> Frank was a student loan startup founded by Charlie Javice in 2016. In 2019, Javice was featured on the Forbes “30 under 30”
There was a joke going around Twitter about "30 under 30 doing 30 to life", because the startups involved were getting more and more outlandish to the extent that bystanders suspected that fraud was going on. Became a Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/06/forbes-30-u...
Of course, a fraud can stay afloat for a lot longer than you expect. The really tricky case is when you're ordered to do something illegal or unethical for which there is substantial political cover. An executive order, for example. You cannot rely on anyone to back you up simply because of the letter of the law.
Also:
> The reality was that this was a very deliberate double charge. I could not share this fact at the time – as the company threatened me with libel after I informed them of this detail
UK libel law routinely covers up all sorts of things which the public would benefit from having revealed, simply by the threat of an expensive lawsuit. It makes investigative journalism really uneconomic.
There was a joke going around Twitter about "30 under 30 doing 30 to life", because the startups involved were getting more and more outlandish to the extent that bystanders suspected that fraud was going on. Became a Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/06/forbes-30-u...
Of course, a fraud can stay afloat for a lot longer than you expect. The really tricky case is when you're ordered to do something illegal or unethical for which there is substantial political cover. An executive order, for example. You cannot rely on anyone to back you up simply because of the letter of the law.
Also:
> The reality was that this was a very deliberate double charge. I could not share this fact at the time – as the company threatened me with libel after I informed them of this detail
UK libel law routinely covers up all sorts of things which the public would benefit from having revealed, simply by the threat of an expensive lawsuit. It makes investigative journalism really uneconomic.