This week on Bribe, Swindle, or Steal, we listen in on the presentation of Nicola Bonucci, International Lawyer and former Director for Legal Affairs OECD, at the TRACE Forum in Annapolis. Nicola provides context for recent compliance news from the EU and discusses the adoption of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive at a gathering of compliance experts just three hours after the news broke!

Tom Cardamone, President and CEO of Global Financial Integrity, joins the podcast to discuss the regulatory and enforcement challenges associated with flags of convenience. These range from trafficked labor to environmental violations and Tom highlights the inherent tension between substantial tax incentives on one hand and accountability on the other.

Originally posted September 15, 2021

Pavel Verkhniatsky joins the podcast from Kyiv where he is the Managing Partner of COSA Solutions with particular expertise in sophisticated due diligence and cross-border investigations. We range from the very broad and geopolitical to the very specific as Pavel discusses the impact of sanctions on Russia, as well as common due diligence 'red flags'.

Daniel Treisman, co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century, discusses the new generation of dictators and how they weaponize information, bully with legal action and mobilize enablers to stay in power.

Originally posted on May 24, 2023

Dr. Magnus Ohman of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) joins the podcast to discuss how corruption undermines free and fair elections. He discusses his recent publication: “Vote for Free: A Global Guide for Citizen Monitoring of Campaign Finance,” which provides an eight-step model for civil society organizations seeking to monitor campaign finance.

Originally Published Nov. 30, 2022

Zeke Faux joins the podcast to talk about the support and credibility provided to oil tankers violating sanctions by the companies that insure them. Zeke, together with Zachary Mider, wrote an excellent Bloomberg article earlier this month about one New York insurance company that insures a disproportionate number of these aged tankers accused of shipping sanctioned Iranian oil.

In honor of the extraordinarily courageous and principled life of Alexei Navalny, first poisoned with Novichuk and killed today in Polar Wolf prison, we are reposting our 2021 conversation with his chief of staff, Leonid Volkov.

Leonid Volkov joins the podcast to talk about Putin's obsessive campaign against Navalny, who was first poisoned with Novichok and later imprisoned. Volkov also discusses the deep roots of corruption in Russia and how the west can support Russians determined to end the looting of their country.

Valerie Salembier, former publisher of Harper's Bazaar and founder of The Authentics Foundation, discusses the true cost of counterfeit luxury items: child labor, trafficked labor and organized crime.

This episode originally aired on July 3, 2018.

Investigative journalist Erlend Ofte Arntsen of Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang joins the podcast to discuss his work on the Tinder Swindler story, adapted into a Netflix documentary. Erlend and his colleagues broke the story of Shimon Hayut, an Israeli con man who found women on the dating app, impressed them with private jets and bodyguards, concocted stories about being in great personal danger and then drained their bank accounts and left them with extraordinary credit card debt.

This episode originally aired on February 15, 2022.

Tom Firestone, a partner with Squire Patton Boggs in Washington, discusses the new US Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA). Tom's perspective is especially interesting as he previously served as the Legal Adviser at the US Embassy in Moscow dealing with financial crime there and, in 2018, he wrote an article on what was needed to tackle the demand side of bribery.