Despite receiving more than 6,000 tips and shelling out eight awards since 2011 under the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower program, the Securities and Exchange Commission has managed to keep the identities of its informers tightly under wraps. But a leak was inevitable, and now we’ve got one, courtesy of a fight over—what else—money.
Fortune on Wednesday revealed the identity of the biggest Dodd-Frank whistleblower awardee so far. The magazine reported that Michael Sears of Alexandria, Va., was the recipient of a previously publicized $14.7 million bounty for blowing the whistle on Anshoo Sethi, a Chicago businessman whom the SEC accused of swindling Chinese investors out of $155 million. Sears’ award represents 10 percent of the $147 million that Sethi paid to settle the SEC’s case last year.
