Summit to Survey the Latest in Fighting Fraud

Fraud issues – ranging from identify theft to corporate accounting fraud – will be the focus of a daylong UT Dallas Fraud Summit being held for the third straight year at the UT Dallas School of Management.

The summit will be held on March 28 in the Davidson Auditorium in the School of Management building on the UT Dallas campus.

Co-sponsored by the School of Management’s Internal Auditing Education Program (IAEP), the conference brings together a cross-section of government and law enforcement representatives. Speakers will discuss key issues involving economic crime, including money laundering and Internet crime, as well as the latest fraud schemes and fraud prevention techniques.

“The purpose of the conference is twofold: to discuss the most critical issues facing professionals in the internal auditing field and gain new insights from industry experts, and also to raise money for the IAEP program,” said Mark Salamasick, director of the School of Management’s IAEP program.

All proceeds from the conference, Salamasick said, benefit the IAEP program. The IAEP at UT Dallas is one of the world’s premier institutions for internal auditing education. In only five years, it has become the second-largest university program of its kind in the United States.

Conference keynote speaker will be Neil Weinberg, senior editor at Forbes magazine and co-author of Stolen Without A Gun, written with convicted embezzler Walter Pavlo Jr. Weinberg will draw on the book’s inside story of a white-collar crime to illustrate how ordinary employees were prompted to commit extraordinary crimes by a corporate environment that included unhealthy financial incentives and an anything-goes tone at the top.

Weinberg will discuss why strict laws like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have failed to address the root causes of corporate America’s epidemic of unethical behavior and its many recent mutations – from mortgage scams to the rampant selling of inappropriate financial products, accounting fraud, asset misappropriation and bribery.

Conference attendees will receive a copy of Weinberg’s book.

Other prominent guests include:

• Mark Loveless, senior security researcher for Vernier Networks, who will speak about “Emerging Issues in the Hacking World.” Loveless is a leading authority on cybersecurity and advanced technical issues facing the IT community.
• Andy Bishop and Alan Hampton of the IRS Criminal Investigations Division, who will discuss “Money Laundering in Charitable Organizations.”
• Joe Hendrix, director of Global Investigations with the EDS Legal Affairs Department, who will speak about “Conducting Investigations in Today’s Corporate Environment.”
• Jeff Krafels, a U.S. postal inspector, will talk about identity theft.

Professional Association co-sponsors of the event are the Dallas Chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Dallas Chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the North Texas Chapter of Information Systems Audit and Control Association and the Dallas Chapter of the Association of Government Auditors.

Corporate sponsors that helped fund the event include: Audimation Services, Deloitte, Resources Global Professionals, Soloman Edwards, Oversight Systems and Weaver and Tidwell.

The conference is expected to draw about 350 professionals who specialize in the areas of internal auditing, information technology, compliance and fraud investigation. Although the 2008 conference is sold out, dates for the university’s next two annual fraud conferences have already been set: March 27, 2009 and March 26, 2010.

For more information and an agenda for the conference, please visit www.dallasiia.org.