Famous fraudster visits Central
John Lawrence
Issue date: 3/3/05 Section: News
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Show respect - give none. Not something a student would expect to hear from a former accountant. Sam Antar was not your typical accountant. The Accounting Students Association hosted Antar last week.
Antar, the accountant responsible for the Crazy Eddie Electronics Store inventory fraud of the late 1980s, told students how he and his partners created a multi-million dollar company out of what was, in reality, a struggling electronics store.
After opening to a round of applause, Antar, replied, "I appreciate your applause, but that violates rule number one. It's called unexamined acceptance. That basically means, just the fact that I'm here, my good intentions being here, doesn't take away the fact that I was a major criminal for many years. I violated a lot of people's trust. I hurt a lot of people. I did a fraud that was at that time a $500 million fraud," Antar said.
Antar spoke openly about how his crime was perpetrated. He talked about "skimming off the books" and insurance frauds he had committed. He was very critical of accountants for not being skeptical and not using what he called "professional paranoia."
"You are going to go into a profession where you really don't know people's true intentions. Fraudsters like myself, we build a whole world of respectability around ourselves. I gave money to a lot of charities while I was committing my fraud. My cousin Eddie, he gave a lot of money with his stolen money to a lot of charities. He gave a lot of money to politicians. He built wings on to hospitals and built a big aura of respectability around him and people were in awe of him. This is what fraudsters do," Antar said.
Antar also spoke critically of businesses and of Wall Street. He said that the abstractionists on Wall Street "have never run real business in their entire lives." He was critical of businesses that in his words "managed earnings."
"Do you ever notice how these companies always beat the Wall Street estimates by a penny a share? Do you ever notice how all these earnings have great smooth earnings lines? It's all a part of them taking their so-called write-offs. Wall Street, do you know what they do? They give them big boost in the stock price because management is taking a good look, a hard look at their operation. But you know something? Tucked away in those one-time charges are all of the screw-ups that they made over all of those years. There's a big game going on here and there's a lot of corruption and it's all legalized by the accounting profession today," Antar said.
Antar talked about how unprepared students with undergraduate and graduate degrees are when dealing with crime.
"You are not getting courses in criminality. You are not getting courses in psychology. You are not getting courses in what motivates people like me to commit the crimes that I committed that are going to possibly destroy your careers. They are going to cause investors to lose hundreds of millions of dollars," Antar said.
Antar warned students to be wary of who they choose to trust.
"I am an economic predator. I am going to take advantage of everything that you do. Every bit of acceptance, of implied credibility, I am going to take advantage of and I am going to destroy your careers. I will destroy everything that you've built. I will take advantage of your prejudices. I will take advantage of your niceties and I will use them against you. That's what you have to be careful of," he said.
Antar, the accountant responsible for the Crazy Eddie Electronics Store inventory fraud of the late 1980s, told students how he and his partners created a multi-million dollar company out of what was, in reality, a struggling electronics store.
After opening to a round of applause, Antar, replied, "I appreciate your applause, but that violates rule number one. It's called unexamined acceptance. That basically means, just the fact that I'm here, my good intentions being here, doesn't take away the fact that I was a major criminal for many years. I violated a lot of people's trust. I hurt a lot of people. I did a fraud that was at that time a $500 million fraud," Antar said.
Antar spoke openly about how his crime was perpetrated. He talked about "skimming off the books" and insurance frauds he had committed. He was very critical of accountants for not being skeptical and not using what he called "professional paranoia."
"You are going to go into a profession where you really don't know people's true intentions. Fraudsters like myself, we build a whole world of respectability around ourselves. I gave money to a lot of charities while I was committing my fraud. My cousin Eddie, he gave a lot of money with his stolen money to a lot of charities. He gave a lot of money to politicians. He built wings on to hospitals and built a big aura of respectability around him and people were in awe of him. This is what fraudsters do," Antar said.
Antar also spoke critically of businesses and of Wall Street. He said that the abstractionists on Wall Street "have never run real business in their entire lives." He was critical of businesses that in his words "managed earnings."
"Do you ever notice how these companies always beat the Wall Street estimates by a penny a share? Do you ever notice how all these earnings have great smooth earnings lines? It's all a part of them taking their so-called write-offs. Wall Street, do you know what they do? They give them big boost in the stock price because management is taking a good look, a hard look at their operation. But you know something? Tucked away in those one-time charges are all of the screw-ups that they made over all of those years. There's a big game going on here and there's a lot of corruption and it's all legalized by the accounting profession today," Antar said.
Antar talked about how unprepared students with undergraduate and graduate degrees are when dealing with crime.
"You are not getting courses in criminality. You are not getting courses in psychology. You are not getting courses in what motivates people like me to commit the crimes that I committed that are going to possibly destroy your careers. They are going to cause investors to lose hundreds of millions of dollars," Antar said.
Antar warned students to be wary of who they choose to trust.
"I am an economic predator. I am going to take advantage of everything that you do. Every bit of acceptance, of implied credibility, I am going to take advantage of and I am going to destroy your careers. I will destroy everything that you've built. I will take advantage of your prejudices. I will take advantage of your niceties and I will use them against you. That's what you have to be careful of," he said.