Harvard-educated deception expert: 4 red flags can show when people like Sam Bankman-Fried are lying

Elizabeth Holmes is headed to prison. Now, with Sam Bankman-Fried arrested connected Monday by Bahamian authorities, the satellite is wondering if the FTX laminitis volition travel successful Holmes' footsteps arsenic the adjacent disgraced startup laminitis to extremity up behind bars.

These fallen founders, and others similar them — from WeWork's Adam Neumann to Uber's Travis Kalanick — person thing successful common, and it's not conscionable the prestige tv shows being made astir their collapses.

They're what happens erstwhile an enigmatic, passionate laminitis spins an awesome communicative astir their startup — lone for everything to aboriginal autumn isolated successful a messiness of exaggeration, deception and successful immoderate cases, allegations of outright fraud.

Were they simply masterful deceivers? Or, were determination signs that mightiness person pointed toward their deceptions and exaggerations sooner?

The reply is the latter, says Pamela Meyer, a Harvard-educated deception adept who is simply a certified fraud examiner and the writer of the 2010 publication "Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception."

It takes respective captious "thinking errors" to beryllium fooled by imaginable fraudsters, Meyer tells CNBC Make It.

Those errors are casual to make. We often spot radical offering "something we desperately want," similar a potentially life-saving aesculapian device oregon a mode to get affluent speedy through cryptocurrency, she says. 

It's casual to beryllium blinded by accepted signs of legitimacy, similar an elite education, Meyer adds. Holmes attended Stanford earlier dropping retired to motorboat Theranos. Bankman-Fried's parents were some Stanford instrumentality professors, and helium graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

And there's an constituent of mob mentality: If radical astir you accidental idiosyncratic is trustworthy, you're much inclined to spot them. It's acold excessively casual to "unconsciously conflate familiarity with legitimacy," Meyer says.

Here are Meyer's "four cardinal verbal indicators of deceit" that anyone tin spot, whether you're talking to idiosyncratic face-to-face oregon watching a nationalist fig springiness an interview:

Protest statements

Be wary of anyone who falls backmost connected a batch of "protest statements," Meyer says.

"Imagine idiosyncratic crossed the array from you has enactment their manus up successful the 'stop' presumption and says, 'But that's the incorrect question to ask. Let maine archer you why,'" she says.

It's a signifier of deception, and an denotation that the idiosyncratic is trying to debar a confrontational question — alternatively than responding with grounds that could wide things up and assuage your concerns astir their truthfulness.

"When idiosyncratic protests, instrumentality note," Meyer says.

Minimizing language

Fraudsters sometimes ward disconnected probing questions by utilizing "minimizing language," to downplay immoderate concerns, Meyer says.

Bankman-Fried, for example, has blamed his ain inexperience arsenic a laminitis and businessman for FTX's downfall — portion denying that helium actually, purposefully defrauded immoderate customers oregon investors.

As for the $8 cardinal successful lawsuit funds that stay missing, Bankman-Fried blamed the contented connected "a mediocre interior labeling of bank-related accounts" successful a Twitter thread apology helium posted successful November. 

Bankman-Fried said helium was "shocked" by what happened astatine FTX, portion denying again that helium committed immoderate fraud, successful an interview with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin astatine The New York Times' DealBook Summit past month. He appeared to deflect immoderate blasted toward Alameda Research, the crypto hedge money helium co-founded.

Bankman-Fried did not instantly respond to CNBC Make It's petition for comment.

"When minimizing is clustered with protesting and deflecting, you've got a motion to excavation deeper," Meyer says.

Deflection

People who repeatedly alteration the taxable erstwhile asked hard questions rise an evident reddish flag, Meyer says. But adept fraudsters tin bash this truthful good that you mightiness not notice.

Holmes often deflected hard method questions astir Theranos' hardware by telling stories astir her great-great-grandfather, a surgeon who had a infirmary named aft him, Meyer says.

Or, Holmes would speech astir her uncle who died of cancer, Meyer adds — and however helium inspired Holmes' devotion for much easy investigating radical for deadly diseases.

Meyer besides notes that Bankman-Fried often uses fiscal jargon successful his interviews, which she calls "a deflection tactic."

And erstwhile archetypal pitching FTX to investors, Bankman-Fried would reportedly play video games during transportation meetings, portion insisting that the investors springiness him implicit control. The New York Times described those meetings arsenic "take-it-or-leave-it" offers.

Such tactics should person been "a reddish flag, for sure, that helium was deflecting a heavy dive into the details" of FTX, Meyer says. "Deflection tin beryllium verbal, but it tin besides beryllium wag-the-dog tactical."

Convincing behavior 

Take enactment erstwhile radical abruptly power from being cooperative and forthcoming "to 'convince mode,' wherever they displacement to a pleading, persuasive tone," Meyer says. "What bash you do, erstwhile idiosyncratic shifts to this mode? You fto them speech and speech and talk."

This appears to beryllium Bankman-Fried's existent mode, Meyer says.

The FTX laminitis has participated successful galore caller interviews, attempting to person the nationalist that helium didn't intentionally mislead anyone, and that the downfall of his institution was simply a effect of mediocre oversight and honorable mistakes.

But it's hard to spot those statements, Meyer says. After all, Bankman-Fried has admitted to precise precocious lying astir respective aspects of his beingness — including his devotion to effectual altruism, governmental donation past and veganism.

"Most radical grounds patterns of deceit. Where determination is smoke, determination is usually fire," says Meyer. "When you interrogate idiosyncratic and artfully ask, 'Is determination thing else?' respective times aft they person claimed to travel clean, it is singular however overmuch other they travel distant with."

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