Pav Gill: Wirecard Whistleblower & Building Confide Platform After $Billion Fraud (E585)

But I always like to remind everyone like wire cards are very rare case of successful whistleblowing. Yeah. Because a company actually suffered the consequences, right? But in most cases, whistleblowers get exposed in the process and absolutely damaged, right? So yeah, it's something to always keep in mind. Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on success. I'm Jeremy Al, venture

capitalist, Sarah founder, Harvard MBA, science fiction nerd, and dad of two daughters. Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, answer listener questions, and share personal insights. Join our movement of over 40,000 members, and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.ravecea.com. Stay well and stay brave. Hey, Pav. Good to see you. Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

Well, it's so interesting because I've heard about your story through bits and pieces and now I finally get to see the person behind this whistleblower story. Anyway, I would love for you to introduce yourself. Sure. So, I'm Pav. I started as a lawyer. Spent maybe five, six years in some magic circle firms. Alan Overy, Clipper Chance, Warriors was in the Middle East as well. And then I came back to Singapore. I joined my first fintech startup called Go Bear. Like to say it's a very innocent startup cuz it was just doing comparison like

what's the best insurance rates and stuff right and of course compared to what came after that it was definitely a big change. So wire card was the next one I was the first head of legal for the Asia Pacific region. and I was headunted by them and then all the fun stuff happened and then I left the company joined Wise as the first APC council and then moved to the crypto space 2 years in Bangkok and now I'm a founder and CEO of my own startup. Yeah. Fantastic. So lots to unpack here and I think just go maybe straight to the

beginning here is you know you when you became a lawyer in the first place. Were you like you want to be a lawyer because like you know fight for justice or like when you were like like everybody has made a decision whether to be a lawyer or banker or something like I think after you around university that level right so why did you decide to be a lawyer in the first place? I mean my mom's a single parent. So she had actually raised me while she was doing her law degree. Oh, okay. I used to be at the back of her lectures with my coloring book and then when we go home

I'll ask her what's the meaning of constitution criminal and cuz she was studying right so I think that seed was planted from that moment right and it was definitely more fun in the sense that I used to like debates. I actually founded the debate society in Victoria school. My best friend of many years was one of your descendants I guess then as a result. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, and it's more fun for me than maths and science which I wasn't like perfect at you or anywhere close. So, yeah, it was a natural thing just be a lawyer. I never

expected to be a lawyer in the finance space. I always was very driven by a wanting to represent the downtrodden and destroy council on the other side. And also my first novel was a time to kill by John Gisham which was also his first book. Yeah. So in primary six I read that and I think from there on after reading the firm and all these other books by him I was like yeah this is definitely what I want to be be a lawyer because it sounds so exciting in the book right I mean so but then what's interesting your life became did become

exciting so most people I would say like when you read a John Gisham book about legal thriller it their life is quite boring and they end up writing contracts and obviously there's a b bunch of work but let's talk about that. So you work at a bunch of different corporate careers and what was it like to obviously be a go bear which is I think for those who know early days of the Singapore tech scene we remember go bear but what was it like to be headunted by Wire Card like was it like a experience? Were you looking to leave Go Bear? How did you get headunted? Yeah. Yeah, I was

super happy to be hired by Wire Card. So it was a head-hunted there was a head-hunted process to it where I was approached by a recruiter. Yeah. I was very desperate to be in the fintech scene. So that's why I joined Goar for example and I had a huge massive pay cut. I think I was getting after CPF like 5k a month. Oh yeah yeah sounds right. But that was really the sacrifice I made to get in the fintech space cuz I was always doing corporate finance right and I always had a insane like interest in tech. I think we are from the

generation that grew up with the 486 pantiums. We used to go to sim limb square and build them but there wasn't any kind of like it fintech aspect in terms of the law. There was a whole IT boom boom which I wasn't part of. So when fintech was booming I was like okay let's not miss this boat. So that was how I got into it. So wireart was great because of the autonomy and the fact that of course my salary was being equalized. Yeah. Back to normal. Yeah. Which is it is super essential for Singapore, right? It's an expensive place to be. But the fact that I was

looking after 13 markets in the region and it was a German company was obviously doing very well. I think that gave me a sense of um happiness to be part of this place. Yeah. And what's interesting is that obviously today obviously we remember it as a unicorn that imploded because of fraud. But at that time how big was way head hunted you from your perspective? It was big. It was already I think it already had a market cap of in USD about 30 billion at least. Yeah. So it was already bigger than Deutsche Bank and Commerce Bank

combined and it was listed and they were trying to get into the DEX index which they eventually did during my time. So they kicked Commerce Bank out of the DEX index and took its place. So it was a very big company and clearly doing well. Yeah. And so they had hired you because they were expanding in APAC and they wanted you to be the legal council for them. So what was your first day like at Wire? Was like like a laptop or I think everybody was in office back then. Nobody was working remotely, I guess. But I'm just kind of curious like, well, do you remember your first day at WCOT?

Yeah, my first day was actually in Munich. Yeah. And it was fantastic cuz it was October Fest. Oh. And I never been to Germany before. So that was a great start, right? The general council told my my direct supervisor to take me around Munich. So yeah, it was a good start. But in terms of laptop, when I flew back to Singapore 3 days or 2 days later, nobody even knew why I was here. So I didn't get my laptop. Yeah. So it was quite a shock in terms of how Europe was structured wire card wise very

formal very the setups advanced and then Singapore and APEC was run in a very startup way right it was like a coding space or no they had a proper office in Asia Square but because they came into the region through a series of M&As so they're just buying up these obscure payment companies for big amounts of money um and also they purchase City Bank's merchant acquiring business Right. So all the terminals and stuff that was a city transaction to wire card. So that's why they hired me as

well because finally they couldn't do the legal stuff out of Munich. Yeah. It was just getting too intensive. Yeah. And their structure was so lean like they only had 13 legal and compliance stuff globally which for a company that's processing billions in payments, it makes no sense. Yeah. And I think part of it obviously is like it makes sense, right? Payments is a pain the ass for so many people, right? like this wiring across borders and wiring across different currencies and I think at that time it was like 200 8 17 or 18. Yeah. I

mean it still it wasn't easy even back then and so obviously the concept of like a unicorn company that makes payments easy to me feels like a slam dunk. Yeah. Like especially because they already got to the scale and you need that scale for payments. Yeah. So it's kind of confusing because obviously we know I think of wild card failure but I think we're kind of getting to it but when did you start to notice something was like going wrong I guess. Yeah because like you said it's big team billion dollar company he's doing M&A seems to be doing everything right

product market fit makes sense payments make it easier. So when did you start saying like oh something is like not right. Yeah because all the subsidiaries were lossmaking. Yeah. So where was the money coming from? And that was something you could verify from filed financials. And this financials were always filed late one and a half years late. They'll get warnings and everything. And the way the this guy this Indonesian guy called Ido was running the finance side of things was very dubious. Yeah. Cuz the guy had a bad like I mean his CV didn't add up was

inexperienced. He didn't speak English properly or German for that matter. Why was he hired as the third most powerful person in the finance team? Right. And also wired like to say was a fintech company focusing more on the tech element but no one saw where that was coming from. It was very basic tech. Alip pay and all these other providers were doing way more advanced things. So where was the money coming from? So that was the first red flag. And then obviously that led at some point to an internal whistleblower that came to me.

Yeah. Fearing for her life cuz she didn't want to carry out transactions that were clearly illegal anymore. So that's what kicked everything off. Yeah. So let's dig deeper into both of them, right? Because I think there's this like moment where you're starting to realize this stuff, right? Like what was it like for you to realize because like the fact that I mean most lawyers are like give me the document in out right no one's like oh let me look at the financial subsidiary is lossmaking we all them are losing does it add up like so my first

question kind of is like were you more concerned about the Asia subsidiary than the global were you thinking that this is a you were thinking that was more of a Southeast Asia issue at the start yeah cuz I was looking after the whole of Asia and I was involved in the financial stuff because ACRA was sending warning letters right like you haven't filed your financial statements. So this becomes a legal issue. Right. Right. And then the question is when you dig deep you realize for 5 years they were always filing them late after warnings. And the money just wasn't there. Right. So where but yet when they were announcing EBID

da every quarter that's like hundreds of millions equivalent to what the European side was announcing. Right. So it was quite funny for the local staff because I guess the sales staff were very happy because they were apparently selling stuff without knowing it but yeah so that was the big question where was the money coming from which products which country because we don't see it on the subsidiary level right so the gap for you was more like Europe was reporting good Asia numbers yes but you knew the Asia numbers were not good based on what

everyone was saying and so you felt like there was a gap in that communication on messaging. Yeah. But it's not what everyone was saying like these are verifiable facts. Yeah. Cuz you have to file your financial statements with ACRA. Right. Right. And possibly for all the other countries you can extract those statements from their equivalent of ACRA. Right. So it was there for everyone to see including the auditors. Right. So that was a big question mark. But of course it is not normal or at least it shouldn't be normal for people to go into companies and start looking

for issues right which which people do it's really bad especially in the compliance space I actually know people that actively do that and then try to get a higher salary or whatever right or build leverage against the CEO so they don't get fired so easily right uh but it was not in my nature to do that I was actually trying to figure things out which is why I was hired so when Munich hired me they wanted to They told me they want me to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the team, right? And figure out what's happening. So I

thought it was a integration issue cuz when you expand so fast, clearly there's integration problems, right? And of course Asia is a beast of its own because every country is unique culturally, right? We're talking about two subsidiaries in Indonesia. Vietnam had one. India had another had the most infamous one. And then Singapore, Malaysia, and all these things. So I really thought that I could give some value ad as someone who's Singaporean who's familiar with the AP pack region and assist this poor western company in

assimilating from an integration standpoint right and so what I'm hearing is like you you're like okay clearly the reporting at mothership or HQ is off from what we're seeing in Apac ape they're doing these filings it doesn't add up and so you thought that you were reporting to HQ you thought it was just a communication error and it would be something that would be fixed So when did it become like and then I think when did it become like oh this is not actually like a like you said a management misunderstanding of financials which happens when companies are scaling to be like oh this is a little bit more systematic or

structural. Was it like you said when the whistleblower came in or Yeah. No, there were already serious question marks because of the way this Edo guy was running the business, the finance side, right? I mean, every month he will fly to Munich to back for wages for the whole of the region, right? So, her company is multi-billion dollars in valuation, why is this happening? Why are wages being an issue? Should not you have budgeted wages for the year? Right? So, all these are really oneonone things, right? Like logic, you don't even need to be a finance person, right? It just doesn't make any sense. So of

course then the whistleblowing triggered that because again as a lawyer you want you would wait for that objective incident or evidence to come across that you can then work off cuz yeah you may have all the suspicions in the world but then that's all they are right you need that trigger event or that smoking gun event which would then allow you to kickstart a independent and objective look at what's going on. Right. Yeah. And so let's kind of like dive deeper into that, right? Which is you're

discussing this. It doesn't seem to make sense. And you said there was an internal whistleblower to talk to you. So obviously you are known as the whistleblower, but you said there was a whistleblower who talked to you first. So it's a bit like I don't know Russian eggs going down. But what was the context of that conversation? Was like in the office or was it coffee? Like how did this person and why did this person want to talk to you instead of talking to her manager or somebody else? Yeah. Because she didn't trust HR. So HR was viewed as the spies of management. I think that's also an issue in many companies for whatever reason. So she

didn't trust HR. And then I guess because she was being forced to carry out illegal transactions, she didn't want to do them anymore, right? She came to the legal person which was me and we had both we were both kind of new in the company. So I think there was that level of trust that okay, he's also new so he's probably not part of this whole thing, right? So yeah, she called me one evening and I decided to meet her outside the office the next morning. Yeah. And get all the stuff that she had. So that's why when you talk about the Russian eggs thing, wire car is very interesting because it's a case of

double whistleblowing. Yeah. There was the internal whistleblower that came to me. Yeah. And then how I became the external whistleblower, which is what I always nowadays try to prevent companies or tell companies you can prevent is the external whistleblowing. Right. So encourage the internal one so you can prevent the external one and not get hit. Right. Yeah. So that's that's why wire cuts interesting in that way. Yeah. And so tell me more about that conversation. Obviously you didn't share who the person is, but was it like over coffee? Was it what was the emotional

tone of that conversation on both sides? Obviously it was the first time you're hearing it. How was your reaction? What was that scene like? Yeah. Yeah. I mean the person genuinely feared for her life. Yeah. For various reasons. and I met outside the office because of that cuz then it becomes very spy like right if you're really working in a criminal organization you don't want things in the office and be bugged or whatever a gish novel yeah and it's just a matter of disconnecting the person from the office setting cuz that could intimidate someone right and yeah I mean I need

coffee first thing in the morning so we went to providor ou gallery oh yeah and that's why so if you actually watch the movie which I'm in it's the sky documentary that films everything and how it went down. So, yeah, she gave me the stuff straight away. I told my supervisors in Munich. Yeah. And they said, "Okay, go investigate." Right. So, that's when the investigation kickstarted. So, this seems okay so far, right? I mean, if I was if this was a movie, then the second part of it will be the internet whistleblower does it. You reported up to your superiors. Your superior said,

"Okay, time investigation." And then probably some heads will roll in the APC region for illegal transactions. But obviously that's not what happened because So what happened? I mean because I think this what were the illegal transactions? I think that's the content of it. But two obviously the investigation stopped, right? So I'm just kind of curious how that played out. Yeah. Yeah. So I was given access to this EDO guy and two of his sidekicks currently who are both in jail in Singapore. Right. Yeah. I was given access to their raw inboxes. So the whole inbox they ever had since they joined the company. Oh, okay. So I spent

the weekend, I remember looking into the sidekicks inboxes and what I found was really insane. like these guys were blatantly emailing logos to themselves and putting those logos on wire cut invoice looking templates. So it wasn't very sophisticated which upset me to some some extent. Yeah. Because I was like you know if it was a multi-billion dollar company engaging in fraud I expected it to be very sophisticated right not basic stuff but then I thought okay maybe this is the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, the reason there has to

be a reason why they're doing these things to which could potentially if you look into it lead to other things. So to me that was a slam dunk thing that's forgeries that's creating a fake contracts and all these money movements clearly indicating roundtpping. So yeah I thought like it's just IO and these few bad egg that we need to deal with and once they leave the company then things would resume. Right. Right. Cuz I thought they were perpetuating a fraud on the European side. Right. I didn't expect that initially to think that no, they were coordinating it or whatever

they were doing was linked up. So when the board found out after the general council found out cuz she didn't know apparently that I was doing this thing even though I was always told that she knew. Yeah. So one day when the whistleblower was fearing for a life wanted to go to MAS and the police and stuff I had no choice but to call her and say look we need to manage this cuz if we don't and it goes outside then it gets way worse. Right. So she didn't know and then she said, "Send me what you have." Which was the Raja And report. It was a preliminary report. It had like at least 10 potential offenses

in there. So I sent it to her. She ran to the board. The board found out. They then spent the next four months with the local director here trying to coordinate and make my life really, really difficult, including trying to kill me at the end of it. So okay, so this is the wheels fall off the story cuz you know to the first half of that feels totally reasonable, right? So you were reporting to a lawyer. The lawyer reports to general counsel of the whole company. General counsel obviously reports to the CEO on the board. Okay, that makes sense. And then you telling me general counsel didn't understand what was going on. Also kind of makes

sense. Then you checking the inbox because your boss I guess your boss didn't know either. They knew. Correct. Boss knew. Yes. So he was the one that gave me the access to it. So the deputy general counsel gave me access to the inboxes. So he was in a know but he gave let you investigate. Yeah. cuz they're sitting in Germany. But I'm on the ground here. But then he knew that this fraud was happening. I have no idea. Yeah, but probably not, right? Because otherwise, why would he give you I'm just saying like what he did say was that Wire Kart has two camps. One is the pro eo camp which is very powerful. So

he's been assured a permanent future in the company regardless of what happens, right? And then there's a small bunch of them that want to do the right thing and have a more legal and compliant culture. So that's why he said this would be our chance to get an independent third party like the law firm to look at it because then the company will be forced to act because then it's not a personal thing like okay path doesn't like this eo guy or whatever right it becomes an objective assessment so that's why that whole thing happened but then when the GC found out she's like the 13th hire in

the company right so she knew yeah so obviously from day one she's been part of the company from an early stage so she was never in the know as what was going on here. Yeah. So that's why when she finally found out, she asked me to send her everything and then she ran to the board and said, "Do you know what's going on?" Yeah. And that's where all things went downhill from there. Okay. So let's unpack that. So I think so this is the layers, right? So it's like you, your boss, general counsel, board, CEO and board, right? And I think it sounds like you and your boss were like aligned

to be like let's do the right thing. And so you got approval and then you set up Rajant. You your own budget. Yep. Y and it came and that process took what like for the Raja Tan report took about 6 weeks 6 weeks or 2 months let's say and that eventually it was and then your internal whistleblower was getting more and more scared and the ille what was the illegal transactions be like what wiring money to a different entity they're not approved to what does illegal transaction mean yeah I mean they were faking documents and contracts and literally forging stuff so she knew that it was forged documents that's why

she saw it as a legal transaction it was scary because what was happening is they would have a unknown third party that pretends to be a client that invoices them. So the money moves from one entity to that third party. That third party then moves the money to another wire card entity. Yeah, that wire entity moves it to another party which shouldn't be a customer of wire and these are millions being moved around and then at some point you lose trail of what happens from that third party company right and that's clearly a I mean that's that's just clearly

roundtpping and potential moneyaundering for sure right yeah and as a payments company that's not what you should be doing so some of these invoices were very obvious like you had a matchmaking company prov providing payment services to wire card which doesn't make any sense cuz it's the other way around right and then you also had like in Malaysia a market intelligence study being commissioned out of Malaysia right but invoice for €4 million so it's probably like the best market study in

the world but again like that may be the case but you can't invoice out of you can't invoice out of Malaysia in euros that's just like not possible right so all this like really weird stuff and Ido was pretending to be a director he was signing off on a few things Yeah, he was also doing user acceptance testing in these contracts which he has no experience in doing. Yeah. So yeah, just very clearly I mean one of the companies was called Flexi Flex which is a very sexy name if you go to the gym or something but they were invoicing Wire

Card for 3D secure tokenization services for example and that's what Wire Card actually provides and if anyone goes to Flexiflex website it's it still exists. It's a Malaysian company doing well. I guess they do piping hose hydraulic stuff. Oh. So that's why it was so like how can audit even if it's internal audit or external audit miss this? It's just a Google search. Right. Right. The name itself doesn't make sense. So that it was that level of basic and obvious which in any normal company you would

suspend these individuals because they from the finance team and you would just get rid of them. But in fact the opposite happened where they were for Edido was actually promoted globally for his hard work and I was the one who was then it was my life that was made hell for the next few months. Yeah. So let's talk about that. So once you go to GC the board and so I think to me that again logically makes sense which is the board is always the last to know and they always so obviously they're going to send back a question which is is this correct? Is this accurate? Blah blah. So

when did you start realizing that this is not normal? Because it is normal to get query from the general it's normal for the general counsel to report to the board. It's normal for the board to query you and say is are you correct? You should get it wrong. So I mean that's like you're opening up a storm. You already know the box is going to be open. The shit's going to fly. So you know that's all going to happen. But when did you realize it was like oh wait this is not an internal board investigator. Like this is going off the rails because they wanted to shut down the investigation. Yeah. Then they told me to to step aside and the COO Yan

Marcel he wanted to take over the investigation but he was named as a suspect in a lot of the documents or things we came across right so that's one of the most difficult things how do you tell a the second most powerful person in the company that you cannot take over an investigation because you yourself are a person of interest like there's just no diplomatic way to craft that email right but then what was what then went downhill is when the Munich site with the GC and the local Singapore director that they started making my life difficult. So they started he

started shouting at me every time in the office and intimidating me saying I don't don't think I don't know what you have been doing the last few months. If you know what's good for you you'll play ball and all these things. So, I didn't understand what his problem was because I kept telling him, "I'm actually looking after you, right? Cuz you're a director. If anything goes wrong, like you'll be in trouble, right? So, why is he like not taking that mindset?" And then he would say like his wife is a lawyer. He's not scared of anything and so on. So then he started coordinating all kinds of crazy stuff against me in

the office attacking my work doing a HR case against me which really upset me because as a guy once that happens it's like okay he literally went below the belt right that failed but it took 3 months to investigate and what was this HR case how does this so what they did is they hired this lawyer and they put her under me. Oh yeah and then that same lawyer was not reporting to me but reporting to him. Yeah. So, she was very insubordinate, had a fake CV and things that didn't add up. And she was always asking me, "How what is happening in

this investigation, which she's not meant to be part of." Yeah. And she'll always be sitting in this guy's office. Yeah. So, at some point, I decided I want to fire her. Yeah. And that's where she ran to him and he said, "You're not allowed to fire her." I was like, "Why not?" Yeah. So, he said, "Oh, because she says that you are you have harassed her, which is why you want to fire her." So, it's that kind of really weird nonsense. And then they put her in team. So she directly ended up reporting to Idos. She was like, "Guys, you couldn't be more obvious in your nonsense, right?" Yeah. So then they took 3 months

to investigate this whole issue, add further stress on me. That upset the whole office and when that failed, so everything didn't work out in that aspect. That's when they decided, okay. So Ido came back and he wanted to have lunch. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the first things I ever said to me was that he's married to a drug dealing family in Jakarta. That was his first introduction to me when I joined Wire Kart. Yeah. And met him. This time he wanted to send me back to Jakarta on a business trip, which made no sense based on how he explained it. And he said, "No, you still have to go whether in 2 days, 2

weeks or 2 months, you must go, but you have no reason to worry because you know who my father-in-law is, right?" So, I saw that as a direct kind of threat. And you wouldn't want to just rock up in in Jakarta, right? When you are investigating or part of you are in the middle of this whole mess, right? cuz anyone can just drive in the traffic jam on a scooter and just shoot you and go off and no one cares. Right. Right. And on top of that, to make things worse, during that week, I had two anonymous phone calls from Germany saying, "Hello, is this Pep Gil? We understand you're being told to go to Jakarta. Don't go.

You won't come back." Boom. And they put the phone down. So, obviously, I didn't want to go. That's where the company was very happy, I guess, because now they can force me to resign finally on the basis of not going for a business trip here. And I did. So, that's what happened. So I resigned. I said, "Okay, wire cutart, you enjoy your fraudulent ways. I go look for another job." Yeah. Yeah. But because they didn't stop their nonsense even after that, that is what led to eventually the whistleblowing. Okay. So this is actually really interesting. Okay. So first of all, I

mean the fact that you're being asked to go to Indonesia obviously well on the face of it seems normal. Like nothing wrong going to Indonesia to get some MIGO ring. Yeah. And get a massage and then after that go take some selfies, you know. Nothing wrong with that and obviously it's a business trip obviously. Yeah. But I guess the part that is interesting is that you got these calls to say don't go because you might get killed now. Yes. I guess the question was was the guy calling person calling you because they didn't want you to go for sure. Or it was a nice person calling you to tell you because they really were warning you. Yes. From a

good faith perspective. Yeah. For sure. Okay. I mean and the whole business reason they wanted me to go didn't make any sense. Cuz they said it's for a rebranding exercise. I'm like, I've given you two law firms with their codes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't need to physically be there. Yeah. Exactly. So that's why it became very dodgy, right? The whole like two months, two weeks, two days thing. Yeah. Which person is like you, you can go on a business trip, but yes, between two weeks to two months. Yeah. Two days like let's go. It's normally like, hey, there's a conference we got to go to or there's a meeting we got to do. But so you're

saying that the person called you, it wasn't because they were trying to stop you from going so that you don't get so that you'll get fired. This person was actually had good intentions for you and was trying to warn you nicely. Did you ever find out who that person was? No, it was it wasn't just one person. There were two phone calls during that week from two different people. Two friendly people called you in Germany. I don't know who they are. You don't who you still don't know who they are. No, because the phone call is like a few seconds long. On the landline, we still use those things those days. So, and you still don't know who they are. No. So, I guess they will help they saving your

life, but they they I guess they don't want to tell you. I mean, maybe in 10 years or 20 years when things blow over, they might tell you. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. But again, I wouldn't know if it's true. But it's good it's good that they told you, right? Because for if they didn't call you, you might have been like, "No, I still wouldn't go." You still wouldn't go. That's when I got my mom involved, right? That's where you come. Okay. So, let's talk about your mom. What's helpful now is that your mom is a lawyer. So, she's not a lawyer. She had a law degree. She went into banking and then eventually she kind of slowed down and gotcha. Yeah. So, she knew both the corporate. Okay. So, fin. So, so how does that conversation go? Like I don't know. You go over to her house for a family dinner or something. No, I live

with her. Oh, you live I still live with her. So you were talking to her all the time about this issue as it was developing. No, I wasn't. So that's a weird thing like you are so isolated in this situation that you have to navigate everything on your own. You can't tell your colleagues why this crazy director guy in Singapore is doing these things. Why are you being investigated for absolute nonsense? Or why are you now singled out? Yeah. Yeah. Right. You can't talk to them because it's sensitive. It's confidential. Right. You can't talk to your friends outside for the same reason. Right. So then the reason why I had to tell my mom is

because if these guys were now going down the pathway of literally trying to kill you, it was only fair that she finds out what's going on in case something happens, right? Whether in overseas or in Singapore. So that's where she got involved and I to tell her. Yeah. Yeah. So you told her like, "Hey, I was invited on a business trip, but I No, I told her what's going on. I said, I'm investigating this thing. This fraud going on from what I see now. They have been doing this to me the last few months, and they wanted me to go to Jakara. So she actually said you're not going and she would take my passport and

so I told her like that's actually criminal offense but okay. So so that's what happened right because I mean my mom's more street smart than I am to some extent. So she always says like men are very innocent or naive so she could like sense these insidious things more than me because I think because I was stuck in the whole setting I kept thinking that no it can't be at some point the company will do the right thing and I'll be vindicated. Yeah. So a lot of people always ask like why did you not leave the company during these four months and it's because of that

personally like I was doing my job doing it well I think and I was still trying to make sure with the external law firm that things were being coordinated that the case would still go and I was still having an obligation at least a moral one to the whistleblower who I kept the identity of whom I kept secret until today. Yeah. Yeah. I called her Bobby so no one even knows if it's male or female. So yeah, I just thought at some point that and the law firm was also telling me like just hang in there because the more we find out the worse

it looks for the company. Yeah. So it was really a race against time. Who would cave first or who would be forced to, right? And it's not I mean frankly it's not easy to just leave a job and walk into another job, right? Especially the more senior you are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that was the reasons why I stayed in the company for so long. Yeah. And I think what's interesting is that then you felt like okay at some point you they had grounds to dismiss you. So you could have been either been fired but you chose to resign. Yeah. Given either option. Oh. So they

literally came up to you and they gave you Yeah. The same director guy was very smug about it. Yeah. Smug about it. And he was like you chose not to go to business to work. Yeah. Basically. Um and then he went on this whole spiel about how he told me to play ball and I didn't. I thought I could run to the general counsel who protect me. Yeah, she listened to everything he says and that he's just one of those very annoying people to work for because Singapore and then he became like the local boss apex CEO type person and he'll be the

kind of person that's always giving these wise anecdotes like with great power comes great responsibility and all these things right so he's really like the kind of uncle that you can't really handle for very long but he would have his like sephopens around that will follow him around everywhere. Yeah. So that's why he was very he was very proud of himself that this thing concluded this way. And in fact, ironically, I think he actually caused a downfall of wire card, right? Because he must have told HQ that don't worry about this path

guy. I know how to deal with him. He's actually yeah, I will settle this. But because he didn't, I think that's what eventually led to the downfall of the company. So even after I left the company, they were sending people to follow us and all these things. At first, I thought they were really lowbudget on that because you're not supposed to know when someone's following you, right? But then I then realized, no, they actually want you to know as a form of intimidation. Right. So, they were doing all these things. They were setting up fake interviews with friendly firms knowing I need a job, but then the interview process was

all about why I left wire. Did something bad happen? I can tell them. Yeah. And then I knew why they're doing that. So, if I said something wrong, I breach NDA or whatever. Right. And so that's why at some point my mom got pissed and she said, "Okay, I had enough. I'm going to teach this company a lesson." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, how did your mom teach them a lesson? Well, from the sofa in the house, he made friends with powerful people and journalists. Yeah. Like Cla Brown was the first one she got in contact with and CLA exposed one MD through Sarawak report, right? So CLA

actually said, she knows the FT's been working on WireArt for the last few years, right? But getting nowhere. So CLA put us in touch with the FT. Yeah. So that's how the FT got involved. Yeah. So let's talk about that. I mean obviously I always say never piss off a mom, right? It's really unwise. Really otherwise. Yeah. You can go after anyone but you off the mom the mom will grow full 100%. So but let's talk about that, right? So like obviously she's your confidant and she knows all the stuff and but you were being a professional, right? You were like recruiting for a

job. You resigned the report and you were like you said you want to let Wire cut settle because the report is there. Yeah. But you never you weren't thinking about going and talking to a journalist. I mean the roots explored or thought processes were do you go to the police? Do you go to MAS or whoever? Yeah. But then the issue I think is if you want the company if you want fast action then the best way we strategize was if a reputable paper starts reporting about wrongdoings in Singapore in this company here but Singapore is hyper sensitive on

all these things they will be forced to act fast because otherwise if you go to the police or you just lodge a issue you could it would just potentially be filed away and not looked at for many years there's no way to force the action right but the FT strategy was the way and it did. So within three the third FD article when it finally came out immediately Singapore raided Ward's office. It was the only country that acted on what happened. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that. Like I don't know did you feel when your mom

went to talk to the journalist first and then connected you both? When she did that were you like was that agreed upon as a plan or she did it without you? No. She told me basically we are meeting the FD this weekend. I was like I was like what are you doing? I don't speak to journalists right I don't trust them. Yeah. As a lawyer as a lawyer don't hang off journalists. It's like the one rule is like lawyers and journalists will not drink in the same group together. Right. Yeah. And I was more concerned but like what I don't want to be I'm literally trying to look for another job. But she's like no we need to speak to the

FD. They are familiar with this case and we also can understand just conversationally how they their sources. Right. Right. So the because we wer still doing a lot of nonsense in the background towards me. Yeah. Yeah. So we needed to create a distraction for them that's big enough for them to stop focusing on me and go fix these other fires. So that was the reason behind it, right? And yeah, I mean as a lawyer clearly, right, you don't that's legal privilege issues, all these things which always play on your mind. But I was very confident on those grounds because privilege wouldn't cover like criminal

offenses, criminal acts. And legal privilege, for example, is meant to have the lawyer protect the client basically at the end of the day, right? But if the client's trying to kill that same lawyer, right? Then I guess it doesn't make any sense, right? Because then all the rules of engagement are out the window. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what happened. And we met the FT introductory meeting in Changi airport, right? I still remember I think it was Coffee Bean or somewhere. And then the FT's correspondent, the one in Singapore, Stefania, he then reported back to Dan

Mcrum saying, "These guys are actually legit." Yeah. And that's when Dan came down the next week for three days in Singapore and we went through about 70% of what I had because I still wanted wanted to keep the 30%. Yeah. Because I still didn't trust these guys, right? Cuz I've seen like in one MDB and stuff like what happened to whistleblowers. The guy ended up in jail because he was exposed in the process. Right. Yeah. And so very important is you've got to keep whistleblowers anonymous. Yeah. That's when things really get ugly when they

get exposed, right? Cuz you unless you're very very powerful as a whistleblower, you don't have the resources to take on a corporate cuz they can completely damage you financially. No. Yeah. Of course. And reputationally. Yeah. If they think you have stuff against them. And if a company's in the business of forging documents and stuff, there's nothing preventing them from doing the same thing against you. No. Yeah. Right. And saying like, "No, he was actually part of this. Look at our stuff that we have against him." Right? Especially with AI deep fakes and stuff, it gets even more

complicated. Do you then have the ability to prove otherwise, right? So that's why I had to leave the company with the raw inbox data of these guys, right? Cuz that was the proof. So if that's forensically analyzed, it will show it's never been modified. It is real, right? And I think that's what the company never saw coming, right? was for the first time someone from the inside with real data could now expose them right so because people always ask why would wire cut hire you if you had such

a good CV and they were doing bad things it's because of that like the access of info was controlled so much at the top level they would never in their wildest dreams imagine like someone at the lower side the subsidiary side or wherever would suddenly make that connection from a objective data standpoint and that's what happened with the inboxes right just that you had a copy the inboxes and that was the most important part because that was extracted part of the Raja and Khan process. Yes, that was the smoking gun I guess in that yes sense to say

that this is the start of the process the pool of the thread right as it goes up and up. Yeah. Now I think what's interesting is that you said that there was anonymous but obviously I mean I'm sure that when the so okay so let's talk about this process obviously the sourcing the journalist is writing with you and so so forth. So obviously the article comes out and it was I remember that reading that first article which was quite explosive. Yeah. EOS face on it. Yeah. But I mean wouldn't they know it's you even though you're protected as anonymous with a blow. Wouldn't they know it's like must be this dude. Yeah.

Yeah. But they definitely suspected it was me or maybe another dude. Yeah. Who was part of this whole thing. Yeah. But then there's a difference between suspecting and being able to prove it. Gotcha. Yeah. So, it's at least it's like if have to kill had to kill both of you instead of killing one of you. Yeah. They actually paid a third party intelligence company. Yeah. To find out who the whistleblower was. Really? Yeah. They paid them two to €300,000 and that company gave them the wrong person. So, out of the 50/50, they chose the wrong

one for such an expensive fee. Right. I feel good for you, but I feel bad for the other person because the other person was probably I mean, they could have just transferred me the money. Would have said, "Yeah, it's me. Thanks for the cash." Sorry, that's all. But it's too late. That's too late. That's so bad. That's so funny. And wait. And then and then of course they were like following you. Like was it very obvious when they were following you? Very obvious. Like what? Like it's like a what? Some dude is No, it's like those like tie looking workers, construction worker type to the tattoos and stuff and they're follow they're walking behind you the entire time. Yeah. Taking pics and then they'll walk. We live on a

corridor unit. So they'll walk up and down the corridor. They'll go on the block opposite and then from there just look. So it's like really obvious. Oh, it's the same dude as well. I mean, not every day. Not every day. But but why is someone doing that? Yeah. Exactly. And of course, you can't like go complain to the police because nothing has technically happened. Yeah. It's like, okay, people walking around. What do you want us to do? Yeah. Exactly. It just happens to be this stranger in your corridor who it's not a neighbor. Yeah. It's not a crime. Yeah. It's not a crime. Even follow someone is not a crime. Yeah. You just I mean, unless

you're harassing them, but it's it was one of those cases. And my fear was because my mom is very fearless. So that puts fear in you cuz you're scared that she will confront them and then something went. Yeah. What could these people do? Because she's the kind of person that every late in the evening she would hang the clothes in the corridor to cry and stuff, right? So I'm out working at finding a job. I don't want to have this fear factor or people could throw acid or something. Who knows? It may not kill you, but you don't want a situation. Yeah. Um so that

was what really triggered. So if anyone asks like was I ever scared in the process, it's because of that. It wasn't anything else. Yeah. Yeah, because they could push her down the stairs. Something that looked like an accident as well just to Yeah. Yeah. So, so many horrible things could happen. So, no, I think it's interesting because then obviously the whistleblow happens and then eventually the whole the wire cut house of cards has to fall apart and obviously I think also I think the expose is actually also larger than what you saw, right? Because you saw from the bottom ap. Yes. And then I think FT did

a really good job explaining the whole thing if that makes sense. Did you feel like were you surprised or shocked by the scale of it or no? Because at that point you were like it has been really bad or I mean it was a very active process of engagement. So what I did triggered other information to come in after those articles were out the first few articles. Um but what I didn't expect was how the German regulators and stuff would react on the very first day. So they said it's not a wire cut problem a shortselling problem and it's a Asian problem. And that's things that

regulators normally do not say. Yeah, you would just say the standard stuff which is we understand allegations have been made looking into it till there no comment. But to come out on day one and say that it's the company's not in any wrongdoing is highly unusual. And that's when I realized that I'm going against not just the regulators. I mean the not just Wire Guard but regulators, external auditors and whoever else that are hellbent on protecting this company for whatever reason. Right. So that's when I had to go bit vigilante. Yeah. And go on

Twitter and create this anonymous account. Yeah. I would publish things there which journalists cannot publish. Right. for ethical or other reasons. And then my mom suffered a stroke and out of the stress that was happening and then as part of the stroke scans they found she had stage two lung cancer to cut off half a lung and stuff. So it became very personal right that we needed to see this through. Yeah. I mean basically don't half ass this thing now. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz if you be one you better do it properly, right? And that's where and because the Germans started going c they

started going after the FT criminally and nullifying everything. They even put a short selling ban on why it got stopped. I remember which is insane. So that's when I realized we need to change the perception from within Germany and I got Suda Zaiton the powerful Munich paper which was behind Paradise Panama leaks. Yeah. They came down they were actually in Mount E at the hospital bed and I gave them even more information. Right. So when they finally published the first time Germany kind of shook was because of their article. So now we have not only the jealous UK paper, right?

But um our own papers are now saying something is really wrong with this PayPal of Europe that we have here, right? So that's when things started and then the Twitter profile got a lot of hedge funds attention. Eventually that forced a KPMG special audit, right? And it's a whole story like Dan has written it very well in Moneyman very extensively. It's it's crazy stuff and finally the company crashed after one and a half years. Yeah. So I think what's interesting is that it took one and a half years even for it to crash,

right? Because it was had so much protection by weirdly the German state and most people think of the German state as efficient, fair, neutral. I mean I'm just saying nonpartisan in general. So why do you think there was like regulatory capture or what happened there? Yeah, I mean I don't know. I think Germany has is definitely a stakeholder in many aspects of wire card, right? There was a cl we also know that the regulator staff were trading wire stock till the last day. Oh, which isn't nice. Yeah. Uh yeah. But what was

unforgivable in my view was the fact that before the articles came out like one week or within the week before that maybe 3 days I had created a dossier of all the documents and indexed it nicely to make it idiot proof. I sent it to the external auditors to MAS C everybody including the German side. Right. Yeah. So why are they behaving like they don't know? They don't have the evidence. They have it. So why is that insistent desire not to want to look at it? Yeah. And they kept casting it conveniently as a

Asian problem. Right. Right. But okay, maybe an Asian problem, but this is your listed company with HQ. And if you actually ask the question, you'll realize nothing in Asia can happen without HQ signing off. Right. So it's just those very basic things that are frustrating, right? And so I think what's interesting is that also this whole thing fell apart and obviously justice was served in some ways but also I think you as a whistleblower have also become public right you know cuz you eventually right so what was that process for you to be like I'm comfortable becoming public or known as

the whistleblower yeah of course there's a strong desire in these things to want to come out dumping your chest and like it was me I front stabbed you backstabbed you it was me all along but yeah yeah there's always that desire right from a justice like okay I have finally succeeded and you guys now in the bad ones but you still have to be wise because if the company's crashed it's going through an insolveny process and last thing you want to do is get sued by them still right it's like last burst of fire before going down right

yeah just kill this guy at the same time so I had to wait a year and then the sky documentary which is the only movie I'm in that was focused on me and my mom and what really happened behind the scenes Right. So that was being filmed and the day was being released a year after the company crashed. That's when I told the FD and as that you can publish who it is on the same day cuz people will find out anyway. Right. And that's where everything that's what put me in the public space as the whistleblower. But I always like to remind everyone like wire cards are very rare case of successful

whistleblowing. Yeah. Because the company actually suffered the consequences. Right. But in most cases whistleblowers get exposed in the process and absolutely damaged. Right. So yeah, it's something to always keep in mind. Yeah. And what's interesting is that now you're building a company that is focusing on whistleblowing as one of the modules you're doing helping with governance etc. So let's talk so I want to kind of like unpack that a little bit. Right. So you were looking for a job and then you were a lawyer general counsel for a few two more companies right maybe you could

share a little bit more and then you eventually became a founder. Yes. So can you just unpack that journey? Yeah. Yeah. So the whole one and a half years of exposing wire card, I like to say it was like a side gig. It's great for stress relief, but I was working. So I joined Wise as their first AP council, for example. But then in the evening when I'm frustrated, I'll go and do my Twitter stuff and start being this whistleblower guy, right? Oh, wow. It's like like, yeah, I had a bad day. Let me take it out of wire and all its bots that are attacking me. So yeah, Twitter does have its good use in that sense. So

So you're doing your day job and nobody at Wise knew it was you. Nobody what a nice guy p have you what are you doing after work today you want to go for drinks and you're like no no no use Twitter I would go for the drinks but if the drinks had a negative effect then why kind of suffered right yeah exactly so there you are obviously going through that and you had that job at wise and then eventually then I moved to Bangkok and I was the general counsel of a crypto exchange so the movie is actually filmed in real time the last three days of me being in Singapore so they actually filmed me going from the home

to Changi airport for my real flight to Bangkok. So, Bangkok, that was during CO, so the whole 14-day quarantine and stuff. And yeah, it was only midway through my journey in Bangkok that this article came out and revealed who I was. And yeah, that's what happened. Since then, I was doing a lot of global public keynote speaking, like global keynote speaking events. So all these different companies, regulators, MNC's, big fours would get me to speak other than you know obviously. Yeah, that's the only big four I haven't spoken about uh spoken for or at which is unfortunate.

Yeah. So my bigger question in life was always what was the bigger reason behind exposing wire card like why me not some other random guy and because I was discussing the EU whistleblowing law which wire cut actually accelerated the implementation of it just hit me because I have seen how challenging it is for companies to deal with internal reporting cases whether it's whistleblowing in the financial crime sense or it's HR issues like bullying harassment me too and the likes or it's even things like data breach age should

we tell our customers should we tell our regulators should we deal with the thread actor so all these different kinds of internal reporting I've seen the challenges and I've also used the so-called existing solution so I'm familiar with them all of them only focus on receiving reports but then what happens after that right so having put the wire the whistleblowing mindset experience in there okay if there was something that was truly end to end not just a receiving channel right then that audit trail is there right then maybe even the general council and wire khan

say she didn't know right it's true that she knew and how did she deal with it right um so then I said yeah let's let me just do this let me put all my experience my life's journey into a product that will benefit people companies and lawmakers right and that's how the idea of confide platform was formed and I think the word confide is very powerful right because like when I mentioned isolation every time you're in a situation where you see something wrong you want to speak up you don't know who to confide in or you're confiding in the wrong person right or you're just limited from confiding by legal privilege, NDAs, whatever. So

having that name, having that an that encrypted anonymous ability and most importantly giving companies a chance to deal with things before they explode, they don't wake up. We see that all the time like something bad happens in the press, right? Then the senior executives are like, "Okay, what happened? How come we didn't know? If we knew we'd have done something about it, right?" So putting fixing that specific problem, the end to end and everything was how confight started. So whistleblowing naturally with my storyline was the kind of like the beach head product, right? And that's how we started and now we

have expanded into full operational compliance aspects. Yeah. And my last question here really would be like could you share a personal story about the time that you have felt the most brave? I mean that's yeah that's a difficult one having gone through a lot of things in life but I think I felt the most brave was when I was in the US. It was my first trip last year. I was keynote for diligence annual summit and it was in Houston and I was sitting after my talk at the basement I mean at the ground floor restaurant had a glass wall

that looked out into the street on street level. Yeah. So he was walking up and down and I knew there's something dodgy about this guy. Yeah. So I actually understood for the first time why gun laws exist. Right. Because if this guy had actually come into the restaurant and opened fire, everyone's a sitting duck. Right. Yeah. right? You literally have no defense, right? But because of I for the first time actually felt afraid if that situation materialized because he was walking into the hotel for absolutely no good reason.

And so it was that time which I then quickly went to security and I said you should look at this guy. He's acting suspiciously. So yeah, I would say that was like a brave moment but yet it was brave because I think I actually felt afraid for the first time properly in a life and limb setting and then I told I I acted on it by telling alerting the people about this threat. Yeah. But it was a eye opening experience. I think it's interesting because when people look at the whole thing you they will probably say like the brave thing is

this whole wild card thing but you're saying that you didn't feel as fearful. We don't feel like that that set of decisions around whistleblowing on wire cut was it wasn't as brave and could you share a little bit more about that? Yeah, I mean it's brave of course it's it's brave/c crazy to some extent trying to take down a company like that or expose them rather but I think if you want to talk about wire cut related bravery I would say that the bravery in terms of the wire cut story for me as a person was eventually confronting the

fact that what experience I had there led to had an impact on me down the line not immediately but subsequently so after when I was in Bangkok and the firm the crypto company I was working with that collapsed because of whatever happened in the crypto space with the FTX and everything right that's when I started getting like all these panic attacks and stuff so that's where for the first time in my life I was forced to confront this whole issue of mental well-being right which was a very challenging process so the in terms of

bravery was being able to confront that as a man especially we are very driven by oh we cannot show weakness and there's no such thing go to the gym him and man up and stuff, right? But then when it hits you and you're forced to deal with it, I think that takes a lot of willpower and accepting and reflection which has to me is a brave process because not many people find it easy to deal with. Yeah. So then getting into things like breath work and talking about these things I think that to me was the link to the wire story in terms

of bravely confronting the impact of that on you as a human being. Right. Yeah. And if I may just one last bit is obviously this is obviously very stressful and scary with manage tech. I think you and I have both met whistleblowers as well who have emerged right as a function of the work and visibility. If there was like a whistleblower who's like listening to you or somebody saying something is not going well. Yeah. And you were getting coffee with them outside. What advice or

what how would you approach that conversation today? Yeah. I mean I would ask them genuinely what do you what is it that you want to achieve? Yeah. Sometimes you got to work backwards. Yeah. Right. To answer that question because what matters to you most like is raising this issue exposing this wrongdoing or having peace of mind like what gives you that peace of mind every day is how you should then focus your attentions towards because if you if the simplest solution is okay I can just leave the company and find another job.

I'll be safe and I'll move on and I don't need to deal with this whole mess. Then that is the cause of action you should take. Right? I will never encourage a person to become like a full-blown whistleblower because that comes with a whole bunch of pain especially if you don't deal with it properly, right? And if you don't like go full 9 yards and see to the end. So you need to be alive to those risks. But fundamentally as a human you need to do what makes you at peace with yourself. And I think that's the issue right because a lot of people even though they have got a settlement with a company or

these things they may have raised they got a settlement and they left I think there's always that residual sense of injustice that yeah even to get that settlement okay but then these same guys who were illreating me they now are even getting higher salaries and succeeding thriving more I find that something that I cannot live with I still want to find a way to expose them right so I think again like we are driven by that from an emotional standoint But to me, it's really what matters most to you, what will keep you safe and your family safe and be able to make you

sleep well at night and move forward. I think that's the biggest advice cuz it's not like the movies, right? Like heroes don't always have long lives. No, they don't. So, yeah. Yeah. In the real world, uh, yeah, you can end up dead. Yeah. Quite quite often, right? It's a known thing. Yeah. On that note, thank you so much for sharing. I love to summarize the three big takeaways. First of all, thanks so much for sharing about I think your early career, but also why you excited to join Wire Card and a little bit more about how you felt like

things were going sideways and how you felt like you were doing the right thing for Wire Card by doing an internal investigation into what you thought was malpractice at the local level. So that was really interesting. Secondly, thanks for sharing about I think the broader exploration where you realize you're coming under pressure that headquarters were squeezing you that you eventually had to resign and forced to resign and then had to go and talk to the press and kind of like work with the system and through the system and against the system to get the truth out there

eventually leading to the collapse of the wire card unicorn. And then lastly, thanks so much for sharing about your own new company about how you think you can improve like governance practices and make better governance possible for boards, for VCs, for management, for whistleblowers, for employees. So, thank you so much for sharing. Sure. Thanks. I enjoyed myself. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Brave. If you enjoyed this episode, please share the

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