Extreme Wealth – Episode 8: Walt Pavlo and the Empty Temptations of Fraud
Bribe, Swindle or Steal
Alexandra Addison-Wrage of TRACE International
4.9 • 582 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2024
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Walt Pavlo went to work at MCI at a time when telecoms were hungry for go-getters. It was the early 2000s, and Walt enjoyed the freedom and aggressive nature of a recently deregulated industry. But soon he realized that MCI's most lucrative customers were also its flakiest, and the pressure was on to manage millions of bad debt that accumulated on the books. In this episode, Walt explains how he concocted a fake-loan scheme that netted him money far beyond his dreams — and yet how hollow it felt, right up until the moment it all came crashing down.
Walt Pavlo is a nationally recognized speaker who writes for Forbes and NYU Law School on white-collar crime and criminal justice. He founded the firm Prisonology in 2014 as a consulting firm to support federal criminal defense attorneys by providing experts who have retired from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He is the co-author of "Stolen Without a Gun: Confessions from Inside History's Biggest Accounting Fraud, the Collapse of MCI WorldCom," which covers his stint working in the company's billing department and committing fraud.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I could have gone to any one of MCI's carriers and say, you know what, you guys owe me a million dollars. |
| 0:08.0 | I tell you what, if you go to your local bank and get $150,000 in cash and put it in a bag, |
| 0:16.0 | I will take the million dollars and wipe it off of your books. |
| 0:19.0 | I had every ability to do that. But that |
| 0:22.0 | would look too much like stealing. So what I did was develop a scheme that had a lot of moving |
| 0:28.4 | parts. And within a short period of time, we were putting money in the Cayman Islands. |
| 0:33.7 | Welcome back to the podcast, Rhybe, swindle or steel. I'm Alexandra Rogge, and today we bring you another in our ongoing series about the impact of extreme wealth. |
| 0:43.3 | As in past episodes, we're speaking with guests who have a unique portal into this world |
| 0:47.6 | and have been willing to share their thoughts on how it changes the rules that people live by. |
| 0:59.0 | Thank you. on how it changes the rules that people live by. We're continuing our discussion about extreme wealth |
| 1:01.8 | and what motivates people to accumulate money, |
| 1:04.3 | including illicitly, and what constitutes enough. |
| 1:07.9 | My guest today is Walt Pavlo, |
| 1:09.5 | a friend with a fascinating backstory who has been on the |
| 1:11.9 | podcast previously. Walt Pavlo is a nationally recognized speaker and rights for both Forbes and |
| 1:17.9 | NYU Law School on white-collar crime and criminal justice. He founded the firm Prisonology in 2014 |
| 1:24.4 | as a consulting firm to support federal criminal defense attorneys by providing experts |
| 1:29.9 | who have retired from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. |
| 1:33.3 | Prisonology works on high-profile federal cases and also works closely with federal |
| 1:37.4 | defender offices across the country. With the financial journalist Neil Weinberg, Walt co-authored |
| 1:43.3 | the book Stolen Without a Gun, Confessions from Inside History's biggest accounting fraud, the collapse of MCI Worldcom. |
| 1:50.2 | Walt worked at MCI Worldcom during the time, the early 2000s, where he was at the center of the large accounting fraud there. |
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