Welcome back to the podcast, Bride, Swindler Steel.

I'm Alexandra Rogge, and today we're talking about a great new book out earlier this year.

Fool Me Once, Scams, Stories and Secrets from the Trillion Dollar Fraud Industry.

My guest is Kelly Richmond Pope, and Kelly is the Barry J. Epstein

endowed professor of forensic accounting at DePaul University in Chicago. She's also been named

by the American Institute as Certified Public Accountants, one of the 25 most powerful women in accounting.

Kelly, thank you for joining me. Thank you so much for having me.

I'd love to start with the title of your book. Why fraud industry? That sounds very entrenched and

organized. It's broad industry because when you think about it, it actually is one. You have law

enforcement that's part of that industry. You have perpetrators that are part of that industry. You have perpetrators that are

part of that industry. You have whistleblowers, victims. You have forensic accountants. You have

fraud investigators. And the impact of fraud is around a $5 trillion problem. So I think that constitutes as an industry. Yeah, it's an industry now.

I think you're probably right, but that is deeply depressing. You know, there are all kinds of

industries, right? But I think when you see an organized effort around anything, you know,

you want to think about a way to create community. So I guess I could

have used the word, the fraud organization. I remember when we were doing the title, I was thinking

the fraud cycle, which that felt too scientific. Industry was the softest word. Let's break it down and look at one of the communities

in that industry. You refer in the book to the three types of perpetrators. Can you walk us

through the three types? Let me give you the origin of where it came from. And so in my graduate forensic accounting class

at DePaul University, we have a lot of guest lecturers. And over the years, I started to notice

the reactions of my students when various perpetrators would come and share their stories.

Some people, they were just angered by what they were hearing.

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