Gillian A. Salazar Prof. Christian Villanueva 3rd Year - BS Accountancy Professional Elective 3 Reaction Paper: Jho Low Corruption is another form of dishonesty, which is most likely caused by the person’s greed to gain more than he or she should have and acquire power through connections. It happens every day since even ordinary people can do it. On a daily basis, the simple use of authorized power for personal gain or the use of connections to gain something is already a form of corruption. However, it should not be normalized, as that would only greatly affect the lives of the poor. Low Taek Jho, commonly known as Jho Low, is a young Malaysian businessperson who is allegedly the mastermind of the known, "1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal." The 1MDB was supposedly for generating excellent jobs for all Malaysians, which could help develop the economic status of Malaysia (Chandran, 2018), but it is just a front face to be able to embezzled funds. Also, the wife of Prime Minister is also alleged to be involved in this scandal as she was done who laundered the money. This scheme involves connivance with government officials from various countries. It started with him approaching the son of the former Prime Minister Najib Razak to get close with the Prime Minister itself, which subsequently happened, and began to collude with him under the agreement that the Prime Minister would receive a portion of the profits from 1MDB funds to be used for his political advantage. Former Prime Minister Razak was sentenced to 12 years in prison on corruption charges related to the 1MDB scandal. While Jho Low is still on the run, he attempted to reach an agreement with the Malaysian government in which he will return the assets in exchange for not being sentenced to prison, according to the Al Jazeera investigation. Despite being on the wanted list of Malaysia, the United States, and Singapore, he was seen traveling in and out of different countries like Thailand, Kuwait, Dubai, and China without being arrested. This is because of the protection that was given to him by the government of such a country, which also most likely benefited from the 1MDB scandal, as mentioned by Bill McMurry in the video. Moreover, if it is not the reason, protecting a known fugitive who has been on the wanted list of three countries for the last couple of years could lead to a conflict and affect the relationships of the countries involved. A scheme that involves high-ranking officials is difficult to investigate and hold them accountable for what they did because they both have money and power. Money and power are tools that can make the lives of people better; however, it can also be used to destroy someone’s life, and always, it is the poor that suffer the most. Reference/s: Al Jazeera English. (202o, November 17). Jho Low: hunt for a fugitive (part 1)| featured documentary [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/p4lj6lC4lrk Al Jazeera English. (202o, November 17). Jho Low: hunt for a fugitive (part 2)| featured documentary [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/lZs8gRg0AEE Chandran, N. (2018, September 26). Billion dollar whale. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/27/billion-dollar-whale-an-inside-look-at-jholow-and-the-1mdb-scandal.html Gillian A. Salazar Prof. Christian Villanueva 3rd Year - BS Accountancy Professional Elective 3 Reaction Paper: Frank Abagnale People will always be given the opportunity to redeem themselves in life if they get lost on the track. It is their choice whether to squander the opportunity or to seize it and get back on track. In the case of Frank Abagnale, he took those chances given to him as an opportunity to live a normal life—to have a family he could lean on. After serving his time on the charges that have been indicted against him due to the immoral and illegal acts that he did when he was a teenager, Frank Abagnale is now an American security consultant who has been with the FBI for decades. It all started with him running away, at the age of 16, from his parents after learning that they were getting divorced. Being a runaway teenager, he has no money except for the checkbook he brought, which is why he started working to support himself, but it was not enough because he was just 16 and the pay was little. From then on, he presented himself as a 26year-old man to get more jobs that paid well. Not knowing he had already committed fraud and forgery since he forged his identification card, which he used to get a job, penetrate Pan-American Airlines to get a free flight ticket, and withdraw cash from his forged checks, he also impersonated a doctor in a hospital. He also engaged in the illegal practice of law, although he passed the bar exam, since he used another identity. He was already 21 years old (his true age) when he was arrested, and he accepted all of the charges against him and did reflect on his wrongdoing. Being a former fraudster who forged his identification card, his experience would be helpful, especially in his current job as a security consultant, in identifying loopholes in the existing security and fixing them since he was able to infiltrate it and get away from it for a couple of years. There is no other person who can actually read the minds of fraudsters to be able to take preventive measures except for a former fraudster because they already know how their minds work since they themselves became fraudsters. Reference/s: Talks at Google. (2017, November 28). Frank Abagnale| catch me if you can [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/vsMydMDi3rI Gillian A. Salazar Prof. Christian Villanueva 3rd Year - BS Accountancy Professional Elective 3 Reaction Paper: Jim Bakker Not all religious people are religiously devoted; some of them may just pretend for the sake of the power and influence that come with it, a power to unite people who desire the "grace of God." Jim Bakker is one of those people who used the name of God to covet something more than what he should have and used that power to silence those people who were involved in the issues related to him. He used religion as a legal shield because the constitution protects religious freedom. Jim Bakker was a famous televangelist in America. A televangelist, as defined by Cambridge Dictionary, is someone who preaches about God on television and encourages people to join Christianity and give "donations" to show their faith in God. Through this, Jim Bakker was able to build a multimillion-dollar television network called "Praise the Lord" or "People That Love." People blindly believed that he was a preacher for the sake of showing their faith to God, but it was just a fraud scheme. He used it as an impunity to avoid prison, which is why even if Larry Bernstein, a former FCC investigator, obtained tons of evidence showing his financial fraud, he was able to get away with it. This impunity became stronger when he was able to give thousands of people work opportunities, which made him the second-largest employer at that time. They somehow seemed untouchable because the government did not do anything. With that, he was able to expand his stations throughout various countries, such as Korea, Japan, Brazil, etc. However, the revelation of the sex scandals involving Bakker and Jessica Hahn, the church secretary from New York, marked the beginning of Bakker's downfall. The government started to take an interest in the case, which was the start of an extensive and thorough investigation regarding the PTL’s funding, wherein the constitutional limitations regarding the separation of the state and the church to ensure freedom of religion were also brought up. No one should be above the law, regardless of their position and power in society. It is true that the State and the Church must be separated, however there should be specific guidelines on when the State could intervene in the Church’s actions, specifically those of its members. This is to avoid or minimize people like Jim Bakker, who used the name of God for personal gain and took advantage of state-granted church privileges for religious freedom. Reference/s: Effron, L. Paparella, A. & Taudte, J. (2019, December 20). The scandals that brought down the Bakkers, once among US’s most famous televangelists. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/scandals-brought-bakkers-uss-famoustelevangelists/story?id=60389342 Henry Bemis. (202o, November 3). The rise and fall of Jim Bakker and PTL [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/XHXUSf2eALY Gillian A. Salazar Prof. Christian Villanueva 3rd Year - BS Accountancy Professional Elective 3 Reaction Paper: Jordan Belfort It is perfectly normal to have a vision for how a person want to live his or her life in the near future, as it can serve as motivation to do his or her best in whatever you are doing right now. Just like Jordan Belfort envisioned himself in becoming one of the richest people in the world, he did become rich, but he did it by violating the law. Jordan Belfort is an American entrepreneur who excelled in sales even as a teenager. He entered the stock market as a broker for a small company that sells unusual stocks at cheap prices, and because he has sales skills, he was able to make a fortune by targeting beginners in the stock market, where he became greedy as he experienced the life of luxury. Together with his colleague, Danny, he founded the Stratton Oakmont, located in Long Island, New York, which is a brokerage house. Unlike the small company he worked at, Belfort’s key targets are the big players who invest thousands of dollars in stocks. In order to do this, he started training out-of-school youth, including his childhood friends, who wanted easy money but knew nothing about stock markets, by giving them a script on how they will persuade a person to invest in the stocks they are offering. Within several years, he was able to earn a million dollars with his sales techniques, and his employees were getting larger; most of them are high school graduates, but they should pass the broker’s license exam in order to get into the company, where Belfort promised them that they would be able to experience the lavish lifestyle they want. They became involved in Belfort and Danny's pump-and-dump fraud scheme, which involves falsifying information that may create a trend signal to buy stocks from investors, and when the stock prices are high, they will sell their own shares (Investor.Gov). Later in 1999, he was indicted for securities fraud because of his manipulation of the stock market and for money laundering. He pleaded guilty, was later convicted of his financial crimes, and was released from prison in 2006. Upon his released, he became a motivational speaker, which mainly focuses to entrepreneurship and giving sales advice and persuasion skills. Having goals and ambitions in life is what keeps people on moving forward. It is just that our ways on achieving it our different, for Belfort, he blindly committed a financial fraud because his ambitions have turned into his greed, which he admitted in his memoir. Reference/s: Best Documentary. (2021, May 16). Jordan Belfort – white collar criminal [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/DEO1yHFg-vI Paluteder, D. (2022, September 12). Who is Jordan Belfort? true story of “the wolf of wall street.” Finbold. https://finbold.com/guide/jordan-belfort-wolf-of-wallstreet/ Gillian A. Salazar Prof. Christian Villanueva 3rd Year - BS Accountancy Professional Elective 3 Reaction Paper: Elizabeth Holmes The reputation of the company is one of the key aspects of a business on which people base their trust. In order to have a good reputation, companies will make claims about the quality of the products or services they offer and how they are the best among the products or services already offered by another company (Buxton, 2022). Those claims should be backed up with evidence or testimonies for them to be more appealing to consumers or clients. However, some companies tend to make claims that are beyond the actual quality of the product or service, which is commonly known as false advertising and considered fraud. Elizabeth Holmes is one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the United States, having founded Theranos at the age of 19. She was truly inspiring since she was able to compete with various entrepreneurs, who are mostly young men, in Silicon Valley, but her defrauding its consumers and investors is a different story. The idea of inventing a patch that would help find out what kind of disease a patient has by examining just a few drops of blood instead of several tubes full of blood will make the blood testing easier for both the patient and the medical staff. It would be a great contribution to the development of the American health system. The main issue, however, is that the Edison, the name of the device developed by Theranos, did not perform as well as Holmes claimed. The most likely cause of this is the management that oversees this project, led by Balwani, who has no knowledge of biomedicine and no experience in this industry. He ignored the issues that were raised by the employees in their reports regarding the device and just proceeded with launching it. He even threatened the employees who resigned if they ever spoke out to the public about the issues with Edison. Another reason is that Holmes' ambition to change the world clouded her judgment, and her relationship with Balwani may have caused her to disregard the issues reported by employees and only disclose to investors and consumers the good report that assures the device is effective and accurate, which led to patients being wrongly diagnosed and investors losing their money. Making claims about a product's quality that differ from its actual quality is considered fraud because the consumer received a different quality than what was promised. False advertising always leads to a greater casualty, which is the reason for the downfall of Theranos. If only the management, including Elizabeth Holmes, acknowledged the issues reported by the employees and formulated a plan on how they could fix the device, then the turn of events might be different. They might be able to present the device exactly or much better than Holmes promised to contribute to the American health system and achieve her goal without defrauding any people, and no lives will be at stake since the product they are developing is for people. Facts must always be provided for the company to grow and be known as one that people trust. Reference/s: Buxton, D. (2022, September 22). Why is a positive reputation important in business? Minc Law. https://www.minclaw.com/why-positive-reputation-important- business/#:~:text=A%20good%20business%20reputation%20is,(who%20will%2 0stay%20loyal). EQS Editorial Team. (2022, November 21). Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos case: history of a fraud scandal. Integrity Line. https://www.integrityline.com/expertise/blog/elizabeth-holmestheranos/?fbclid=IwAR0QPCpfV6okC-YYx24BEZggHCwAJCb6Xxt5StHPWzcz2h9FUKISmTlFnU Yahoo Finance. (2021, September 1). Elizabeth Holmes: The valley of hype behind the rise and fall of Theranos [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/to2GSibbrv0
