Managing Fraud Risk: A Practical Guide for Directors and Managers

Appearances can be Deceptive

It is July 2011. I am standing outside a restaurant in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. It is early evening and the pavements are crowded with people, the street is full of cars and the city is alive with the rush hour bustle which will be familiar to businessmen all over the world. I am with Temuujin, an executive from the Mongolian Stock Exchange, who has been assisting me throughout the training project here in Mongolia. At this moment, he is trying to find a place for us to eat and it is proving to be more difficult than he expected. He is very keen for me to experience some authentic Mongolian cuisine so, rather than going again to the “Irish Bar” to have western food and drink as we have done on the last two evenings, we are going somewhere more adventurous tonight. However, the restaurant he has in mind for this is actually full with locals and we are told that there will be at least a 20-minute wait before a table becomes free. This is too long for Temuujin and, rather than wait, we leave the restaurant. Hence we are standing by the side of the road trying to flag down a taxi to take us to another one of his favourite eating places which, he tells me, is not far away. I have only been in Mongolia for three days so far but this is long enough for me to know that walking to the restaurant is not a good option – Ulaanbaatar has the worst pavements of any large city that I have ever visited.

Temuujin is an impressive young man – intelligent, ...