Behind the financial crisis: A fraud investigator talks

“It’s been three years since the financial crisis crippled the American economy,” Steve Kroft begins his 60 Minutes piece this week. “[Yet] there has not been a single prosecution of a high ranking Wall Street executive or major financial firm.”

60 Minutes producer James Jacoby wanted to find out why, and one of the first people he spoke with was Tom Borgers, a man who literally helped write the book on the financial meltdown.

Borgers was a senior fraud investigator for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), a bipartisan panel set up by the Obama administration to examine the causes of the crisis. In the end, the FCIC issued a 500-page report on its findings, required reading for James and associate producer Maria Gavrilovic.

One of Borgers’ chief responsibilities at the FCIC was finding, vetting, and interviewing whistle-blowers, and he was therefore helpful in leading the 60 Minutes team to sources including Eileen Foster and Richard Bowen, the whistle-blowers who are the centerpiece of the 60 Minutes piece, “Prosecuting Wall Street.”

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4closureFraud.org