Catching Cheats: Everyday Forensics to Unmask Business Fraud - Paperback

by Erik Lie (Author)

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist, 2025

A renowned researcher takes readers inside the hunt for Wall Street's biggest frauds, revealing the forensic techniques that catch corporate criminals in the act.

The world of business runs on trust, but that trust is routinely broken. From stock market manipulation to accounting fraud, corporate executives and Wall Street insiders find endless, creative ways to cheat the system. With engaging stories and compelling data analysis, Erik Lie reveals how these schemes work and how to catch them.

Through real cases such as Martha Stewart's insider trading, Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, and the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal, readers will learn the following:

• Two powerful methods for detecting systematic fraud using data
• How cheaters leave behind telltale statistical patterns
• Why some of Wall Street's biggest frauds persisted for years despite red flags
• The role of whistleblowers, journalists, and researchers in exposing deception

Packed with intriguing examples and whimsical illustrations, this eye-opening guide shows how anyone can help expose corporate misconduct hiding in plain sight.

Author Biography

Erik Lie is a professor of finance at the University of Iowa and has been teaching for twenty-five years. In 2002, he began researching executive compensation, and using large databases, he documented strong patterns of manipulation of stock option grants. He brought them to the attention of the SEC and Wall Street Journal, which resulted in a massive SEC investigation, numerous lawsuits, congressional hearings, the firings of at least seventy corporate executives, and a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the Wall Street Journal. In 2007, Time magazine included him in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.