How To Make Millions As a Professional Whistleblower
August 23, 2024 at 05:27AMWe think of whistleblowers as those people brave enough to call out corruption or wrongdoing at their place of work. We don’t think of them as people are compensated for their efforts—or consider the possibility that this could present a seven- or eight-figure incoming stream for an enterprising freelancer. Enter: the pseudonymous Richard Overum, the subject of a highly entertaining feature by Gordy Megroz. While he sounds like a con man (whom he understandably needs to share a skillset with), the reporting doesn’t lie. Read it now, before the inevitable film adaptation gets underway.
Back when it was instituted, in the post-Madoff era, the whistleblower programs were meant to bolster enforcement at underresourced government agencies. Authorities at the SEC and CFTC would now have help in the form of newly incentivized citizens. And in the most general sense, the program has worked as intended: In fiscal year 2023, the SEC received over 18,000 tips, and awarded nearly $600 million to 68 individual whistleblowers.
The vast majority of people providing tips to whistleblower programs do so only once in their life. They are not—as Overum is—repeat customers. Over the course of his career, Overum says that his tips, which can include hundreds of pages of evidence, have led to various regulatory agencies, including the SEC, taking action approximately 90 times. (An SEC spokesperson declined to comment on Overum’s claim, citing agency policy to not remark on “the existence or nonexistence of a possible whistleblower submission.”)
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/08/22/how-to-make-millions-as-a-professional-whistleblower/
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