The Fraud Discovery Institute was an investigative unit that sought to assist in the prosecution of perpetrators of corporate fraud. After the Institute had researched an alleged white-collar crime, it would give a report to the FBI, which could then find and arrest the criminals.[1]
The Fraud Discovery Institute was founded by Barry Minkow in 2001[2] Minkow had been released from prison in 1995, where he was serving a sentence for a Ponzi scheme involving a carpet-cleaning company called ZZZZ Best.[1][3] Other former convicts were also involved in the Fraud Discovery Institute; the rest of the team was composed of auditors.[4] In September 2011, Barry Minkow was returned to prison after making false statements in the Fraud Discovery Institute's reports.[5] Nonetheless, he managed to defraud the church at which he had been serving as pastor.[3] In January 2014 he pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $3 million from the Church and its congregants, with incidents stretching back to 2001.[3]