The recession has made almost all the organizations to freeze their budgets for trainings
and seminars; and this has resulted in a noticeable decrease in the number of conferences, networking events etc. The anti-fraud community, still being at a very limited level in India, the number of programs arranged for the members of this community has even more reduced. However, Indiaforensic, the pioneers in the field of Forensic Accounting in India, hosted the 3rd Annual Anti-Fraud Conference on the 19th of June at Hyatt Regency, Mumbai. The event attracted experts from the industry including the prominent speakers from respected organizations like ICICI, Vodafone, SecureMatrix, Deloitte, KCPL, SEBI and also the CBI.
The conference was divided into three categories Retail, technology and the Satyam like Corporate frauds. In the category of Satyam Story, the delegates got a rare chance to listen to two such persons who have actually worked in the investigation of Satyam Case – India’s biggest financial fraud! Mr. Ram Mohan Rao from SEBI took a session on ‘Capital Market Frauds with Reference to Satyam’ and the Chief Speaker of this conference DIG Laxminarayana from CBI took a session on ‘Challenges before CBI – Satyam Case’.
This event was perhaps the biggest gathering of the anti-fraud professionals after the Satyam fiasco and hence the Satyam topic was the main attraction for the delegates. DIG Lakshminarayana—who headed the Multidisciplinary Investigation Team of CBI was the key speaker and he answered almost all the questions of the attendees. This was the first ever presence of DIG in the private forums like Indiaforensic annual conference. DIG Lakshminarayana revealed the secrets of the investigation of the Satyam fraud. He revealed the methodology, the software tools and the way the whole fraud was perpetrated. This was the impressive session as everyone was keen to know the inside story of the biggest accounting frauds in India.
Another session in this category was delivered by Dr. Vishnu Kanhere. It is always a great pleasure to listen to Dr. Vishnu Kanhere, who has solid hold on Sanskrit and he takes help of Sanskrit “Shloks” to explain different concepts in the frauds. His session makes the layman understand what is the problem of the financial statement frauds. He spoke about the management frauds on the closing note.
However, the conference also covered other topics like ‘Frauds in Retail Banking Sector’ – taken by Mr. Gyan Barah – Head of Investigations at ICICI Bank, ‘Telecom Frauds affecting the Retail Sector’ – taken by Mr. Vikram Kulkarni – Head, Investigations at Vodafone, ‘How to Prevent Frauds while Transacting Online’ – taken by Mr. Dinesh O’ Bareja from SecureMatrix, ‘Computer Forensic Tools’ – taken by Mr. Sebastian Edassery from Deloitte and ‘Management Frauds with Emphasis on Financial Statement Frauds’ – taken by Dr. Vishnu Kanhere of KCPL.
Mr. Barah, in his session on banking sector, took a broad overview of many fraud cases about which we get to read a lot in the different newspapers. He told some precautionary measures to get prevented from being cheated. This was the first time that ICICI participated in Indiaforensic conferences.
Mr. Kulkarni, on his session on frauds in telecom sector, covered a large number of types of frauds that can happen in the telecom sector. He told it all in a very simple and ‘easy to understand’ manner and brought forward the point that such frauds can happen to anyone and everyone. He also told some precautionary measures.
Mr. Bareja covered different kinds of frauds that can be faced by anyone while transacting online. He also covered some risks that can arise because of the attitude of some insurance companies to provide instant insurance without proper check of the risk.
Mr. Sebastian took the technology related topic which could have become quite difficult for the non-technical people to understand but with the help of some user-friendly slides and some interesting case studies, he made the topic really very interesting.
The conference also included the award-distribution function with an objective to recognize the efforts of the anti-fraud professionals. The ‘Indianveshan’ award was given to Mr. Prashant Nayak from Walt Disney for his passion toward the profession and contribution for the anti-fraud community.
