Kept my brain going

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for. So you were studying how many languages, of course, you had to do French

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at school anyway? Yes, I did. I did French, I

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did Latin, I did Russian, I did Japanese at school

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as well. Gosh, you, you went to a very,

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very enlightened school. I mean, I was lucky

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if. If I think French and German was about as much as I

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squeeze out of my grammar school. I was very lucky. My

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English teacher went to Japan on a sabbatical,

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right, for a year, and came back having learned enough

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Japanese to then say, hey, I'm happy to teach a course on this if

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anyone's got it, interested. So, yeah, signed

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up for that immediately. And then we did the course that

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he could teach and then they. We still wanted to carry on, so they brought

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another. Another teacher who'd come in at once a week and

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start teaching us, and we did the GCSE in a year and then the A

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level in a year. Wow. So what's your Japanese like now?

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Not great. I went to Japan after uni, so I lived

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out in a rural village

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in Kyushu, which is the southern island, for a year

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teaching there, which is absolutely incredible experience.

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And, yeah, I got up to the stage where I could communicate with

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the, you know, the 7 to 12 year olds that I was teaching,

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but I couldn't get

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much beyond that. The challenges in that

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language, particularly around when you're speaking to someone more senior, you

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know, if I was speaking to you, for instance, Gary, then I would be using,

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I hope you use the most honorific titles possible.

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Exactly. The title, even the way that I would speak in a passive

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voice instead of an active voice and everything would change. And that was.

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That's super difficult. And then there's learning all the symbols, which is,

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of course, because you would learn. When I learned

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Cantonese and then Mandarin, I learned them all phonetically

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with. With Pinyin, but I guess with Japanese you didn't do that. You

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would learn from the characters themselves. Yeah. And they've

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got three languages, they've got three alphabets, so you've got to learn the twos

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of basic alphabets and then all the kanji as

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well. So, yeah, it was an endlessly absorbing and

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challenging task, which is, you know, probably a theme. Right.

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Japanese alongside Russian. Yes. Did you do an own level in Russian

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as well? Yeah, so I did a level Russian, a level Japanese, and then

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chose one Russian at university. I see. And then when I got

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to university, I was thinking, oh, I could carry on with my Japanese. So I

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was in the queue, you know, at the sort of first,

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whatever, freshers week you had to sign up for modules,

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I was in the queue and the head of my Russian and Slavonic studies came

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over and said, what are you doing? What are you queuing up from? I was

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like, oh, I thought I might try and do some Japanese. Oh, well, we

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do other languages in our department. Why don't you do one of those? And so

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I said, oh, like, like, like what? And he said, oh, well, we do

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Czech. And I was like, oh, my friends had just been sort

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of around Europe and come back with some lovely stories

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about how cheap the beer was and how beautiful the women were. Okay,

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seems like a good reason to learn the language. And so I was like, oh,

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all right, I'll give that a shot. And Czech,

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compared with Russian and

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Japanese, which are endlessly difficult, seems

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a lot easier. And I got a lot further with it and. And really

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got on with the Czechs and the Czech culture, so ended up

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doing that as a big part of my degree. Oh, I see. So not

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Russian. No. So I stayed with the Russian because I kind

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of had to, but my focus was very much on

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Czech. And then I did a dual honour, so I did history as well. So

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I had to kind of make a triple honours degree made up just

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for me, which they now do. They now allow people to do it. But I

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was again the trailblazer there. So I'm going to show you a gap, even in

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my ignorance, by saying, is there any connection at all between

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Czech language and the Russian language? The Slavic languages,

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Slavonic languages are all very Similar, but some use the

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Cyrillic Alphabet, like in Russian, some use a kind of

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Roman Alphabet like Czech, and others.

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And the grammar is broadly the same. A lot of the root words are the

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same, but then there might be differences, so. And it's those differences

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that will easily identify whether you're speaking Russian

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or Ukrainian or Polish or Czech. And so there's similar

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enough, like the Romance languages that you can

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sort of understand what's happening. But then you'll. Yeah, then

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there'll be an old word that throws you, like between Spanish and French and

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Italian. So tell me this, because I know from looking at

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the material you sent me, and you and I,

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I think, are both keen observers and

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students of human behavior and culture,

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and I remember when I was learning

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Cantonese and now Mandarin, that as you start

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learning the language and the sentences and the. There's

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not much grammar, but the way in which the

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Chinese use Southern Chinese, Northern

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Chinese use certain words, you learn a lot about their

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culture and the way they think. So what did

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you learn about the Russians? I can't remember whether you told

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me or whether in your paper you said you'd been to Russia during this time,

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but. Oh, yeah, many times. I see. So what did you learn?

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Well, let's combine it. What did you learn about the Russian

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mentality from both your visits there, as well

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as your studying the language? So much, but

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so little, I think, about Russian culture. I mean, are they.

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Sorry to interrupt you, but is it the classic stereotype

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of you go in there and yes, no, and like,

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you know, completely and utterly, you know, no.

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So I probably use the Japanese example as a good,

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good one in that they have a very sort of formal

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outward facing mask, but then they have a very

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different personal, you know, inside the home

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culture as well. So. And that definitely exists

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in, in Russia as well. I think the. If you

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contrast that with sort of your stereotypical American who is

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so very out there and immediately trying to

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connect with you and share experience, very open

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culture that doesn't exist in those countries. So

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is it because they're not interested or they've

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been educated? I think it's society,

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Gary. I think there is this formal and informal

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society that exists. I suppose the difference again between the

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two is in Russia there was, for

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whatever close on 70 years, an

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authoritarian government system, which

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meant that the only place where you could feel like you could be

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yourself was around the kitchen table. I see.

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And so that's where close friendships were within the family,

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typically with one or two really close friends that you really

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trusted. But then the Rest of the world you had quite a formal

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relationship with. So in Russia, I found that as

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a foreign student, I could engage,

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but I didn't really crack that kitchen table

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life. I did live with a host family. They were wonderful and they gave me

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some amazing experiences. What year was this, will? Which year?

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2000. Ish. 2002, something

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like that. 2002, I think I was there. So this would have been.

241
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Whose regime would it have been? So Putin came in

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On New Year's Eve, 99, I think it was. So, yeah,

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Putin was in, but it was still the turbulent years of the

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Chechen wars and terrorism and

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rampant raider capitalism was still

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rife. So really interesting, really interesting times

247
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to be there. Did you feel in any shape or form

248
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that there were microphones in the wall or that

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the family you were with had been said, find out as much

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about this smelly foreign as possible? Not at all. Not

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at all. It was, I think on both sides, there were far

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bigger fish to fry than some. Some students,

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that's for sure. And in fact, I was super welcome, you know, by

254
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the. By the community that I was in. It was very small, but, you know,

255
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I was in Voronezh, which is not far from the

256
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Ukraine border. Oh, wow. Even more tropical.

257
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Right? Yeah. Is it. Is it an area that is

258
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currently in the middle of the fray? So

259
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when there was the march on Moscow by

260
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Prigozhit and his mercenaries, they went through Voronezh and

261
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blew some stuff up there. But. So it's on that. It was on

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that route. But is it still Ukrainian, as it were?

263
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They still occupy that Ukraine or. No, so it was always part

264
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of. It was always part of Russia. Sorry. Okay. It's the

265
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east, east of the Don. I see. Okay. Don River.

266
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But it's one of the sort of staging post cities in that area that they

267
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would then sort of close. So what was the most important thing you

268
00:16:47,390 --> 00:16:51,230
learned, apart from, you know, this, about the Russians? I

269
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think it is that they've got this public and it's private, and

270
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it's absolutely wonderful when you are welcomed into the private

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world. Yeah, right. And suddenly you realize that

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there's this entire culture and things

273
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that was just beyond your grasp. So the few times that that happened, that was

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amazing. And also I think the way that

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their history, recent history, has really shaped

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their connections to people and how they conduct

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themselves and how they worked, particularly with

278
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someone like me from. From outside. Does it treat you with any

279
00:17:28,839 --> 00:17:32,519
suspicion or not? Oh, no, no, I don't. I. I don't think so.

280
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But not in that sense. But it's harder. It's harder to

281
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ingratiate yourself into that community than it would be in, say,

282
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you know, say in the US or in the uk. And did you

283
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lived there for how long? What was your longest? Well, so I was there for.

284
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I was there for six months and then in Prague for six months for your

285
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reports. Yeah. But in Japan, you. In Japan, you were there for a year.

286
00:17:54,460 --> 00:17:58,100
Yeah. Yeah. You got a little bit deeper under the skin

287
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of the Japanese culture. Well, I was working in

288
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Japan and, you know, if I was. If I had my opportunity again

289
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to study abroad, I would look to work

290
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rather than study. So I was in a very closed

291
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community of English students. We did loads together, whereas

292
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I had friends who worked as teaching assistants or did

293
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other. Other jobs. Right. And they. They had a. They had a real life

294
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and that was much more. Gave them so many more opportunities to meet people

295
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and to engage. And so I recommend doing that. So in. In Japan, I was

296
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in this community where I was the only gaijin, the only sort of foreigner

297
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for. There's three of us across about an hour's

298
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drive's distance in the. In the mountains. And

299
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so everyone knew who I was. And so if I just looked clueless in. In

300
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the supermarket trying to work out what I was going to feed myself, someone would

301
00:18:48,620 --> 00:18:52,440
come over. One of. One of the kids or someone in my English, sort of

302
00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:56,080
adult English class would come over and say, how can I help?

303
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What are you looking for? And it was just wonderful. We were so

304
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looked after and made to feel such members of the community.

305
00:19:03,680 --> 00:19:07,440
And, you know, in 2019, when we had the Rugby World cup

306
00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:11,480
in Japan, one of the games was in Kyushu.

307
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A couple of the games were there in the semi, the quarterfinals, I think. So

308
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we went back with the family. So I took my kids. Oh, wow. Back to

309
00:19:17,580 --> 00:19:20,620
the school where I was teaching, met some of the same people who are still

310
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there, I'm still in touch with, and was able to reintroduce them

311
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to Japanese culture. And again, they felt so welcomed into

312
00:19:28,140 --> 00:19:31,460
people's homes and into their lives and still talking about. And it's not the

313
00:19:31,460 --> 00:19:34,540
vocabulary you're using, forgive me, about

314
00:19:34,700 --> 00:19:38,540
Russia, you're not using welcome.

315
00:19:38,540 --> 00:19:42,300
Correct. And what. I didn't. I didn't feel that. I did feel that

316
00:19:42,300 --> 00:19:45,940
in tech in Czech Republic, certainly, and I felt that in.

317
00:19:45,940 --> 00:19:49,460
In Japan, but. You're very astute, Gary. I didn't quite get that same.

318
00:19:49,860 --> 00:19:53,540
I didn't get under the skin of Russia at that. Certainly at that time, as

319
00:19:53,540 --> 00:19:57,060
maybe I did to an extent, through some of the work I was doing

320
00:19:57,140 --> 00:20:00,700
in investigations afterwards and I got to meet some people there. But

321
00:20:00,700 --> 00:20:04,100
still, still a bit of an enigma for me, I would say. I was going

322
00:20:04,100 --> 00:20:07,700
to ask you that. I mean listen, even speaking two or three

323
00:20:07,700 --> 00:20:10,990
words of a language always takes you,

324
00:20:11,950 --> 00:20:14,830
even if it's one degree above and beyond the

325
00:20:15,150 --> 00:20:18,310
gormless non linguistically

326
00:20:18,310 --> 00:20:21,390
talented person. But

327
00:20:21,790 --> 00:20:25,070
later on in your career, when you were,

328
00:20:25,550 --> 00:20:29,390
I assume primarily once you joined Kroll, when

329
00:20:29,390 --> 00:20:32,990
you were going to the east on, on foreign

330
00:20:32,990 --> 00:20:36,720
investigation, did it give you a significant

331
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,920
advantage over the whatever colleagues you had that

332
00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:44,560
didn't speak Russian? Certainly I owe my career

333
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:48,320
to having the languages in the first place. I think

334
00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:51,200
that gave me a way into

335
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:55,040
Kroll. And yeah, doing investigations

336
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:58,840
don't always have to let on that you know the language. So you can sit

337
00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:02,600
there and ask the questions in English, have

338
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,520
an interview in English and then they'll stop and they'll talk to each other in

339
00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:08,440
their local language, tell you everything you really need to know

340
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:13,640
inadvertently and then you can sort of, you know, start

341
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:17,400
directing them towards the facts they've just told you. So.

342
00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:21,240
So yeah, really useful and certainly doing investigations

343
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:25,160
there, it gives you a huge, huge advantage. And could

344
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:28,960
you, at that time, could you interview somebody

345
00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:32,280
that didn't speak any English? Were you good enough to be able to.

346
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:35,840
Yeah, I did interviews in Russian and in fact my first

347
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:39,550
overseas trip was in Czech Republic for Kroll. We

348
00:21:39,550 --> 00:21:43,350
were doing, we were hired by the Czech

349
00:21:43,430 --> 00:21:46,790
Foreign minister Carol from Schwarzenberg, whose

350
00:21:46,870 --> 00:21:50,550
coalition government had just collapsed and they needed the support of

351
00:21:50,550 --> 00:21:54,390
another local populist politician who

352
00:21:54,390 --> 00:21:57,950
had a checkered history and some bribery

353
00:21:57,950 --> 00:22:01,550
allegations. So we were hired to essentially do an audit of this

354
00:22:01,550 --> 00:22:04,950
junior partner's finances to see whether he was a

355
00:22:04,950 --> 00:22:08,770
reputable enough business partner of political Parma, let's say

356
00:22:09,090 --> 00:22:12,530
for the government, which was very high profile

357
00:22:12,690 --> 00:22:15,810
and caused a lot of front page

358
00:22:16,050 --> 00:22:19,690
headlines about us and our investigation. And I think the investigation

359
00:22:19,690 --> 00:22:22,930
probably lasted longer than the coalition that they formed afterwards

360
00:22:25,170 --> 00:22:28,290
and turning, but it was fantastic. So interviewing in Czech

361
00:22:28,690 --> 00:22:32,530
and then similarly doing interviews in Russian as well, did

362
00:22:32,530 --> 00:22:36,330
you end up giving the person a clean bill of health or it never got

363
00:22:36,330 --> 00:22:39,550
to a point? Clean enough for politics? Enough.

364
00:22:39,550 --> 00:22:43,350
Excellent. And were you the lead of that team? Were you the team

365
00:22:43,350 --> 00:22:47,190
leader? No, no, I was the most junior person on. On it. So who was

366
00:22:47,190 --> 00:22:50,790
the team leader? Helsby or somebody? Yeah, Tommy. Tommy was

367
00:22:50,790 --> 00:22:54,550
leading it and then a couple of other people and me. So, you

368
00:22:54,550 --> 00:22:58,390
know, fresh in. This is 2007, 8 I think I'd been

369
00:22:58,390 --> 00:23:01,950
in the company less than 6 months to get on the tap, on the shoulder,

370
00:23:01,950 --> 00:23:05,750
saying, you speak Czech, don't you? I'm like, gulp.

371
00:23:05,910 --> 00:23:09,630
Yeah. And then, you know, as you know, with

372
00:23:09,630 --> 00:23:13,150
these investigations, you're on a plane within sort of 24 hours or

373
00:23:13,150 --> 00:23:16,630
whatever, you're in the offices of. Of the client, and.

374
00:23:16,870 --> 00:23:20,630
And the work begins and. And your life and your experience changes forever

375
00:23:20,630 --> 00:23:24,470
as a result of it. So give me a few nuggets of what you

376
00:23:24,470 --> 00:23:28,110
learned from one of the icons of certainly

377
00:23:28,110 --> 00:23:31,950
Kroll's history, Toby Helsby. And I knew him

378
00:23:31,950 --> 00:23:35,660
back in the day, but he was fluent, at least in Russian, maybe other

379
00:23:35,820 --> 00:23:39,500
Slavonic languages as well, I don't know. But no, he wasn't a

380
00:23:39,500 --> 00:23:43,100
Russian speaker. Oh, he wasn't? No. But he did a lot of work

381
00:23:43,180 --> 00:23:47,020
for Russian oligarchs, and I was very lucky to work with him

382
00:23:47,420 --> 00:23:51,220
very much as a mentor of mine for many years. Tell me what you

383
00:23:51,220 --> 00:23:54,780
learned from him. What would have so much.

384
00:23:54,860 --> 00:23:58,620
Tommy had such a way with clients, and

385
00:23:58,620 --> 00:24:02,190
I have such a rare talent to gain their trust,

386
00:24:02,270 --> 00:24:05,870
usually by telling them no, which is unheard of. You know,

387
00:24:06,110 --> 00:24:09,870
too many, I think, consultants, myself included, we're

388
00:24:09,870 --> 00:24:13,430
eager to please. Right. And client's got a problem, and we

389
00:24:13,430 --> 00:24:17,270
think, well, how can I solve that problem? And let's go, and

390
00:24:17,270 --> 00:24:20,830
we start from there. Tommy would start from a much more. He had a philosophy

391
00:24:20,910 --> 00:24:24,630
background, and he came from. At these problems from a different perspective

392
00:24:24,630 --> 00:24:27,510
to me. Instead of trying to fix it, he'd say, well, why. Why are we

393
00:24:27,510 --> 00:24:31,070
doing this in the first place and what's going on? And

394
00:24:31,150 --> 00:24:34,630
so he loved nothing more than saying no to clients who would then

395
00:24:34,630 --> 00:24:38,350
desperately, desperately want to work with him because everyone else was saying, yes,

396
00:24:38,350 --> 00:24:41,550
how much? And bending over backwards. So I think that was

397
00:24:41,950 --> 00:24:45,790
important in a consulting world. He was also wonderful

398
00:24:45,950 --> 00:24:49,550
at instinctively knowing what the answer was

399
00:24:49,790 --> 00:24:52,830
to a problem way before any of the rest of us

400
00:24:53,470 --> 00:24:56,630
got even close. So I would be carefully following the

401
00:24:56,630 --> 00:25:00,390
breadcrumbs through the investigation to try and get. Get somewhere. And you

402
00:25:00,390 --> 00:25:04,190
kind of present it to him, and he'd have already worked it out,

403
00:25:04,190 --> 00:25:07,870
you know, and understood the details. So he had that

404
00:25:07,870 --> 00:25:11,070
amazing ability. Even though. Even though he wasn't

405
00:25:11,630 --> 00:25:15,270
a Russian speaker, there was something about his

406
00:25:15,270 --> 00:25:19,030
fairy dust that enabled him to understand the Russian

407
00:25:19,030 --> 00:25:22,410
mentality. Is that it? Yes, yes, definitely. He definitely

408
00:25:22,410 --> 00:25:26,170
understood the world that they. These business people

409
00:25:26,170 --> 00:25:29,650
were. Were operating in, the challenges they were facing.

410
00:25:29,810 --> 00:25:32,690
And, you know, we had. We had clients

411
00:25:34,770 --> 00:25:37,890
that just wanted to keep Tommy on.

412
00:25:38,530 --> 00:25:42,170
On speed dial. Right. They didn't necessarily need us to do

413
00:25:42,170 --> 00:25:46,010
any investigations or to do any particular so corporate due

414
00:25:46,010 --> 00:25:49,780
diligence or anything like that. They just wanted Tommy fairy

415
00:25:49,780 --> 00:25:53,180
dust on call when they needed it.

416
00:25:53,340 --> 00:25:56,940
He was for me, the best trusted

417
00:25:56,940 --> 00:26:00,700
advisor that I've come across in the investigations. And was

418
00:26:00,700 --> 00:26:04,420
he a good mentor in a sense of helping you

419
00:26:04,420 --> 00:26:08,060
understand what you hadn't done? Right. Or did he just expect you to

420
00:26:08,060 --> 00:26:11,100
look, learn and get on with it? I

421
00:26:11,980 --> 00:26:15,710
frequently told Tommy that he didn't do enough to support people,

422
00:26:16,910 --> 00:26:20,270
I think, but that was his, I think that was his style.

423
00:26:20,590 --> 00:26:24,310
I'm much more of a sort of hands on teacher

424
00:26:24,310 --> 00:26:28,030
type, you know, when I'm working with people, trying to support

425
00:26:28,030 --> 00:26:31,550
them, show them through their mistakes. But Tommy was like me,

426
00:26:31,790 --> 00:26:35,350
he's old school. I mean, I can't remember what the age

427
00:26:35,350 --> 00:26:38,670
difference is or was because

428
00:26:38,990 --> 00:26:42,840
I'm writing saying Tommy is no longer with us. Is that right?

429
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,560
He, he sadly passed away about,

430
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,800
yeah, six, seven years ago. But he was. Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was

431
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:55,160
in his, I think still maybe 60.

432
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,360
I see. So we're probably not far away from each other. Yeah, probably. But it's

433
00:26:59,360 --> 00:27:03,120
still old school enough to be. What do you mean, teacher? I

434
00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:06,680
went to school, I learned, I came out. Just watch me and

435
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:10,460
do, do like I do. No, yeah, yeah. He was a watch and

436
00:27:10,460 --> 00:27:14,300
learn guy certainly. And in those days you're in the office all

437
00:27:14,300 --> 00:27:17,700
the time so you can watch and learn from,

438
00:27:17,860 --> 00:27:21,540
from more senior people. And he had a lot of support

439
00:27:22,100 --> 00:27:25,620
from, from other managers and so on. Who, who would do all of the,

440
00:27:26,020 --> 00:27:29,740
you know, the line by line. I remember when I put

441
00:27:29,740 --> 00:27:33,580
my first, my first of due diligence report in thinking I

442
00:27:33,580 --> 00:27:37,260
just, you know, absolutely smashed it. And this is amazing, all these great findings.

443
00:27:37,260 --> 00:27:40,850
It just comes back like red ink everywhere.

444
00:27:41,170 --> 00:27:44,530
But he wasn't one of those people who just said, you know, I don't know

445
00:27:44,530 --> 00:27:48,330
if you work much with Omergensory. No, I've met him a few times, but I

446
00:27:48,330 --> 00:27:51,970
never worked with him. Omer's also absolutely wonderful guy.

447
00:27:52,690 --> 00:27:56,250
Huge respect for him, but he would, I'd write a, you know,

448
00:27:56,250 --> 00:28:00,010
I'd love a long report, so I'd write a 60 page report. He'd read it

449
00:28:00,010 --> 00:28:03,690
until the first typo or the first thing that doesn't make sense and then just

450
00:28:03,690 --> 00:28:04,930
pass it back. So no.

451
00:28:08,030 --> 00:28:11,470
Which was tough because you don't quite have all the

452
00:28:11,470 --> 00:28:15,150
feedback, but you learn a huge amount from both of them. How did

453
00:28:15,150 --> 00:28:18,910
you learn in those days how to interview a witness? How did you Learn

454
00:28:18,990 --> 00:28:22,269
what you needed to put in a report. Was there a

455
00:28:22,269 --> 00:28:26,070
crawl bible of if you want to create a

456
00:28:26,070 --> 00:28:29,870
report, this is what it should look like? Well, I certainly created

457
00:28:29,870 --> 00:28:33,700
some of that when I was briefly sort of responsible

458
00:28:33,700 --> 00:28:37,460
for our analyst team and tried to give it a bit more structure. Now

459
00:28:37,460 --> 00:28:41,220
crawl was a little bit unstructured I'd say when I joined

460
00:28:41,700 --> 00:28:45,540
in terms of that. I think there's different sides to the business. So

461
00:28:45,540 --> 00:28:48,820
if you look at the due diligence sides, that's now

462
00:28:49,140 --> 00:28:51,860
the whole industry is very sort of formulaic.

463
00:28:52,900 --> 00:28:56,380
You can use lots of AI, you can really drive huge

464
00:28:56,380 --> 00:29:00,090
volumes of red flag type type checks. Those

465
00:29:00,090 --> 00:29:03,930
reports can be very standardized. Right. I think on

466
00:29:03,930 --> 00:29:07,690
the investigation side, two

467
00:29:07,690 --> 00:29:11,490
questions you asked. But on, on interviewing, I was not allowed

468
00:29:11,490 --> 00:29:14,969
anywhere near interviewing someone for, for years. Right.

469
00:29:16,010 --> 00:29:19,730
Your job is to stay quiet, right. Take notes and, and listen

470
00:29:19,730 --> 00:29:23,490
and listen and learn. Which is really hard for me because I'm desperate. I'm like,

471
00:29:23,490 --> 00:29:27,220
yeah, but this question I've got to ask and occasionally I'd

472
00:29:27,220 --> 00:29:31,020
pipe up and then get kicked under the table or something. So you learn through

473
00:29:31,020 --> 00:29:34,700
observation and time. A bit like in

474
00:29:34,700 --> 00:29:38,100
Japan if you're learning to be a sushi chef, you spend two years just

475
00:29:38,900 --> 00:29:42,580
cooling down the rice right. Before you're even allowed near a knife,

476
00:29:42,660 --> 00:29:46,500
before even allowed to roll the sushi. So similar to that, you've

477
00:29:46,500 --> 00:29:50,180
got to go through that experience. And I think interview techniques

478
00:29:50,580 --> 00:29:54,300
learned a lot on the investigation side from sitting in and observing

479
00:29:54,300 --> 00:29:57,400
that. So how do you, how do you build up,

480
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,280
particularly in confrontational interviews? How do you build up to the point where the person

481
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,440
is comfortable telling you, even in an adverse

482
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,440
situation they've done something really, really

483
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,840
bad. Right. And so

484
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:15,760
that's about building trust with someone whose entire

485
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,560
future depends on not trusting. Not really trusting you

486
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,720
is really important. So most of the interviews I did to begin with would have

487
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,270
been non confrontational interviews. It's then as you get more

488
00:30:28,270 --> 00:30:31,710
experience, you can start doing those confrontational interviews. And

489
00:30:32,510 --> 00:30:36,110
you must have a Jules Kroll story for me somewhere.

490
00:30:38,190 --> 00:30:41,310
I didn't really cross paths with Jules to be honest,

491
00:30:41,950 --> 00:30:45,430
apart from Glad handing around the office when he came to London. But yeah, we

492
00:30:45,430 --> 00:30:49,030
didn't. He left about 18 months or so into

493
00:30:49,030 --> 00:30:52,270
my time. So leadership wise, Tommy was my.

494
00:30:53,070 --> 00:30:56,910
And he was the man. Yeah. And did you, did you just as a matter

495
00:30:56,910 --> 00:31:00,590
of interest, did you come across other

496
00:31:00,670 --> 00:31:02,430
investigators in other

497
00:31:03,710 --> 00:31:07,230
consultancies and companies and get a sense of

498
00:31:07,630 --> 00:31:11,070
how different you and they were from each other at the time?

499
00:31:11,630 --> 00:31:15,350
Yeah, really good question. So Obviously some people left while I was

500
00:31:15,350 --> 00:31:19,150
there and went on to go to rival firms. And there were many firms

501
00:31:19,150 --> 00:31:22,860
that were set up by former Kroll. Oh, that's true.

502
00:31:22,860 --> 00:31:26,020
Aleco being one of them. GPW

503
00:31:26,260 --> 00:31:29,540
Blag. I think there are quite a few that sort of came out of,

504
00:31:29,940 --> 00:31:32,980
came out of Kroll. So everyone knew.

505
00:31:33,620 --> 00:31:36,420
Everyone sort of knew everyone. There was quite a lot of

506
00:31:36,980 --> 00:31:40,500
pseudo competition, I think with some of the control

507
00:31:40,660 --> 00:31:44,420
risks being the other sort of original London investigations

508
00:31:44,500 --> 00:31:48,300
firm. So we had some natural competition with them, but

509
00:31:48,300 --> 00:31:52,030
not a lot of crossover. I suppose the time you meet other

510
00:31:52,030 --> 00:31:55,830
investigators coming across them is when you're on disputes and you're on other, you

511
00:31:55,830 --> 00:31:59,510
know, either sides, opposite sides. And that was a

512
00:31:59,510 --> 00:32:03,190
real fascinating eye opener because some of the techniques that they

513
00:32:03,190 --> 00:32:06,910
would use kind of would astonish

514
00:32:07,470 --> 00:32:11,270
were frankly astonishing. Let me, let me hold you there and ask

515
00:32:11,270 --> 00:32:14,710
you this question. When you joined and I

516
00:32:14,710 --> 00:32:18,550
remember, were you around long enough

517
00:32:18,950 --> 00:32:22,510
to have come across the network security group,

518
00:32:22,510 --> 00:32:26,350
Mike Comer and people like that or not. I know the name from listening

519
00:32:26,350 --> 00:32:29,630
to your amazing podcast. But no, not, no, didn't come across

520
00:32:29,630 --> 00:32:33,190
indirectly. So I just wonder

521
00:32:33,910 --> 00:32:37,270
what did the powers that be

522
00:32:37,510 --> 00:32:41,310
sit down and tell you what you can and can't do under the law? No,

523
00:32:41,310 --> 00:32:45,150
no, no. You just, you can't beat the bejesus out of this person to

524
00:32:45,150 --> 00:32:48,950
get the information. Will you actually have to, you know, do what

525
00:32:48,950 --> 00:32:52,710
did you know? Or was it, again, just watch and learn? I

526
00:32:52,710 --> 00:32:56,390
think a lot of it, because it's not a regulated sector like

527
00:32:56,390 --> 00:33:00,150
yours, Gary, and I think, I think it could be or should be and

528
00:33:00,150 --> 00:33:03,390
I think there's certainly movements towards, towards having

529
00:33:03,790 --> 00:33:06,990
professional qualifications for investigators,

530
00:33:07,150 --> 00:33:10,990
professional standards, professional organizations, chapters or whatever that we

531
00:33:10,990 --> 00:33:14,800
can be part of. Yeah, exactly. So I'm a

532
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,400
huge fan of that. It was a little bit at your

533
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:22,080
discretion. As someone who's into fairness

534
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,640
and I'm quite

535
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:30,120
compliance driven person, what I felt was up to my

536
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:33,880
discretion was relatively, yeah, was pretty

537
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,560
narrow. There are definitely other people who were quite

538
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,880
happy. I'm talking about things like social engineering

539
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,320
or you know, the worst of it, the sort of brown envelope stuff that you'd

540
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:50,120
hear about other, other people accessing. Can you give me an example?

541
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:53,400
Not obviously within Kroll, God

542
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,280
forbid, but one of the things you came across that

543
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,360
you'd heard of or even that you uncovered the other

544
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:03,160
investigators had been involved in. You've got a stock.

545
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,560
Yeah, so one of the, one of the stories that I worked on,

546
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,270
probably not before, not long before, before I

547
00:34:11,270 --> 00:34:15,070
left Kroll was quite a High profile corporate dispute.

548
00:34:15,310 --> 00:34:18,550
Very much, I don't know, I guess a rival, you know,

549
00:34:18,550 --> 00:34:21,470
Shakespearean battle for the throne

550
00:34:22,910 --> 00:34:26,709
type case within a large global corporate. And

551
00:34:26,709 --> 00:34:30,510
our client was being hammered in the media

552
00:34:31,070 --> 00:34:34,910
leaks coming out about their private activities and things

553
00:34:34,910 --> 00:34:38,579
like that. And there were people on the other side, they

554
00:34:38,579 --> 00:34:40,859
had hacks. His

555
00:34:41,739 --> 00:34:45,299
emails. Right. So they. Client emails, our

556
00:34:45,299 --> 00:34:48,939
clients emails. They'd hacked into his emails and he was

557
00:34:49,019 --> 00:34:52,539
a CEO or someone was, he was a senior executive,

558
00:34:53,019 --> 00:34:56,139
senior exec. Okay, senior exec

559
00:34:56,779 --> 00:35:00,299
number two or number three. And so they had, they had hacked in

560
00:35:00,539 --> 00:35:03,739
private emails, source documents, leaked those to the media,

561
00:35:04,660 --> 00:35:08,340
publish them. And this was rife right in the mid, mid to late

562
00:35:08,420 --> 00:35:10,820
2015s and there's been stories about

563
00:35:12,500 --> 00:35:16,140
many, many stories about whether that's journalists being hacked

564
00:35:16,140 --> 00:35:19,940
or subjects being hacked and their emails

565
00:35:20,020 --> 00:35:23,780
conveniently appearing in the dossier of a

566
00:35:23,780 --> 00:35:27,540
law firm or on the description you're able to talk about. Yeah,

567
00:35:27,540 --> 00:35:30,740
so that I don't know. I think, I think so.

568
00:35:31,300 --> 00:35:34,340
I don't think our involvement was, was public. But

569
00:35:34,980 --> 00:35:38,820
there are plenty of those stories. If you look at one that's just

570
00:35:39,220 --> 00:35:42,420
jumping back in the news, I think I saw it yesterday,

571
00:35:42,900 --> 00:35:46,580
was Deckert and their dispute with

572
00:35:46,580 --> 00:35:50,100
lawyers across the Jordanian lawyers who ended up in a UAE

573
00:35:50,580 --> 00:35:54,340
prison. But there was this big proxy battle between

574
00:35:56,580 --> 00:35:58,980
ENRC shareholders allegedly behind

575
00:36:00,020 --> 00:36:03,740
attempts to support one particular side

576
00:36:03,740 --> 00:36:07,220
in a dispute in the Middle east against another side. And there was,

577
00:36:07,460 --> 00:36:11,220
you know, there was just skullduggery everywhere and people ended up

578
00:36:12,100 --> 00:36:15,779
in jail and whistleblowers got caught.

579
00:36:16,980 --> 00:36:20,700
Investigators became the focus of the case and it was real, no

580
00:36:20,700 --> 00:36:24,460
holds barred. So in the case that we haven't named

581
00:36:24,460 --> 00:36:28,080
yet, just the one before, was the material that

582
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:31,200
was published, was it obvious

583
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,640
on the face of it, evidence of naughtiness as I call it, or was

584
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,360
it. No, it was potential conflicts of interest

585
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:43,880
and things of that nature. I don't think our client had done anything

586
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:47,640
particularly egregious. They just made it, they were able to make

587
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:51,120
a lot of money from signed off consultancy agreement or

588
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,720
something like that. So. But they had

589
00:36:54,720 --> 00:36:57,760
surveillance on their family. They had,

590
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,240
you know, hacked them.

591
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,960
There was a lot going on, which was really surprising when you found out the

592
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,760
names of some of the firms that were involved because you'd think that you'd

593
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,560
expect better of them. And when that happened, do

594
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,000
you recall, and were you involved in the

595
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,810
sometimes, often counterattack in terms of

596
00:37:21,130 --> 00:37:24,890
going to the courts, asking the judge to injunct

597
00:37:25,290 --> 00:37:29,010
or to disclose how they did it, where they did it, was there a

598
00:37:29,010 --> 00:37:32,570
Huge. Or was there a mini legal battle about the

599
00:37:32,570 --> 00:37:36,330
disclosure issue? There wasn't on that case. It was,

600
00:37:36,730 --> 00:37:39,290
I think, client appetite. So.

601
00:37:43,450 --> 00:37:47,170
They wanted resolution and closure rather than to.

602
00:37:47,170 --> 00:37:50,610
To fight. So, yeah, we didn't bring Mishkan onto that one.

603
00:37:50,690 --> 00:37:54,530
No, because it's interesting, isn't it? It's.

604
00:37:54,530 --> 00:37:58,210
It's really as everything you and I do in

605
00:37:59,410 --> 00:38:03,010
fraud investigation, it's a balancing

606
00:38:03,730 --> 00:38:06,450
of risk and the, the

607
00:38:06,850 --> 00:38:10,690
likelihood of a counterattack. So there are

608
00:38:10,690 --> 00:38:14,080
cases like the one you've just mentioned where clients

609
00:38:14,720 --> 00:38:18,320
do take, or even sometimes, God forbid,

610
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:23,120
consultants take a huge risk in doing something

611
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,320
unlawful, knowing that the other side

612
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,560
just isn't. I say you never know for sure, but it's very

613
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:34,000
unlikely to go to the police and to create a huge

614
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,720
brouhaha and to spend £100,000. And

615
00:38:37,720 --> 00:38:41,520
you know that just by the leaking of that document, you're

616
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:45,020
going to bring the case to a resolution. Yeah. Lawfare is fascinating,

617
00:38:45,100 --> 00:38:48,380
isn't it? And those tactical decisions that are made.

618
00:38:48,860 --> 00:38:52,700
Talking about lawyers, as we were. What is

619
00:38:52,700 --> 00:38:56,460
it? And you've come across a fair few. What is it that lawyers are

620
00:38:56,460 --> 00:38:59,980
not very good at, in your experience in fraud?

621
00:38:59,980 --> 00:39:03,660
Investigating? You mean apart from investigating? Apart from investigating.

622
00:39:05,020 --> 00:39:08,820
Let's start with the smallest part of that question. I would

623
00:39:08,820 --> 00:39:12,580
say I really enjoy working with lawyers to cover off

624
00:39:12,580 --> 00:39:16,420
all the bits that I'm not thinking of. So the legal

625
00:39:16,420 --> 00:39:19,260
strategy, where. Where can we actually use the information?

626
00:39:21,020 --> 00:39:24,060
What, as you said, using injunctions and, and getting

627
00:39:24,780 --> 00:39:28,500
search orders and freezes and all those other kinds of things that, that are

628
00:39:28,500 --> 00:39:32,300
absolutely fantastic. But I do sometimes think that their

629
00:39:32,300 --> 00:39:35,980
approach can be a bit overly legalistic. So

630
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,080
there's a scope of work and it's defined and this is the question. And so

631
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,320
we answer this and it stays too much in the box.

632
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,440
Rather than as an investigator, sometimes you're more interested in

633
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:50,680
just the why and what's going on. Okay.

634
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:55,480
And from what you say, and of course I couldn't possibly comment,

635
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:59,400
but it's kind of a

636
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:03,360
systemic problem with the way lawyers are trained, that they're trained

637
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:07,000
to look at a case and to distinguish it from the previous case or to

638
00:40:07,940 --> 00:40:11,740
progress in a very. From what you're saying, in a

639
00:40:11,740 --> 00:40:15,460
very methodical and planned approach.

640
00:40:16,180 --> 00:40:19,940
Yeah, I mean, it's a jibe. I like to put

641
00:40:20,100 --> 00:40:22,980
accountants as well, forensic accountants. So if they're doing

642
00:40:23,860 --> 00:40:27,540
a forensic accounting money laundering case, they'll start at

643
00:40:28,180 --> 00:40:31,740
where the money's been taken from and sort of. And where it's ended up and

644
00:40:31,740 --> 00:40:34,700
they'll try and follow a very Logical process. But

645
00:40:35,660 --> 00:40:39,180
your criminal is not a trained lawyer always, and they're not always

646
00:40:39,340 --> 00:40:42,860
a trained accountant. So their approach is,

647
00:40:43,180 --> 00:40:47,020
I've done a bunch of stuff in order to get to this objective of mine

648
00:40:47,020 --> 00:40:50,700
and I've achieved that. So they're not necessarily

649
00:40:50,700 --> 00:40:54,060
following that same logical case, structured

650
00:40:55,100 --> 00:40:58,820
thing. They're much more messy. And I think as an investigator, sometimes

651
00:40:58,820 --> 00:41:02,380
it's, it's better to put yourself in the shoes of, of the

652
00:41:02,380 --> 00:41:06,060
messy reality and try and understand what they were

653
00:41:06,060 --> 00:41:09,900
attempting to do, rather than to define it as that sort of

654
00:41:09,900 --> 00:41:13,420
legal, you know, interesting

655
00:41:13,900 --> 00:41:17,740
kind of angle to what you're saying, because there's a big

656
00:41:17,740 --> 00:41:20,940
difference between the training of investigators

657
00:41:21,340 --> 00:41:25,100
in the UK and the background

658
00:41:25,100 --> 00:41:28,850
and training of investigators all over the U.S.

659
00:41:28,850 --> 00:41:32,610
who are, I don't know about mostly, but there's a large number

660
00:41:33,090 --> 00:41:36,650
of lawyers that go into the

661
00:41:36,650 --> 00:41:40,210
investigation. Kroll has their own and so does Dan and

662
00:41:40,450 --> 00:41:44,129
others. So does that mean

663
00:41:44,690 --> 00:41:48,490
why is there a difference in the way they're trained in the US and why

664
00:41:48,490 --> 00:41:51,410
is it that they, on the face of it, make better

665
00:41:52,130 --> 00:41:55,540
investigative lawyers than, than

666
00:41:55,860 --> 00:41:59,620
their English counterpart, for example? Well, I mean,

667
00:41:59,700 --> 00:42:03,340
in Dan Odello's case and many others, the fact that they've

668
00:42:03,340 --> 00:42:06,820
worked both sides, I think is hugely important. So I'd echo

669
00:42:07,140 --> 00:42:10,940
what I think he's said to you on one of your other podcasts, that in

670
00:42:10,940 --> 00:42:14,180
the States, most sort of white collar crime

671
00:42:14,180 --> 00:42:17,940
lawyers work on the government side for a period of their career

672
00:42:17,940 --> 00:42:21,380
prosecuting cases, and they then have a

673
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:25,560
great understanding of what it takes and what's required on

674
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:28,360
that side before they go into

675
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:33,000
private practice. So they've got a much better handling of that. Whereas

676
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:37,920
I would say amongst my legal contacts here, I could probably count on one

677
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,400
hand those who have worked for this SFO or worked for

678
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,560
prosecutors. Why don't we copy that model? Do

679
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:48,410
you think, Will? I think that

680
00:42:49,450 --> 00:42:53,290
our legal framework here is massively behind where it needs

681
00:42:53,290 --> 00:42:56,970
to be. It was probably quite effective in Victorian areas.

682
00:42:56,970 --> 00:43:00,730
I'm not sure it is capable of addressing modern global

683
00:43:00,890 --> 00:43:04,490
frauds and massive issues. So you've got a huge

684
00:43:04,490 --> 00:43:08,250
salary imbalance and little rewards sort of career

685
00:43:08,250 --> 00:43:11,530
wise for you, spending five, six years working

686
00:43:12,090 --> 00:43:15,850
for the government before you go into private practice. So. So I would want to

687
00:43:15,850 --> 00:43:19,410
see all of you know, I want to see that American

688
00:43:19,490 --> 00:43:22,890
model adopted here. I think it's massively

689
00:43:22,890 --> 00:43:25,570
beneficial for the state and I think it's beneficial for

690
00:43:27,090 --> 00:43:30,810
lawyers in private practice. Do you think it will ever happen, though?

691
00:43:30,810 --> 00:43:34,650
I mean, the legal system? Not

692
00:43:34,650 --> 00:43:38,250
unless they find some money from somewhere to fix the

693
00:43:38,250 --> 00:43:41,970
legal system. And that's one of many, many issues I

694
00:43:41,970 --> 00:43:45,760
see talking about, you know, fairness and, and so on,

695
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,600
is that, that access to swift justice, even if you,

696
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,560
even if you're a client and you've got fantastic lawyers working for you and you,

697
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,280
you absolutely rock solid case, it's going to take you

698
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:01,520
years to get any kind of resolution to your

699
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:04,720
case through the courts and then many years afterwards to get any financial

700
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:08,960
redress. The same if you're a whistleblower, if, if you've

701
00:44:09,490 --> 00:44:12,850
genuinely reported something in the public interest, you get

702
00:44:12,850 --> 00:44:16,010
retaliated against, you lose your livelihood, you lose your job, you get

703
00:44:16,010 --> 00:44:19,770
blacklisted, you're still looking at the same amount of time, five to

704
00:44:19,770 --> 00:44:23,330
seven years before you get any financial redress

705
00:44:23,330 --> 00:44:27,050
or any rights through your employment contract. So

706
00:44:27,050 --> 00:44:30,890
why would you whistleblower in this country? Why, so

707
00:44:30,890 --> 00:44:34,210
why would you work in. No disrespect to the public

708
00:44:34,210 --> 00:44:37,730
servants out there, but why are you incentivized

709
00:44:37,730 --> 00:44:41,350
to, to go into public lawyering and why are you

710
00:44:41,350 --> 00:44:44,910
incentivized to whistleblow if so often

711
00:44:45,150 --> 00:44:48,510
the outcome for you is going to be negative? Can you give me.

712
00:44:48,990 --> 00:44:52,790
Now I'm leaping forward to the last part. Sorry, not

713
00:44:52,790 --> 00:44:56,310
the last part, the, the last, but one part of your

714
00:44:56,310 --> 00:44:59,310
career because you're now reincarnated as,

715
00:45:00,190 --> 00:45:03,550
as a consultant. Yet again, congratulations.

716
00:45:04,110 --> 00:45:07,320
Thank you. But legal in general, one of your responsibilities

717
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,880
was whistleblowing, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. And so

718
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:16,440
I guess you'll tell me, is there an example where maybe

719
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:20,040
internally, maybe not, where you can say this is how

720
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,960
badly the whistleblower system worked. The guy lost his job, he lost

721
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:27,600
his family. Is there something that you can share with? So there's many,

722
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,960
many on both sides. So I think it's worth saying that of the

723
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,750
whistleblowers that I worked with at legal in general,

724
00:45:34,750 --> 00:45:38,310
and there were some, not huge numbers, the vast, vast

725
00:45:38,310 --> 00:45:42,150
majority reported concerns. Those concerns were addressed

726
00:45:42,230 --> 00:45:46,070
quickly, effectively, and the issue was resolved,

727
00:45:46,230 --> 00:45:49,750
no comeback on them. They carry on their working life

728
00:45:49,910 --> 00:45:53,590
completely normally and that's great. And that's how it should be.

729
00:45:53,670 --> 00:45:57,390
Right. And you don't see any of that, none of us

730
00:45:57,390 --> 00:46:00,980
hear about it because it doesn't, doesn't make the news because the issue is,

731
00:46:00,980 --> 00:46:04,500
is resolved. Unfortunately, you do get these cases where

732
00:46:04,500 --> 00:46:07,900
people suffer huge detriment. And

733
00:46:08,220 --> 00:46:11,900
you know the ones that jump to mind for me, the, the whistleblower

734
00:46:12,220 --> 00:46:15,540
UK CEO from, from Olympus when he

735
00:46:15,540 --> 00:46:19,300
discovered massive issues there. And then there was another one in

736
00:46:19,300 --> 00:46:22,620
the shipping industry out of Monaco

737
00:46:23,020 --> 00:46:26,300
who again, Was a, was a lawyer and started questioning

738
00:46:26,300 --> 00:46:29,420
transactions at SBM Offshore, I think,

739
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:34,320
and discovered that the whole, you know, the senior executive team

740
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:38,080
were paying bribes and authorizing bribes. And

741
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:42,080
instead of being able to resolve that issue, he

742
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,280
became the issue. And so he was put under an Interpol

743
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,720
notice and basically was living in

744
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:52,880
Croatia, unable to return back to the UK to be with his

745
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:57,380
family under sort of house arrest for

746
00:46:57,380 --> 00:47:01,060
years. Is the American system better than ours?

747
00:47:01,060 --> 00:47:04,260
In other words? Can you, if you're going to

748
00:47:04,260 --> 00:47:07,700
whistleblow, you would say go to America and do it then

749
00:47:08,660 --> 00:47:12,500
from a financial incentive perspective and from a likelihood of

750
00:47:12,500 --> 00:47:16,220
prosecution. I am, yeah. In

751
00:47:16,220 --> 00:47:19,980
favor of the US system, they've got wealth questions as

752
00:47:19,980 --> 00:47:23,550
to whether it's still well funded and resourced in the last 18 months. But

753
00:47:23,550 --> 00:47:27,190
historically has been well funded, well resourced. And if

754
00:47:27,190 --> 00:47:29,950
you're a whistleblower, there's a chance that you can get,

755
00:47:30,910 --> 00:47:34,470
you know, a financial return. And the largest payments were in the

756
00:47:34,470 --> 00:47:38,110
hundreds of millions of dollars to individuals who blew the whistle on financial

757
00:47:38,510 --> 00:47:42,110
wrongdoing. And they've. The state, through the SEC

758
00:47:42,270 --> 00:47:45,470
and others, has recouped billions of dollars through

759
00:47:46,110 --> 00:47:49,580
fines off the back of those investigations. And those

760
00:47:49,580 --> 00:47:53,180
investigations haven't run for years and years and years. They've

761
00:47:53,180 --> 00:47:56,260
been relatively quickly investigated.

762
00:47:56,980 --> 00:48:00,820
They've secured a significant penalty and the world has

763
00:48:00,820 --> 00:48:04,580
moved on. We've had cases here prosecuted for more than sort of

764
00:48:04,580 --> 00:48:08,260
10 years by our, by the SFO and others that have

765
00:48:08,820 --> 00:48:12,580
not resulted in any. Why are we so crap.

766
00:48:12,900 --> 00:48:16,180
Excuse my bad language, ladies and gentlemen. Why are we so bad

767
00:48:16,500 --> 00:48:19,860
at getting the investigations and the

768
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:23,040
convictions and taking it in a swift

769
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:27,280
understanding fraud and prosecuting them. Yeah, with

770
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,840
vigor. So I don't think that's the fault of the

771
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:34,600
practitioners. I think they're the ones that are dedicating

772
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:37,840
their, their lives to, to public service.

773
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:41,720
Absolutely. You know, kudos to them and, and they're all, you know, doing

774
00:48:41,720 --> 00:48:45,360
a fantastic job, but they're doing it with no resources.

775
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:49,200
I remember working with law of police agencies. This

776
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:53,000
is more than 10 years ago. But they were using such outdated software

777
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:57,160
on their systems. Simple like Microsoft. They were on whatever

778
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,400
Microsoft 2003 and this is in the mid

779
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:04,400
2015 or something. So they're 10 years out of

780
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,800
date. Right. So they're running on shoestring budgets.

781
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,920
They're under resourced in terms of manpower, technology.

782
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,540
That's part of it. The other part, Gary, for me is that they're then the

783
00:49:15,540 --> 00:49:18,860
legal system, the framework isn't, isn't effective

784
00:49:19,340 --> 00:49:23,060
and there's questions about Whether jury trials

785
00:49:23,060 --> 00:49:26,740
are the right way forward or not. I probably shouldn't go into that because

786
00:49:26,740 --> 00:49:29,180
I'm not an expert. But I would like to see

787
00:49:30,060 --> 00:49:33,740
rapid access to justice. And some of

788
00:49:33,740 --> 00:49:37,460
it's not that complicated. Right. Some of the frauds don't

789
00:49:37,460 --> 00:49:41,150
require a 10 year investigation. They require quick, you

790
00:49:41,150 --> 00:49:44,750
know, review. Have you not done this? Yep. You haven't done that. Right. Here's a

791
00:49:44,750 --> 00:49:48,510
fine. Here's $100 million fine or whatever it is, and they'll pay

792
00:49:48,510 --> 00:49:51,750
it because for them it's like a parking ticket, Gary. It's a,

793
00:49:51,990 --> 00:49:55,710
it's a cost to doing business for a large organization and you just pay your

794
00:49:55,710 --> 00:49:59,430
fines and you, and you move on. Does that fix culture? No, but it's a.

795
00:49:59,430 --> 00:50:03,110
So if I, if I handed you the Miller magic wand.

796
00:50:03,430 --> 00:50:07,030
Oh, yes, please. And that magic wand would enable you to invest

797
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,920
into. I'll use investigators in the private sector

798
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:15,280
first and then the public sector. What

799
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:18,960
legal power would you.

800
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,880
Tomorrow, if I gave you that wand or today, would

801
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,480
you waive it and give to investigators in order to

802
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:30,280
assist the investigation of corruption,

803
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:33,880
bribery and fraud? That's going to be your quote from the

804
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,530
pod, but probably Reform GDPR would be

805
00:50:37,770 --> 00:50:40,810
a good place to start. Okay. But specifically,

806
00:50:41,690 --> 00:50:45,290
can I tempt you to say, to give a private

807
00:50:45,290 --> 00:50:49,090
investigator the ability to. You have to take

808
00:50:49,090 --> 00:50:52,250
a step back. So you want to have a regulated industry

809
00:50:52,570 --> 00:50:56,250
that is only working in, let's say, public interest,

810
00:50:56,730 --> 00:51:00,490
with proper controls and checks and balances around them. But to be able to rapidly

811
00:51:01,090 --> 00:51:04,610
access information that should be transparent, I think is

812
00:51:04,930 --> 00:51:08,130
fair. There are other systems around the world where people's

813
00:51:08,850 --> 00:51:12,450
tax information is more public. Their other private information

814
00:51:12,450 --> 00:51:15,330
about them is more readily available, particularly if they're in

815
00:51:16,130 --> 00:51:19,730
public roles like in the US Criminal

816
00:51:19,730 --> 00:51:23,010
convictions is another one. There's all sorts of information that could assist

817
00:51:23,010 --> 00:51:26,530
investigators, but it has to be done then proportionately,

818
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:30,520
if you've got that situation, as I said, the heirs to the throne,

819
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:34,640
both of them are both going to hire lawyers and investigators who are

820
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,200
both going to have legitimate claims

821
00:51:39,240 --> 00:51:43,080
as to why they should be the next boss and why

822
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:46,600
the other person is a piece of work and they would want those investigated.

823
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:50,560
And so those tools need to be used really carefully. For me,

824
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:54,240
the biggest change is in a UK system, it would be the magic

825
00:51:54,240 --> 00:51:57,540
wand would be some kind of global, particularly for law

826
00:51:57,540 --> 00:52:00,900
enforcement, sharing of information sort of

827
00:52:01,060 --> 00:52:04,100
instantly and being able to then seize assets

828
00:52:04,420 --> 00:52:07,940
globally pretty much straight away. So if you look at Cambodian

829
00:52:07,940 --> 00:52:11,500
scam centers, for instance, some of the disruption work they've done around

830
00:52:11,500 --> 00:52:15,340
using sanctions as a tool. They can use sanctions because that's

831
00:52:15,340 --> 00:52:19,140
more effective than trying to go down the mlat, the

832
00:52:19,300 --> 00:52:22,420
Mutual Legal assistance treaties, sort of requests for information

833
00:52:23,140 --> 00:52:26,900
and then trying to get some kind of extradition. And, you know, you're talking years

834
00:52:26,900 --> 00:52:30,180
and years and years. And what. What about a magic wand

835
00:52:30,980 --> 00:52:34,260
to the effect that victims of fraud and crime

836
00:52:34,740 --> 00:52:38,020
should be given access to

837
00:52:38,660 --> 00:52:42,460
the investigation material by the police and

838
00:52:42,460 --> 00:52:46,260
they should be able to share it with their civil law

839
00:52:46,660 --> 00:52:50,230
recovery investigators. Good suggestion. If you think

840
00:52:50,230 --> 00:52:53,630
that 40% or more of crime in the UK that's reported

841
00:52:53,870 --> 00:52:57,390
is fraud, yet almost none of it gets

842
00:52:57,390 --> 00:53:01,230
investigated. And there needs to be some way for those

843
00:53:01,790 --> 00:53:05,630
victims to get redress. So I agree. Some kind of

844
00:53:05,630 --> 00:53:09,150
system where they can access swift

845
00:53:09,150 --> 00:53:12,750
justice. Amor. Because we're operating the private sector and the

846
00:53:12,750 --> 00:53:16,050
public sector operating in parallel

847
00:53:17,090 --> 00:53:20,770
silos with unbelievable talent

848
00:53:20,770 --> 00:53:23,650
on both sides, not being able to share ideas,

849
00:53:23,810 --> 00:53:27,490
intelligence. It's not working. Yeah,

850
00:53:27,650 --> 00:53:31,250
I've been to conferences for 10 years or more where we've talked about

851
00:53:31,250 --> 00:53:35,090
public private partnerships. I've worked on some. And we're still talking

852
00:53:35,090 --> 00:53:38,730
about it. You know, the most recent conference I went to, they're still saying, let's

853
00:53:38,730 --> 00:53:42,530
work on sharing information, and we're not. Let me ask

854
00:53:42,530 --> 00:53:45,970
you this. Let me ask you this. Cause I'm frightened by the fact that you

855
00:53:45,970 --> 00:53:49,450
and I have managed to use 58

856
00:53:49,450 --> 00:53:53,290
minutes of my allotted 60. So I've got to

857
00:53:53,290 --> 00:53:57,130
ask you this question. A little bit of excitement. What's the most

858
00:53:57,130 --> 00:54:00,490
dangerous situation you found yourself in physically

859
00:54:00,970 --> 00:54:04,290
as a result of an investigation? Not me, but I've had

860
00:54:04,290 --> 00:54:08,090
colleagues when I was at Kroll who were sniped at as they were entering

861
00:54:08,090 --> 00:54:11,900
an exit, exiting a client site. Shot

862
00:54:11,900 --> 00:54:15,660
at, shot out. Yeah. So there was the. The bad

863
00:54:15,660 --> 00:54:19,420
guy was hiding in the woods, trying to get a bead on.

864
00:54:19,420 --> 00:54:23,260
Why didn't they want to shoot you? What was wrong? I

865
00:54:23,260 --> 00:54:27,020
didn't. I didn't get to go on that case. Okay. But no,

866
00:54:27,020 --> 00:54:30,460
there are definitely times when I felt under.

867
00:54:30,860 --> 00:54:34,670
Under threat. I think the way that I've always approached it pretty

868
00:54:34,670 --> 00:54:38,270
phlegmatically, is that to make sure that I'm not the only person who

869
00:54:38,270 --> 00:54:41,870
knows the information. And so too often you see

870
00:54:41,870 --> 00:54:45,510
journalists fall out of windows in Russia or be killed

871
00:54:45,510 --> 00:54:49,150
pretty brazenly. Did you ever fear, because you were investigating

872
00:54:49,150 --> 00:54:52,990
in the Eastern European sector, which is

873
00:54:52,990 --> 00:54:56,830
not known for its. Its kindness and safety, did

874
00:54:56,830 --> 00:55:00,480
you ever feel that you might be thrown out of a window or shot in

875
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:04,320
the back of the head? Yeah, but I think what was important was

876
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:08,360
not being the only person with the knowledge. And so if you look at the

877
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:12,080
case of Daphne Caruana Galithia in Malta,

878
00:55:12,240 --> 00:55:15,520
the journalistic community came together after her

879
00:55:15,759 --> 00:55:19,080
assassination and were able to finish off her work and

880
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,640
ultimately secure convictions and things and find out who did it. And

881
00:55:22,720 --> 00:55:26,200
so I've always felt that I don't want to be in a position. The killer

882
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:29,980
as well. Yeah, they found the two individuals,

883
00:55:29,980 --> 00:55:33,580
I mean, working with the police, but by putting huge, huge

884
00:55:34,060 --> 00:55:37,700
journalistic pressure and public interest into

885
00:55:37,700 --> 00:55:41,460
prosecuting and investigating the case. And it's a real, you

886
00:55:41,460 --> 00:55:44,860
know, for me it's the standout story where someone's

887
00:55:45,420 --> 00:55:49,020
investigations didn't die when they were killed.

888
00:55:49,420 --> 00:55:53,220
And so I've always tried to take that phlegmatic approach that

889
00:55:53,220 --> 00:55:56,890
if, if I am the victim, that the

890
00:55:56,890 --> 00:56:00,610
story will somehow live on and make sure that information always. It

891
00:56:00,610 --> 00:56:03,050
makes it pointless, killing me because

892
00:56:04,250 --> 00:56:07,610
everyone else, you know, other people know everything that I know, but. Did you ever

893
00:56:07,610 --> 00:56:11,210
receive one of those anonymous telephone calls?

894
00:56:12,250 --> 00:56:15,850
Go home, Mr. Gaul. I did.

895
00:56:16,410 --> 00:56:19,690
I didn't. I definitely had a few threats that I'd get arrested

896
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:25,320
or, you know, but no, thankfully I was

897
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:28,840
never, I was never the subject of, of those cases.

898
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,640
And, and you know, hopefully as an investigator, I don't want to be the part,

899
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:36,320
I don't want to be the focus of the story. I'm the observer,

900
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,920
I'm, I'm the, you know, the investigator.

901
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:42,680
I'm not, I'm not the subject. You're the messenger,

902
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:47,320
unfortunately. Yeah. Listen, on that note,

903
00:56:47,750 --> 00:56:51,510
we've, we've. I've got so many more questions to ask you, so I may

904
00:56:51,510 --> 00:56:54,390
well try and entice you back into the,

905
00:56:55,110 --> 00:56:58,910
into the studio. Yeah, happy to love to

906
00:56:58,910 --> 00:57:01,990
talk about how to get people into investigations.

907
00:57:02,070 --> 00:57:05,030
Absolutely. And look at other career

908
00:57:05,910 --> 00:57:09,750
relate related issues. So I'm going to

909
00:57:09,750 --> 00:57:13,270
say in

910
00:57:13,270 --> 00:57:15,030
Japanese, I'm going to say

911
00:57:16,580 --> 00:57:19,060
arigato wakarimas.

912
00:57:19,940 --> 00:57:22,820
Arigato gozaimas. Sorry.

913
00:57:23,780 --> 00:57:27,380
Thanks, Will. Thanks very much, Gary. An enjoyable and

914
00:57:28,020 --> 00:57:31,739
agreeable guest. Thank you so much. Cheers. Thank you.

915
00:57:31,739 --> 00:57:35,500
Take care. Thank you for listening and if you enjoyed

916
00:57:35,500 --> 00:57:38,980
this podcast, please click and subscribe to the Intelligence

917
00:57:38,980 --> 00:57:42,080
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918
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:42,840
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