Does it take one to know one?
Last May, CBS's highly acclaimed new show ran a story on Barry Minkow, one of the biggest fraud criminals in the 80's. The show was repeated last Sunday. Previously, I had written on Minkow's Fraud Discovery Institute's checklist for fraud. One of techniques for discovering fraud is probably unique to Mr. Minkow.
""I took one look at him [the fraud criminal] and it was like a flashback. I could just look in his eyes and know he had 80 balls juggling in the air," says Minkow. "Phone calls were starting to come in. You have that look. And unless you've been a perpetrator about to be exposed, you don't know what that look is. And I could just tell in his eyes."
Here is what Mr. Minkow describes his job now:
"Minkow is much less interested in prosecuting frauds than he is exposing them while they're still going on. He searches public records, employs private detectives, and goes undercover to perform the kind of due diligence most investors don't know how to do."The problem that I have, the minute that I get the call is here's what happens. I get a probable cause, and all of the sudden in my mind, the clock ticks," says Minkow. "And I know that every day I don't do something, somebody's pouring money into this deal. And they're gonna end up feeling like I made people feel back in the 1980s. And that clock is just ticking in my head. I gotta shut this down." (my emphasis)
Perhaps one day, Mr. Minkow will turn his considerable talents to uncovering business opportunity fraud.
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