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.
03:00 Pav joined Wirecard for Fintech exposure: He left a low-paid legal role at GoBear and was attracted by Wirecard’s billion-dollar scale and regional autonomy.
07:00 Subsidiary financials didn’t match reported earnings: Pav noticed Asia’s books were consistently late, loss-making, and inconsistent with group-level EBITDA claims.
08:15 A junior employee blew the whistle to Pav: She feared for her life and refused to carry out forged transaction requests, trusting him as a neutral legal party.
13:00 Pav found fake invoices and logos in inboxes: Wirecard staff had blatantly doctored client documents—indicating round-tripping and money laundering.
17:30 Management shut down the investigation and targeted him: Pav faced office intimidation, HR setups, and was asked to travel to Jakarta under suspicious pretext.
33:35 Pav’s mother connected him to journalists: She contacted Clare Rewcastle Brown, who referred them to the Financial Times and helped spark public investigations.
(00:57) Jeremy Au: Hey, Pav, good to see you!
(00:59) Pav Gill: Yeah, likewise. (01:00) Thanks for having me.
(01:01) Jeremy Au: 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.
(01:11) Anyway, I would love for you to introduce yourself.
(01:13) Pav Gill: Sure! So, I'm Pav. I started as a lawyer. Yeah. Spent maybe five, six years in some Magic Circle firms, Alan Ryan, Clifford Chance Lawyers was in the Middle East as well. And then, I came back to Singapore. I joined my first FinTech startup called Gobert.
(01:27) I like to say it's a very innocent startup 'cause it was just doing comparison, like what's the best insurance rates and stuff, right? Yeah. And of course, compared to what came after that, it was definitely a big change. So, Wirecard was the next one. Yeah. I was the first head of Legal for the Asia Pacific region.
(01:43) I was head hunted by them. And then, all the fun stuff happened. And then I left the company, joined Wise as the first APAC council. And then moved to the Crypto Space, two years in Bangkok. And now, I'm a founder and CEO of my own startup.
(01:56) Jeremy Au: Yeah. Fantastic! So, lots to unpack (02:00) here and I think just go me straight to the beginning here is, you know you, when you became a lawyer in the first place, were you like, you wanted to be a lawyer because like,
(02:09) Pav Gill: yeah
(02:09) Jeremy Au: fight for Justice or like when you were like, like everybody's made a decision, whether it be a lawyer or
(02:15) Pav Gill: Yeah
(02:15) Jeremy Au: banker or something like that. I think after around university at that level, right? So, why did you decide to be a lawyer in the first place?
(02:22) Pav Gill: I mean, my mom's a single parent.
(02:24) Yeah. So, she had actually raised me while she was doing her law degree.
(02:28) Jeremy Au: Oh, okay.
(02:28) Pav Gill: So I used to be at the back of her lectures with my coloring book. Right. And then when we go home, I'll ask her what's the meaning of constitution, criminal, and 'cause she was studying, right? So, I think that seed was planted from that moment.
(02:41) Right. And it was definitely more fun in the sense that, yeah, I used to like debates. Right. I actually founded the Debate Society in Victoria School.
(02:49) Jeremy Au: And a best friend of many years was one of your descendants, I guess. Then as a result, yeah. Yeah. Okay.
(02:54) Pav Gill: Yeah. So, and it's more fun for me than maths and science
(02:57) which I wasn't like perfect at.
(02:59) Jeremy Au: (03:00) Oh. Anywhere close.
(03:01) Pav Gill: So, yeah, I was a natural thing. Just be a lawyer. I never expected to be a lawyer in the finance space. Yeah. I always was very driven by wanting to represent, downtrodden, and destroy counsel on the other side. Yeah. And also my first novel was a Time To Kill by John Grisham.
(03:19) Oh yeah. 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 wanna be.
(03:28) Jeremy Au: Be a lawyer because
(03:29) it sounds so exciting in the book, right? I mean, so, but then what's interesting your life became, did become exciting.
(03:35) So, most people I would say, like when you read a John Grisham book about legal trier, it, their life is quite boring and they end up writing contracts and obviously, there's a bunch of work. But let's talk about that. So, you work at a bunch of different corporate careers and what was it like
(03:48) to obviously be a go bear? Which is I think for those who know, early days of the Singapore Protect scene, we remember Go bear. But, what was it like to be hit hunted by Wirecard ? Like, was it like a positive (04:00) experience? Were you looking to leave Go bear? How did you get
(04:03) hunted? Yeah.
(04:04) Pav Gill: Yeah. I was super happy to be hired by Wirecard. So, it was a headhunted. There was a head-on 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 Gobert, for example. Right. And I had a huge, massive pay cut I think I was getting after CPF, like 5k a month.
(04:22) Jeremy Au: Oh, yeah. Sounds bad, right?
(04:23) Pav Gill: But that was really the sacrifice I've made to get in the FinTech space. 'Cause I was always doing corporate finance. Right. And I always had a insane like, interest in tech. Right. I think we are from the generation that grew up with the 486 Pentiums.
(04:37) We used to go to Sim Lim Square and build them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there wasn't any kind of like IT- FinTech aspect in terms of the law. Right. There was a whole IT boom, the .Comboom. Yeah. Which I wasn't part of. So, when FinTech was booming, I was like, okay, let's not miss this boat. Yeah. So, that was how I got into it.
(04:53) So, Wirecard was great because of the autonomy and the fact that of course, my salary was being equalized.
(04:58) Jeremy Au: Yeah. Back to normal. (05:00)
(05:00) Pav Gill: Yeah. Which is, it is super essential for Singapore, right? It's an expensive place to be. Yeah. But the fact that I was looking after 13 markets in the region, and it was a German company,
(05:09) I was obviously doing very well. Yeah. I think that gave me a sense of, um, happiness to be part of this place.
(05:16) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And what's interesting is that, obviously, today, obviously, we remember it as a unicorn that included because of fraud. But at that time, how big was Wirecard way headhunted you from your perspective?
(05:26) Pav Gill: 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. Yeah. And it was listed and they were trying to get into the tax index which they eventually did during my time. Yeah.
(05:42) So, they kicked Commerce Bank out of the tax index and took its place. So, it was a very big company and clearly doing well.
(05:49) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And so, they had hired you because they were expanding in APAC and they wanted you to be the legal counsel for them. So, what was your first day like at Wirecard? Was like, like a (06:00) laptop? Or I think everybody was in the office back then.
(06:02) Nobody was working remotely, I guess. But I'm just kind of curious, like what was, do you remember your first day at Wirecard?
(06:07) Pav Gill: Yeah, my first day was actually in Munich.
(06:09) Jeremy Au: Yeah.
(06:09) Pav Gill: And it was fantastic 'cause it was October Fest. Oh. So, and I never been to Germany before, so that was a great start, right? Yeah. The general counsel told my, my, direct supervisor to take me around Munich.
(06:21) Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it was a good start. But
(06:24) in terms of laptop, when I flew back to Singapore three days or two days later, yeah, nobody even knew why I was here. Yeah. So, I didn't get my laptop. Yeah. So, it was quite a shock in terms of how Europe was structured via card wise. Yeah. Very formal, very, yeah,
(06:38) the setups advanced. Yeah. And then, Singapore and APAC was run in a very startup way.
(06:43) Jeremy Au: Right. Yeah. It was like a coding space or,
(06:46) Pav Gill: No, they had a proper office in Asia Square. Yeah.
(06:48) But because they came into the region through a series of M&A's. Yeah. So, they're just buying up these obscure payment companies
(06:55) for big amounts of money. Right. Um. And also they purchased (07:00) Citibank's merchant acquiring business. Right. So, all the terminals and stuff that was a Citi transaction to Wirecard. Yeah. So, that's why they hired me as well. Yeah. Because finally they couldn't do the legal stuff out of Munich. Yeah. It was just getting too intensive.
(07:12) 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.
(07:22) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And I think part of it obviously is like it makes sense, right? Payments is a pain in the ass for so many people, right? Like there's wiring across borders and wiring across different currencies, and
(07:35) I think at that time it was like 2000 and,
(07:37) Pav Gill: 17? Yeah. Or 18.
(07:39) Jeremy Au: Yeah. I mean,
(07:40) 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.
(07:48) Pav Gill: Yeah.
(07:49) Jeremy Au: Like, especially because they go to the scale and you need that scale for payments.
(07:52) Pav Gill: Yeah.
(07:53) Jeremy Au: So, it's kind of confusing because obviously, we know, I think of y cause failure, but I think we're kind of getting into it, but (08:00) when did you start to notice something was like going wrong, I guess, yeah. Because like I said, it's big team but another company is doing M&A's seems to be doing everything right.
(08:10) Product market fit makes sense. Payments make it easier. So, when did you start saying like, oh, something is like not right? Yeah.
(08:16) Pav Gill: Because all the subsidiaries were loss making. Yeah. So, where was the money coming from? And that was something you could verify from filed financials. And this financials will always file late.
(08:26) Yeah. 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. 'Cause a guy had a bad, like, I mean, his CV didn't add up, wasn't inexperienced, he didn't speak English properly or German for that matter.
(08:44) Why was he hired as the third most powerful person in the finance team? Right? And also, Wirecard 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. Alipay and all these (09:00) other providers were doing way more advanced things.
(09:02) 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. Yeah. Because she didn't want to carry out transactions that were clearly illegal anymore. So, that's what kicked everything off.
(09:18) Jeremy Au: 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, 'cause like the fact that, I mean, most lawyers are like, give me the document in the outright. No one's gonna like, oh, let me look at the financial subsidiary.
(09:37) Yeah. Is loss making, we all them are loss making. 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 ?
(09:50) Pav Gill: Yeah.
(09:50) 'Cause I was looking after the whole of Asia, right? And I was involved in the financial stuff because ACRA was sending warning letters.
(09:56) Jeremy Au: Right.
(09:56) Pav Gill: Like
(09:56) you haven't filed your financial statements. Right. So this becomes a (10:00) legal issue, right? Right. And then the question is, when you dig deep, you realize for five years they were always filing them late after warnings.
(10:07) Right. And the money just wasn't there. Right. So, where, but yet when they were announcing EBITDA every quarter, right, that's like hundreds of millions equivalent to what the European side was announcing. Right. So, it was quite funny for the local staff. Right. Because I guess the sales staff were very happy, yeah,
(10:23) because they were apparently selling stuff without knowing it. But yeah, so that was the big question, where was the money coming from? Right. Which products, which country? Because we don't see it on the subsidiary level.
(10:36) Jeremy Au: Right. So, the gap for you was more like Europe was reporting good Asian numbers.
(10:40) Yes. But you knew the Asian numbers were not good based on what everyone was saying. And so, you felt like there was a gap in that communications or messaging.
(10:49) Pav Gill: Yeah. But it's not what everyone was saying. Like these are verifiable facts. Yeah. 'cause you have to file your financial statements with ACRA,
(10:56) right? Right. And possibly for all the other countries, you can extract those (11:00) statements from the 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.
(11:15) Right. Which, which people do. Yeah. 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. But it was not in my nature to do that.
(11:31) I was actually trying to figure things out, which is why I was hired. So, when Munich hired me, they wanted to me, 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 an integration issue. Because when you expand so fast, clearly that's integration problems,
(11:49) right? Right. And of course, Asia is a beast of its own because every country is unique culturally. Right. You're talking about two subsidiaries in Indonesia. Vietnam had (12:00) 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 add as someone who's Singapore and who's familiar with the APAC region.
(12:13) Right. And assist this poor Western company in assimilating from an integration standpoint.
(12:18) Jeremy Au: Right. And so, what I'm hearing is that you, you are like, okay, clearly the reporting at mothership or HQ is all from what we're seeing in APAC. APAC you're doing these filings, it doesn't add up.
(12:28) 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 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, structural?
(12:47) Or was it like you said, when the whistleblower came in, or? Yeah, yeah.
(12:49) Pav Gill: No, there were really serious question marks because of the way this Ido Guy was running the business, the finance side. Right. I mean, every month he would fly to Munich to bank for wages for the whole of the region, right? (13:00) So if a company's multi-billion dollars in valuation, why is this happening?
(13:04) Right? Why are wages being an issue? Should not you have budgeted wages for the year. Right. So, all these are really one-on-one things, right? Like logic, you don't even need to be a finance person. Right. Yeah. It just doesn't make any sense. So, of course then, the whistle blowing triggered that because again, as a lawyer, you want, you would wait for the objective
(13:25) incident or evidence to come across that you can then work off. ' Cause yeah, you may have all the suspicions in the world, but then that's all they are. Right? Right. You need that trigger event or that smoking gun event which would then allow you to kickstart an independent and objective look at what's going on.
(13:43) Jeremy Au: 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. Yeah. But we say that was whistleblower talk to you first.
(13:59) It was a (14:00) bit like, I know Russian things, the law's 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 wanna talk to you instead of talking to her manager or somebody else? Yeah.
(14:11) Pav Gill: Because she didn't trust HR.
(14:13) So, HR was viewed as the spies of management. Yeah. 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 wanna do them anymore. Right. She came to the legal person,
(14:29) which was me. And we had both, we were both kind of new in the company. Yeah. 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.
(14:45) Yeah. And get all the stuff that she had. Yeah. So, that's why when you talk about the Russian Eggs thing, Wirecard is very interesting because it's a case of double whistle blowing. Yeah. There was the internal whistleblower that came to me. Yeah. And then how I became the external whistleblower.
(14:58) Which is what I always (15:00) nowadays try to prevent companies. Hotel companies you can prevent is the external whistle blowing. Right. So, I encourage the internal one so you can prevent the external one and not get hit. Right. Yeah, so that's, that's why Wirecard's card' interesting in that way.
(15:13) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And so, tell me more about that conversation obviously didn't show who the person is, but was it like over coffee?
(15:19) 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? But what was that scene like? Yeah.
(15:29) Pav Gill: Yeah. I mean, the person genuinely feared for her life. Yeah. For various reasons. And I met outside the office because of that.
(15:35) 'Cause then it becomes very spy like, right? Yeah. Yeah. If you're really working in a criminal organization,
(15:40) Jeremy Au: Yeah. Yeah.
(15:41) Pav Gill: You don't want things in the office could be bugged or whatever.
(15:44) Jeremy Au: Grisham, Grisham novel. Yeah.
(15:46) Pav Gill: And it's just a matter of disconnecting the person from the office setting 'cause that could intimidate someone.
(15:52) Right. And yeah, I mean, I need coffee first thing in the morning. So, we went to Vidor at OUE Gallery. Oh yeah. And that's why. So, if you actually watch the (16:00) movie which I'm in, it's the Sky documentary. Yeah. That films everything and how it went down. So yeah, she gave me the stuff straight away.
(16:06) I told my supervisors in Munich. Yeah. And they said, 'okay, go investigate.' Right. Yeah. So, that's when the investigation kickstarted.
(16:14) Jeremy Au: So, this seems okay so far, right? I mean, if I was, if was a movie, yeah. Then the second part of it would be, it's a whistleblower. Does it? You report it up to your superiors, your superior study said, 'okay, time investigation.' And then, probably some hits will roll in the APAC region for illegal transactions.
(16:31) But obviously, that's not what happened because, so what happened? I mean, 'cause I think that's, 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.
(16:42) Yeah.
(16:42) Pav Gill: Yeah. So, I was given access to this Ido Guy and two of his sidekicks. Yeah. Currently who are both in jail in Singapore. Right. Yeah. I was given access to the raw inboxes. Yeah. 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,
(16:58) and what I found was really insane. (17:00) Like these guys were blatantly emailing logos to themselves and putting those logos on Wirecard invoice looking templates. Oh shit. So, it wasn't very sophisticated, which upset me to some, some extent. Yeah. Because I was like, you know, if it was a multibillion dollar company, engaging in product, expected it to be very sophisticated.
(17:18) 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, there's creating a fake contracts, and all these money movements
(17:35) hmm clearly indicating round tripping. So yeah, I thought like it's just Ido and these few bad eggs that we need to deal with and once they leave the company, then things would resume. Right. Because I thought they were perpetuating abroad on the European side. Right. I didn't expect that initially to think that no,
(17:52) they were coordinating it for, or whatever they were doing was linked up. Right. So, when the board found out after the general counsel found out, 'cause she didn't know (18:00) 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 about call her and say, 'look, we need to manage this. ' Cause 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 Rajah & Tann report. It was a preliminary report, had like at least 10 potential offenses in there.
(18:25) 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.
(18:36) Jeremy Au: So, okay. So, this is the real small of the story.
(18:38) 'Cause you know, to me, the first half that feels totally reasonable, right? So, you are 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're telling me general counsel didn't understand what was going on.
(18:54) Also kind of makes sense. Then you checking the inbox because your boss, I guess your boss didn't (19:00) know either?
(19:00) Pav Gill: They knew.
(19:01) Jeremy Au: The right boss knew.
(19:02) Pav Gill: Yes. So, he was the one that gave me the access to it so the deputy general counsel gave me access to the inboxes.
(19:07) Jeremy Au: So,
(19:08) he doesn't know, but he gave, let you investigate.
(19:10) Pav Gill: Yeah, because they're sitting in Germany. But, I'm on the ground here.
(19:13) Jeremy Au: But then, he knew that this fraud was happening.
(19:15) Pav Gill: I have no idea.
(19:16) Jeremy Au: Yeah. But probably not, right? Yeah. Because otherwise, why would he give you, I'm just saying like
(19:20) Pav Gill: What he did say was that Wirecard has two cams. Right. One is the pro Ido cam, which is very powerful.
(19:25) Yeah. So he's been assured of permanent future in the company regardless of what happens. Right. And then there's a small bunch of them that wanna do the right thing, and have a more legal and compliant culture. Right. So, that's why he said this would be our chance to get an independent third party, like the law firm
(19:42) to look at it because then the company will be forced to act. Right. Because then it's not a personal thing, like, 'okay, path doesn't like this Ido Guy or whatever, right? 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.
(19:58) Right.
(19:58) Jeremy Au: So, she knew. Yeah.
(19:59) Pav Gill: So, (20:00) obviously, from day one, she's been part of the company from an early stage. Right. So she was never in the know, so 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?"
(20:12) Yeah. And that's where all things went downhill from there.
(20:15) Jeremy Au: 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.'
(20:28) Yes. And so you got approval and then you set up Rajah & Tann, you're your own budget.
(20:32) Pav Gill: Yep.
(20:32) Jeremy Au: And it gave, and that process took what, like for the Rajah & Tann report about
(20:36) Pav Gill: like six weeks,
(20:37) Jeremy Au: six weeks or two months, let's just say. And then eventually, it was, and then your internal whistleblower was getting more and more scared. And
(20:45) the illegal, what was the illegal transactions be like? What wired money to a different entity they're not approved to? What does illegal transaction mean? Yeah.
(20:51) Pav Gill: I mean they were faking documents and contracts, literally forging stuff.
(20:55) Jeremy Au: So, she knew that it was false documents.
(20:57) Pav Gill: Yeah.
(20:58) Jeremy Au: But that's why she saw it as (21:00) legal transaction.
(21:00) Pav Gill: 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 Wirecard entity. Yeah. That Wirecard entity moves it to another third party company which shouldn't be a customer of Wirecard.
(21:18) Yeah. And these are millions being moved around. Yeah. And then at some point you lose trail of what happens from that third party company. Correct. Right? And that's clearly a, I mean, that's, that's just clearly round tripping and potential money laundering for sure. Right. Yeah. And as a payments company, that's not what you should be doing.
(21:37) So, some of these invoices were very obvious, like you had a matchmaking company providing payment services to Wirecard. Which doesn't make any sense because it's the other way around. Right, right. And then you also had like in Malaysia, a market intelligence study being commissioned out of Malaysia.
(21:54) Right. But invoice for 4 million euros. So, it's probably like the best market study in the world. But (22:00) again, like that may be the case, but you can't invoice out of, you can't invoice out of Malaysia and Euros. That's just like, yeah. Not possible, right? So, all these like really weird stuff and Ido was pretending to be a director.
(22:11) 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, yeah, 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.
(22:27) But they were invoicing wirecard for treaties, secure tokenization services, for example. And that's what Wirecard actually provides. And if anyone goes to Flexi Flex website and 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.
(22:52) Right, right. The name itself doesn't make sense. Yeah. So, that it was that level of basic and obvious which in any normal company would (23:00) suspend these individuals 'cause they're from the finance team. Right. And you would just get rid of them. But in fact, the opposite happened where they were for, Ido was actually promoted
(23:08) globally for his hard work. Yeah. And I was the one who was then, it was my life that was made hell for the next few months.
(23:15) Jeremy Au: Yeah. So. Let's talk about that. So once you go to GC, the bot, and so I think to me that again logically makes sense which is the bot is always the last to know. Yeah. And they're always like, so obviously, they're gonna set that question, which is, is this correct?
(23:28) 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, is for the board to query you and say, is a you, correct? Yeah. I don't get it wrong.
(23:42) So I mean that's, like you're opening up a shit storm. Yeah. Yeah. You already know the box is gonna be open, the shit's gonna fly. So you know that's not gonna happen. But when did you realize it was like, 'oh wait, this is not an internal board investigation, like this is going off rails.'
(23:55) Pav Gill: Because they wanted to shut down the investigation.
(23:57) Yeah. Then they told me to (24:00) step aside and the COO, Jan Marcel, like, 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 the second most powerful person in the company that you cannot take over an investigation because you yourself are a person of interest?
(24:17) Like, there's just no diplomatic way to craft that email. Right? But then what was, what then went downhill is when the Munich side with the GC and the local Singapore director, 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 are play ball and all these things.
(24:42) So, I didn't understand what his problem was because I kept telling him, I'm actually looking after you. Right. 'Cause you are directive, anything goes wrong, like you'll be in trouble. Right. 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
(24:59) and so (25:00) on. So then, he started coordinating all kinds of crazy stuff against me in the office. Right. Attacking my work, doing a HR case against me. Right. Which really upset me because, as a guy, once that happens, it's like, okay, he, he literally went below the belt. Right? That failed, but it took three months to investigate.
(25:16) And what
(25:17) Jeremy Au: was this Hja case? How did
(25:18) Pav Gill: 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 Yeah. But reporting to him. Yeah. 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.
(25:35) Yeah. And she'll always be sitting in this guy's office. Yeah. So, at some point, I decided I wanna fire her. Yeah. And that's where she ran to him and he said, you're not allowed to fire her. Yeah. I was like, why not? Yeah. So he said, oh, because. He says that you are, you have harassed her, which is why you wanna fire her.
(25:52) So, is that kind of really weird nonsense? Yeah. And then they put her in Ido's team. So, she directly ended up reporting to Ido. It was like, guys, you couldn't be more (26:00) obvious in your nonsense, right? Yeah. Yeah. So then, they took three months to investigate this whole issue, add further stress on me.
(26:06) Yeah. That upset the whole office and when that failed, so everything didn't work out in that aspect. Yeah. That's when they decided, okay, so Ido came back and he wanted to have lunch, so one of the first things Ido ever said to me was that he's married to a drug dealing family in Jakarta.
(26:21) So, that was his first introduction to me when I joined Wirecard. Yeah. 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 two days, two weeks or two months, you must go. But you have no reason to worry because you know who my father-in-law is, right?"
(26:39) So, I saw that as a direct kind of threat. And you wouldn't wanna just rock up in, in Jakarta. Right. When you are investigating or part of, you are in the middle of this whole mess. Right. Because anyone can just drive in the traffic jam on a scooter and just shoot you and go off and no one cares.
(26:55) Right? Right. And on top of that, to make things worse, during that week, I do (27:00) anonymous phone calls from Germany saying, hello, is this Pav Gill? 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 wanna go and that's why the company was very happy, I guess.
(27:11) Yeah. Because now they can force me to resign finally on the basis of not going for a business trip. Yeah. And I did. So that's what happened. So, I resigned. I said, 'okay, why can't you enjoy a fraud land ways?' I go look for another job. Yeah, yeah. But because they didn't stop their nonsense even after that,
(27:28) that is what led to eventually the whistle blowing.
(27:31) Jeremy Au: Okay. So, this is actually a really interesting thing. 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 a me ring. Yeah. Get a massage, and then after that, go take some selfies.
(27:47) You know ther's nothing wrong with that. And obviously it's a business trip, obviously.
(27:51) Pav Gill: Yeah, yeah.
(27:51) Jeremy Au: 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."
(27:56) Pav Gill: Yes.
(27:57) Jeremy Au: I guess the question was, was the guy calling person calling you because they didn't (28:00) want you to go?
(28:00) For sure. Yes. Or was a nice person calling you to tell you because they really were warning you? Yes. From a good faith perspective,
(28:07) Pav Gill: yeah, for sure.
(28:08) Jeremy Au: Okay.
(28:09) Pav Gill: I mean, and the whole business reason they wanted me to go didn't make any sense. Right. 'Cause they said it's for rebranding exercise.
(28:15) Right, right. I'm like, I've given you two law firms with their coats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't need to physically be there.
(28:20) Jeremy Au: Yeah, exactly.
(28:21) Pav Gill: So, that's why it became very dodgy, right? The whole like two months, two weeks, two days thing.
(28:25) Jeremy Au: Yeah. Who, which person is like you? You can go on business shit, but Yes,
(28:28) between two weeks to two months. Yeah. Or three days.
(28:31) Pav Gill: Like let's
(28:31) go.
(28:32) Jeremy Au: It's normally like, 'Hey, there's a conference we gotta go to, or there's a meeting we gotta 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.
(28:41) This person was actually had good intentions for you. Yeah. I was trying to warn you nicely. Did you ever find out who that person was? No.
(28:47) Pav Gill: It was, it wasn't just one person. There were two phone calls during that week
(28:50) Jeremy Au: from two different
(28:50) people.
(28:51) Pav Gill: Yes.
(28:51) Jeremy Au: Two friendly people called you in Germany? Yeah, in from Germany.
(28:53) Pav Gill: I dunno who they're.
(28:54) Jeremy Au: You dunno who they're, you still don't know who they are
(28:55) Pav Gill: No,
(28:55) because the phone call is like a few seconds long. Yeah. Yeah. It is on the landline. We still use those (29:00) things those days.
(29:00) Jeremy Au: So and you still don't know who they are? No. So, I guess they'll help, they're saving your life, but they
(29:07) just didn't want to tell you. I mean, maybe in 10 years or 20 years when things blow over, they might tell you.
(29:11) Pav Gill: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. But again, I wouldn't know if it's true.
(29:13) Jeremy Au: But
(29:14) it's good. It's good that they told you, right? 'Cause for, if they didn't call you, you might have been like,
(29:17) Pav Gill: no, I still wouldn't go.
(29:18) Jeremy Au: You still wouldn't go.
(29:18) Pav Gill: That's when I got my mom involved, right?
(29:20) Jeremy Au: That's when, okay, so, let's talk
(29:21) about your mom. What's helpful now is that your mom is a lawyer. So,
(29:23) Pav Gill: She's
(29:23) not a lawyer. She had a law degree. She had a law degree and she went into banking. And eventually, she kind of slowed down and, gotcha, yeah.
(29:29) Jeremy Au: So, she knew both the corporate. Okay. So finance. So, how does that conversation go? Like, I don't know, you go over to the house for a family dinner or something?
(29:36) Pav Gill: No, I
(29:36) lived with her. Oh, you lived? I still live with her.
(29:37) Jeremy Au: So you were
(29:38) talking to her all the time about this issue as it was developing?
(29:40) Pav Gill: No, I
(29:40) wasn't. So that's a weird thing. Yeah. 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. Right. Right. Why are you being investigated for absolute nonsense?
(29:55) Or why are you now singled out? Yeah, yeah. Right. You can't talk to them because it's (30:00) 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.
(30:13) 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.
(30:22) Jeremy Au: So you told her like, 'Hey, I was invited on a business trip, but I,
(30:25) Pav Gill: No, I
(30:26) told her what's going on. I said, I'm investigating this thing. It's a lot fraud going on from what I see.
(30:30) Now they have been doing this to meet the last few months and they wanted me to go to Jakarta. So, she actually said, "you're not going." And she would take my passport and write.
(30:37) Yeah. So
(30:37) Pav Gill: I told her like, that's actually a criminal offense, but Okay. So, so that's what happened. Right. Because I mean, my mom's more, yeah.
(30:44) Street smart that 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. 'Cause I think because I was stuck in the whole setting, I kept thinking that no, it can't be. At some point the company (31:00) will do the right thing and I'll be vindicated.
(31:03) 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. Yeah. Firstly, like I was doing my job. Yeah. I was doing it well, I think. Ah. And I was still trying to make sure with the external law firm that things were being coordinated that the case would still go.
(31:19) And I was still having an obligation, at least a moral one to the whistleblower. Yeah. Who I kept the identity of whom I kept secret until today. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I called her Bobby so no one even knows if it's male or female. Yeah, yeah. 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.
(31:40) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it was really a race against time. Who would cave first or 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, 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.
(31:55) Yeah.
(31:55) Jeremy Au: And I think what's interesting is that then you felt like, okay, at some point, (32:00) you, they had grounds to dismiss you. So, you could have been either been fired but you chose to resign.
(32:05) Pav Gill: Yeah. Was even either option. Oh, so
(32:08) Jeremy Au: they literally came after you and they gave you
(32:09) Pav Gill: Yeah. The same director guy was very smug about it.
(32:11) Yeah, very smug
(32:12) Jeremy Au: about it. And he was like, you chose not to go to bus to work.
(32:14) Pav Gill: 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 will protect me. Yeah. But little do I know that she listens to everything he says and that he's just one of those very annoying people to work for.
(32:30) Yeah. Because Wirecard purchased his company in Singapore and Malaysia. Yeah. And made him rich. Yeah. Yeah. And then he became like the local boss, C Apex, CEO type person. Yeah. And he'll be the kind of person that's always giving these wise anecdotes. Yeah. Like, "with great power comes great responsibility" and all these things,
(32:46) right? So, he is really like the kind of uncle that you can't really handle for very long time. But he would have his like hins around him and that would follow him around everywhere. Yeah. So, that's why he was very, he was very proud of himself (33:00) that this thing concluded this way. Yeah.
(33:02) And in fact, ironically, I think he actually caused a down of Wirecard. Right. Because he must have told HQ that, don't worry about this Pav guy. I know how to deal with him. He's actually, yeah, I will settle this. Yeah. But because he did it, I think that's what eventually led to the downfall of the company.
(33:17) Right. So even after I left the company, they were sending people and follow us and all these things. At first, I thought they were really low budget 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.
(33:32) Right? 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 Wirecard. 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 breached the NDA or whatever. Right.
(33:47) And so, that's why at some point my mom got pissed and she said, okay, I had enough. I'm gonna teach this company a lesson. Yeah.
(33:54) Jeremy Au: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, how did your mom teach them a lesson?
(33:58) Pav Gill: Well, from the sofa in the house, she (34:00) made friends with powerful people and journalists. Yeah. Like Claire Brown was the first one she got in contact with.
(34:05) Right. And Claire exposed one MDB. Yeah. Through AK report. Right. So, Claire actually said she knows the FT's been working on Wirecard for the last few years but getting nowhere. Right. So, Claire put us in touch with the FT. Right. So, that's how the FT got involved.
(34:19) Jeremy Au: Yeah. So, let's talk about that.
(34:21) I mean, obviously, I always say never piss off a mom, right?
(34:24) Pav Gill: Yeah, for
(34:24) sure. It's really unwise.
(34:25) Jeremy Au: Really unwise. Yeah. You can go after anyone, but you can't piss off the mom. The mom will go, full a hundred percent. So, but let's talk about that, right? So, like, obviously, she's your confidant and she knows all other stuff.
(34:36) And, but you were being a professional, right? Yeah. You were like recruiting for a job. You resigned the report and you were like you said, you wanted that wirecard settle 'cause the report is there. Yeah. But you never, you weren't thinking about going and talking to a journalist.
(34:49) Pav Gill: I mean, the roots explored
(34:50) or thought processes well, do you go to a police, do you go to MAS or whoever? Yeah. But then the issue I think is if you want the company, if you want (35:00) fast action, then the best way we strategize was if a reputable paper starts reporting about wrongdoings in Singapore, in this company here, because Singapore is hypersensitive on all these things, they will be forced to act fast because otherwise if you go to the police or you just lodge an issue.
(35:15) Yeah. You could, it would just potentially be filed away. Yeah. And not looked at for many years. Right. Yeah. There's no way to force the action. Right, right. But the FT strategy was the way, and it did, so within three, the third FT article, when it finally came out. Immediately, Singapore raided Wirecard's office.
(35:31) It was the only country that acted on what happened.
(35:33) Jeremy Au: 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 or?
(35:48) Pav Gill: No,
(35:49) she told me. Basically she told me we are meeting the FT this weekend.
(35:51) Was like, I was like, what are you doing? I don't speak to journalists, right? I don't even trust them.
(35:55) Jeremy Au: Yeah. As a lawyer, a lawyer don't hang up journalist. Yeah. It's like the one rule is like lawyers and journalists (36:00) do not drink in the same
(36:01) Pav Gill: Yeah, exactly.
(36:02) Jeremy Au: group together. Right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
(36:03) Pav Gill: Yeah.
(36:03) And I was more concerned, but like, what, I don't wanna be, I'm literally trying to look for another job. Yeah. But she's like, no, we need to speak to the FT. They're familiar with this case and we also can understand just conversationally how they protect their sources. Right, right. So the, because we, Wirecard was still doing a lot of nonsense in the background towards me.
(36:20) Yeah, 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. Right. So, that was the reason behind it. Right. Uh. And, 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.
(36:36) 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,
(36:51) then I guess it doesn't make any sense. Right. Right? Yeah. Because then, all the rules of engagement are out the window. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, that's what happened. And we met the FT introductory (37:00) meeting in Changi Airport. Right. I still remember, I think it was Coffee Bean or somewhere. Yeah. And then the FT's correspondent, the one in Singapore, Stefania, he then reported back to Dan McCrum saying, "these guys are actually legit."
(37:13) 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 want to, wanted to keep the 30%. Yeah. Because I still didn't trust these guys. Yeah. Right. Because I've seen like in one MDB and stuff, like what happened to whistleblowers, the guy ended up in jail because
(37:29) he was, exposed in the process. Right. Yeah. And so, very important is you gotta keep whistleblowers anonymous. Yeah. ' Cause that's when things really get ugly, when they get exposed. Right. Because you, unless you are very, very powerful as a whistleblower, you don't have the resources to take on a corporate
(37:48) 'cause they can completely damage you financially. No, yeah, yeah. Of course. And reputationally Yeah. If they think you're stuck against them. And if a company's in the business of forging documents and stuff, there's nothing (38:00) preventing them from doing the same thing against you. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(38:02) 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. Yeah. 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.
(38:19) Right. 'Cause that was the proof. So, if that's forensically analyzed , it will show it's never been modified. Right. It is real. Right, right, right. And I think that's what the company never saw coming, was for the first time someone from the inside with real data could now expose them.
(38:37) Right. So, because people always ask, why would Wirecard 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, these subsidiary side or wherever would suddenly make that connection from an objective data standpoint.
(38:57) Right? Yeah. And that's what happened with the inboxes. (39:00)
(39:00) Jeremy Au: Right. It just that you had a copy of the inboxes. Yeah. And that was the most important part because that was extracted part, the Rajan time process. Yes. That was the smoking gun, I guess in that
(39:09) Pav Gill: yes
(39:09) Jeremy Au: sense to say that this is the start of the process.
(39:12) The pull
(39:12) Pav Gill: Yeah. Or
(39:13) Jeremy Au: pull the thread right as it goes up and up.
(39:15) Pav Gill: Yeah.
(39:15) Jeremy Au: Now, I think what's interesting is that, you said that there was, it's anonymous. But obviously, I mean, I'm sure that when the, so, okay, so let's talk about this process. Obviously, the sourcing, the agenda writing with you and so, so forth.
(39:27) So obviously, the article comes out. And it was, I remember that reading that first article, which was quite explosive.
(39:32) Pav Gill: Yeah. Ido's face on it.
(39:33) Jeremy Au: Yeah. But I mean, wouldn't they know it's you even though you are protected as anonymous whistleblower, wouldn't they know? It's like, it must be this dude.
(39:40) Pav Gill: Yeah.
(39:41) Yeah. But they definitely suspected it was me or maybe another dude who was part of this whole thing. Yeah. But then there's a difference between suspecting and being able to prove it.
(39:52) Jeremy Au: Gotcha. So there's this Elise, it is like he had to kill, had to kill both of you instead of killing one of you.
(39:58) Yeah. Yeah.
(39:58) Pav Gill: They actually paid a third (40:00) party intelligence company to find out who the whistleblower was. Really? Yeah. They paid them two to 300,000 euros. 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?
(40:14) Jeremy Au: I feel good for you, but I feel bad for the other person because the other person was probably, I
(40:17) Pav Gill: mean, they could justified for me the money.
(40:19) Jeremy Au: Yeah.
(40:19) Pav Gill: Would I say, yeah, it's me. Thanks for the cash. Right.
(40:22) Jeremy Au: Sorry. That's
(40:22) Pav Gill: so But it's too late.
(40:23) Jeremy Au: That's too late. That's so bad. That's so funny. And we, and then, and then of course they were like following you, like, was it very obvious when they're following you?
(40:30) Pav Gill: It was very
(40:30) obvious.
(40:31) Jeremy Au: Like what? Like, it's like what some dude is
(40:33) Pav Gill: No, it's like those like Thai- looking workers, construction worker tie to the tattoos and stuff
(40:37) Jeremy Au: and they follow, they're walking behind you the entire time.
(40:39) Pav Gill: Yeah. Taking pigs and then they'll walk, we live on a corridor unit. Yeah. So they'll walk up and down the corridor, they'll go on the block opposite.
(40:45) Yeah. And then from there, just look. So, it's like really obvious.
(40:48) Jeremy Au: Oh, it's the same dude as well.
(40:50) Pav Gill: I mean, not every day. Yeah, every day.
(40:52) Jeremy Au: But,
(40:52) Pav Gill: 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. It's like, okay, people hunt (41:00) you around.
(41:00) What do you want us to do? Yeah, exactly. It just
(41:01) Jeremy Au: happens to be the stranger in your car dog. It's not a neighbor. Yeah. It's not a crime. Yeah. It's not a crime.
(41:07) Pav Gill: Even follow someone is not a crime. Yeah. It 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.
(41:17) Jeremy Au: Oh.
(41:18) Pav Gill: So that
(41:18) puts fear in you.
(41:19) Jeremy Au: Because you're scared that she'll confront them and then something that.
(41:21) Pav Gill: Yeah. Well, 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 and finding a job.
(41:32) I don't want to have this fear factor. Or people control acid or something. Who knows? It may not kill you, but you don't want a situation.
(41:39) Jeremy Au: Yeah.
(41:39) Pav Gill: Um. So, that was what really triggered. So if anyone asked like, was I ever scared in the process? It's because of that. Yeah. It wasn't anything else.
(41:46) Jeremy Au: Yeah. Yeah.
(41:47) Because they could push her down the stairs. Yeah. Or something that looked like an accident as well. Just to, yeah. Yeah. So something horrible things could happen. So, no, I think it's interesting because then, obviously, the whistleblower happens and then eventually, the whole, (42:00) the Wirecard house of Cuts has to fall apart.
(42:02) And obviously, I think also, I think the expose is actually also larger than what you saw. Right? 'Cause you saw from the bottom APAC. 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? No.
(42:18) 'Cause at that point you were like, it has to be really bad,
(42:21) Pav Gill: or, I mean, it was a very active process of engagement. Right. 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?
(42:36) So, they said it's not a Wirecard problem, it's a shot selling problem. And it's an Asian problem. And that's things that regulators normally do not say. Yeah. 'Cause you would just say the standard stuff, which is we understand allegations have been made. Yeah. We are looking into it till they're no comment.
(42:49) Right. But to come out on day one and say that it's the company's not in any wrongdoing, is highly unusual. Right. And that's when I realized that I'm going (43:00) against not just the regulators, I mean the, not just Wirecard, but regulators, external auditors and whoever else that are held, bent on protecting this company
(43:08) for whatever reason. Right. So, that's when I had to go bit vigilante and go on Twitter and create this anonymous account. Yeah. I would publish things there, which journalists cannot publish for ethical or other reasons. Right? Right. And then my mom suffered a stroke and out of the stress that was happening. Right.
(43:25) And then as part of the stroke scans, they found she had stage two lung cancer to cut off half her lung and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, it became very personal that we needed to see this through. Yeah. I mean basically, don't half as this thing now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because if you want, you better do it properly.
(43:39) Right. And that's where, and because the Germans started going cri, they started going after the FT, criminally. Right. Oh my. And nullifying everything. They even put a short selling ban of Wirecard stop. I remember. Which is insane. So, that's when I realized we need to change the perception from within Germany.
(43:53) And I got Süddeutsche Zeitung, the powerful Munich paper. Yeah. Which was behind Paradise Panama leaks. Yeah. They came down, they (44:00) 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 the article.
(44:09) Right. 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 falls KPMG special audit.
(44:29) Right. And it's a whole story, like Dan has written it very well in Money man, very extensively. It's, it's crazy stuff. And finally the company crashed after one and a half years.
(44:38) Jeremy Au: 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 so much protection by weirdly, the German state.
(44:47) And most people think of the German status, efficient and fair. Yeah. Neutral. I mean, I'm just saying non-partisan in general. So, why do you think there was like regulatory capture or what happened there? Yeah.
(44:58) Pav Gill: I mean, I don't know. I (45:00) think Germany has, is definitely a stakeholder in many aspects of Wirecard.
(45:04) Right. There was a cl We also know that the regulator staff were trading Wirecard stock till the last day. Oh. Oh. Which isn't nice. Yeah. Yeah. But what was unforgivable in my view was the fact that before the FT articles came out, like one week or within the week before that, yeah, maybe three days,
(45:21) I had created a dossier of all the documents and indexed it nicely to make an idiot proof. Right. I sent it to the external auditors to MAS and CAD, everybody, including the German side. Right. Yeah. So, why are they behaving like they don't know. They don't have the evidence. Right. They have it. So, why is that insistent desire not to want to look at it?
(45:42) Yeah. And they kept costing it conveniently as an Asian problem. Right. Right. But okay, maybe an Asian problem, but this is your listed company with HQ. Right. 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.
(45:57) Jeremy Au: Right. And so I think what's (46:00) 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? 'Cause you were eventually, right? So, what was that process for you to be like, I'm comfortable becoming public or known as the whistleblower?
(46:16) Yeah.
(46:16) Pav Gill: Yeah, of course. There's a strong desire in these things to wanna come out dumping your chest and say like, it was me. I front stabbed you, not back stab you. It was me all along. But, yeah, yeah. There's always that desire, right? From a justice, like, okay, I finally succeeded. And you guys now, in the bad ones. Right.
(46:35) But you still have to be wise. Right. Because if the company's crashed, it's going through an insolvency process and last thing you wanna do is get sued by them still. Right. Yeah. It's like lost burst of fire before going down, right? Right. Yeah. It just killed this guy at the same time, so I had to wait a year.
(46:50) 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 (47:00) being released a year after the company crashed. That's when I told the FT and as that you can publish who it is on the same day.
(47:05) Right. Because people will find out anyway. Right. Yeah. 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 Wirecard's a very rare case of successful whistle blowing. Yeah. Because the company actually suffered the consequences.
(47:19) 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.
(47:27) Jeremy Au: And what's interesting is that now you're building a company that is focusing on whistle blowing as one of the modules. You're doing helping with governance, et cetera.
(47:37) 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.
(47:49) Pav Gill: Yes.
(47:49) Jeremy Au: So, can you just unpack that journey? Yeah.
(47:51) Pav Gill: Yeah. So, the whole one and a half years of exposing Wirecard, I like to say it was like a side gig. Yeah. It is great for stress relief, but I was working, so I joined (48:00) Wise as their first APAC council, for example. Right. But then in the evening when I'm frustrated, I'll go and do my Twitter stuff and start being this whistleblower guy.
(48:07) Right. Oh, wow. It's
(48:08) Jeremy Au: like,
(48:09) Pav Gill: it was like, like, yeah, I had a bad day. Let me take it out a wirecard. Yeah. And all its bots that are attacking me. So yeah, Twitter does have its good use in that sense.
(48:17) Jeremy Au: So, yeah. So you, so you're doing a day job, like, and nobody at Wise knew it was you. Nobody. Nobody. So, they were like, wow, what a nice guy Pav .
(48:23) Yeah. What you doing after work today? You wanna go for drinks? And you're like, no, no, no. Go. You used Twitter?
(48:28) Pav Gill: No, I would go for the drinks, but if the drinks had a negative effect, then why got suffered, right? Yeah,
(48:33) Jeremy Au: exactly. So, there you are obviously going through that and you had that job at Wise and then eventually, then I moved
(48:38) Pav Gill: to Bangkok.
(48:39) Yeah. When I was the general counsel of a crypto exchange. Yeah. So, the movies actually filmed in real time. Yeah. 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 Covid, so the whole bot day quarantine and stuff.
(48:54) Yeah. And yeah, it was only midway through my journey in Bangkok that this article came out (49:00) and revealed who I was. Yeah. And yeah, that's what happened. Since then, I was doing a lot of global public keynote speaking. Right? Like global keynote speaking events. Right. So all these different companies, regulators, MNCs Big Four would get me to speak other than you know? Yeah, yeah.
(49:14) Obviously. Yeah, that's the only big four I haven't spoken, but uh spoken four Oh at which is unfortunate. Yeah. So, my bigger question in life was always, what was the bigger reason behind exposing Wirecard? Yeah. Like, why me, not some other random guy? Right, right. And because I was discussing the EU whistle blowing law, which Wirecard actually accelerated the implementation of,
(49:36) it just hit me because I have seen how challenging it is for companies to deal with internal reporting cases whether it's whistle blowing 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. Should we tell our customers?
(49:52) Should we tell our regulators? Should we deal with the threat actor? So, all these different kinds of internal reporting. I've seen the challenges and I've (50:00) also used the so-called existing solutions, so I'm familiar with them. All of them only focus on receiving reports. But then, what happens after that?
(50:07) Right. So, having put the wirecard, the whistle blowing mindset experience in there, okay, if there was something that was truly end to end, not just a receiving channel, then that audit trail is there. Right. Then maybe even the general counsel in Wirecard can't say she didn't know. Right. Yeah.
(50:23) It's true that she knew. And how did she deal with it? Right. Um. So, then I say, 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 con idea of confide platform was formed. And I think the word confide is very powerful. Right.
(50:40) Because like when I mentioned isolation, every time you're in a situation where you see something wrong, you wanna speak up, you don't know who to confide in, or you're confiding in the wrong person, or you're just limited from confiding by legal privilege, NDAs, whatever. So, having that name, having that anon that encrypted anonymous ability, and most importantly, giving (51:00) companies a chance to deal with things before they explode
(51:02) 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? Yeah. If we knew we would've done something about it. Right. So putting, fixing that specific problem, the end to end and everything was how confide started.
(51:19) So, whistle blowing naturally with my storyline was the kind of like the beachhead product. Right. And that's how we started. And now, we have expanded into full operational compliance aspects.
(51:28) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And my last question here really would be like, could you share a personal story about the time that you felt the most brave?
(51:35) Pav Gill: 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.
(51:48) I was keynote for diligence and old summit and it was in Houston. And I was sitting after my talk at the basement, I mean at the ground floor restaurant. Restaurant had a glass wall that looked out into the (52:00) street. So, it was on street level.
(52:01) Yeah. So, he was walking up and down and I knew that 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 open fire, everyone's a sitting duck. Right.
(52:17) Yeah. Right. You literally have no defense. Right. But because of, and 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.
(52:34) 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. Yeah. And then I told I acted on it by telling alerting the people about this threat. Yeah.
(52:51) But it was an eye-opening experience.
(52:53) Jeremy Au: I think it's interesting because when people look at the whole thing, you, they'll probably say like, the brave thing is this whole Wirecard (53:00) thing. But you're saying that you didn't feel as fearful. You don't feel like that set of decisions around whistle blowing on Wirecard was Yeah.
(53:08) It wasn't as brave. And could you share a little bit more about that? Yeah,
(53:11) Pav Gill: I mean, it's brave of course. Yeah. It's, it's brave slash crazy to some extent. Yeah. Gonna take down a company like that or expose them rather. But I think if you want to talk about Wirecard related bravery, I would say that the bravery in terms of the Wirecard 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.
(53:38) Right. So, after, when I was in Bangkok and the firm, the crypto company I was working with that collapse because of whatever happened in the crypto space with the FTX and everything, that's when I started getting like all these panic attacks and stuff. Right. So, that's where, for the first time in my life, I was forced to confront this whole issue of mental wellbeing.
(53:56) Right. Which was a very challenging process. (54:00) 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 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.
(54:25) Yeah. So, then getting into things like breath work and talking about these things, I think that to me was the link to the Wirecard story in terms of bravely confronting the impact of that on you as a human being.
(54:38) Jeremy Au: Right. Yeah. And if I may just one last bit is, obviously, this is obviously very stressful and scary with panic attacks.
(54:46) I think you and I have both met the 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 seeing something is not going well and you are, (55:00) getting coffee with them outside, what advice or what, how would you
(55:04) approach that conversation today? Yeah.
(55:07) Pav Gill: I mean, I'll ask them genuinely what is, what is it that you want to achieve? Yeah. Sometimes you gotta work backwards to answer that question. Because what matters to you most like is raising this issue, exposing this wrongdoing, or having peace of mind.
(55:24) 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.
(55:39) Right. I will never encourage a person to become like a full blown whistleblower. Because that comes from a whole bunch of pain especially if we don't deal with it properly. Right. And if you don't like, go full nine yards and see it to the end. So, you need to be alive to those risks.
(55:55) But fundamentally as a human, you need to do what makes you at peace with (56:00) yourself. And I think that's the issue, right? Because a lot of people, even though they have got a settlement with a company for 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,
(56:12) even to get that settlement, okay. But then these same guys who were ill treating 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 standpoint, right?
(56:30) 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. ' Cause it's not like the movies, right? Like heroes don't always have long lives.
(56:45) Jeremy Au: No,
(56:45) Pav Gill: they don't. Right. So, yeah.
(56:46) Jeremy Au: Yeah. In the real world, uh yeah, you can end up dead. Yeah. Yeah. Quite, quite often. Right? It's your own thing. Yeah. And that note, thank you so much for sharing. I love to summarize the CP takeaways. First of all, thanks so much for sharing about, I think your early career, but also why you were excited to join a Wirecard 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 Wirecard by doing an internal investigation into what you thought was malpractice at the local level.
(57:15) 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 was 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 Wirecard unicorn.
(57:41) 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.
(57:58) Pav Gill: Sure. Thanks. I enjoyed myself.
(58:00) Thank you!