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How to Make Millions as a Professional Whistleblower
A little-known provision in US law permits anyone to blow the whistle on financial fraud—and potentially take home a percentage of the funds collected. One undercover sleuth has made a wild career out of it.
Tucked into the Dodd-Frank Act, which Congress passed in the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal and the economic calamity of the late aughts, are provisions meant to encourage people who spot signs of potential financial wrongdoing to come to the government with information. He’s been working as a professional whistleblower for over a decade now, zigzagging the country to cozy up to suspects that he charms and cajoles with cunning, lies, and manipulation in order to coax from them the blueprints for any number of white--collar scams, from Ponzi schemes to prime bank frauds. Overum enticed marketers of what the government has alleged was a nearly $500 million Ponzi scheme to board a rented private jet loaded with surveillance equipment so that he could record their conversation and later submit it to authorities—a case that eventually made headlines when FBI agents fired shots during a raid two years ago.
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