How did you come to be involved in the  Indian Chapter of ACFE ?
My involvement with the India Chapter of ACFE started about 8 years  back when there were about 15 CFEs' in India.I had just shifted to the private sector after a six year stint with CBI  as a banking expert and was eagerly looking for a forum of professionals involved in fraud prevention.  I was not only looking for a platform to share and seek knowledge, but also a platform to chart the future of the Forensic Accounting in India.  Forensic Accounting was at a nascent stage at that point of time and I think in the last 8 years we have been able to educate and create a market for these services and the biggest achievement has been the acceptance in India, that fraud in commercial organisation's happen and sweeping them under the carpet ( as in the past) is no longer an acceptable solution.  

What do you see as some of the benefits of the ACFE- India chapter for current Certified Members ? The India Chapter will over a period of time evolve from a body taking out regular newsletters, providng training to existing CFE's (CPE hours) and guidance to prospective CFEs into a body:- providing guidance to the CFE community in India and ACFE in USA, we had lobbied quite extensively for reduction of fee of Associates and CFEs - as a body of experts in fraud prevention act as a sounding board for the government (we were consulted when SFIO was being formed) and India is the only country where CFEs have some form of Government recognition.The fact that there are about 100 CFE's in India today (and all are not members of the India Chapter) does not present a strong case for the India Chapter to push for recognition by the Government. Once the number of CFEs in India increases the India Chapter will be issuing guidance to its members on policy and professional conduct. 

What do you see as some of the major potential fraud problems in your India ? 
As the Indian economy merges with the global economy there will be greater fraud risks associated with cross border transaction - Money Laundering, Corporate Frauds in terms of the businesses routing funds through tax havens and shell companies, so as to hide profits or losses. 

A problem area emerging is the primary market - with the current level of control of MCA over Ltd. companies (because of the sheer numbers and laws) and the current uptrend in the primary market, some companies will again do the vanishing trick.

Cyber crime will also be a major menace, it is a much harder crime to tackle because of jurisdictional issues.  Effective, international protocols need to be put in place to tackle this problem

What are your thoughts on the trend to incorporate anti-fraud training into Indian accountancy programs? Do you know of programs offered by Indiaforensic Research Foundation ? 
I think the statutory auditors have enough on their plate and investigation is any ways a specialized job.  What the Indian Accountancy  programme should have is a fraud awareness training so that they can identify and recognize a potentially fraudulent situation (Red Flag), so they know when to call in the experts. 
I am aware that Indiaforensic offers a Certification on Bank Forensic Accounting 

What are your own professional goals regarding fraud prevention, detection, and prosecution?
Fraud prevention and detection is an ongoing endeavor and unfortunately the fraudster is always one step ahead of us.  Prevention is always better than cure but my experience in India is that fraud prevention exercise always happens after an organisation has been hit by a fraud. 

There is a need for an early warning system where a fraud can be flagged as it occurs or is caught in its infancy.  It may not be possible in all types of crimes but in economic offences or white collar crimes it is possible, if there is a mechanism to pool in the data available with the law enforcement agencies, the statutory authorities and the various regulators, As data will be huge and in digital format it will have to be software driven which will analyse the company information against preset parameters and flag the exceptions, these exceptions can then be reviewed by teams of experts who will then correlate it to external factors like markets, trends etc to identify potential targets for investigation. 

As to prosecution everybody is in agreement that there has to be structural changes and the judiciary has to rediscover itself to ensure speedy trials also we need to have changes to accommodate digital evidence.  It is not to say that there have been no improvements, in recent past digital evidence has been accepted by courts, but the changes need to be far reaching and the judicial process needs to be faster. 

How did you come to be a CFE?
I became a CFE, so that I could be part of the India Chapter

Any guidance to the members of Indiaforensic ?
 

I would like to point out four basic requirements for a good investigator, these we tend to overlook as we are so engrossed with our methodologies and our eagerness to nail the suspect that we tend to fit evidence into a preconceived mould rather than letting a picture emerge from the available evidence.  I have found these 4 things have helped me in my investigations