Pav Gill: Wirecard Whistleblower, Murder Threats & Building Confide After Billion-Dollar Fraud – E585
"After I was in Bangkok and the crypto company I was working with collapsed—because of what happened in the crypto space with FTX and everything—that’s when I started getting all these panic attacks. For the first time in my life, I was forced to confront the whole issue of mental well-being, which was a very challenging process. In terms of bravery, it was about being able to confront that as a man. Especially for us, we’re very driven by the idea that we cannot show weakness—there’s no such thing, just go to the gym and man up. But when it hits you and you’re forced to deal with it, I think that takes a lot of willpower, acceptance, and reflection. To me, that is a brave process, because not many people find it easy to deal with."- Pav Gill, ex-APAC Head of Legal at Wirecard
"So where was the money coming from? And that was something you could verify from filed financials. These financials were always filed late—yeah, one and a half years late. Why was he hired as the third most powerful person in the finance team, right? And also, Wirecard liked to say it was a fintech company focusing more on the tech element, but no one saw where that was coming from. It was very basic tech. Alipay and all these other providers were doing way more advanced things. So where was the money coming from? That was the first red flag. And then, obviously, that led at some point to an internal whistleblower who came to me—fearing for her life—because she didn't want to carry out transactions that were clearly illegal anymore. So that's what kicked everything off."- Pav Gill, ex-APAC Head of Legal at Wirecard
"I mean, they were faking documents and contracts—literally forging stuff. She knew that it was forged documents, and that’s why she saw it as an illegal transaction. It was scary because what was happening is they would have an 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 Wirecard entity. That Wirecard entity moves it to another third party company, which shouldn't be a customer of Wirecard. And these are millions being moved around. Then at some point, you lose the trail of what happens from that third party company. And that’s clearly—just clearly—round tripping and potential money laundering, for sure."- Pav Gill, ex-APAC Head of Legal at Wirecard and Jeremy Au
Pav Gill, ex-APAC Head of Legal at Wirecard, joins Jeremy Au to share how he uncovered one of the largest financial frauds in Europe. They discuss Pav’s early career shift from traditional law to fintech, the moment red flags at Wirecard became undeniable, and how an internal whistleblower’s plea led him to launch a covert investigation. Pav reveals how management retaliation escalated into threats, fake HR cases, and even potential physical harm. With support from his mother, he connected with investigative journalists, leading to Financial Times exposés and Wirecard’s collapse. Pav reflects on the limits of legal privilege, the challenges of systemic fraud, and how founding his governance startup, Confide, helps companies act on misconduct before it spirals.