Douglas durand is the paragon of a corporate whistlebtower. Shortly after stepping in as vice president of sales at TAP Pharmaceutical Products in early 1995, he began to suspect the company was conspiring with doctors to overcharge the federal government's Medicare program by tens of millions of dollars. Bui instead of trying to fix the problem, he spent seven months gathering evidence of supposed fraud. Then he quit in 1996 and filed a secret lawsuit against TAP. One motive: If he could prove the company was dirty, he would share a nice chunk of any money TAP paid back to the feds. He spent eight years helping the government . build its own case against the company, visiting prosecutors in four states and testifying before a grand jury in Boston, He compiled a list of alleged TAP conspirators and then called these former col- later filed suit making similar allegations against a TAP rival, the former Zeneca Inc. The feds ultimately joined him, filing civil and criminal charges against TAP and prodding it into paying the government $885 million to settle the case—six times as much as the claimed overcharges. Douglas Durand cashed in: lie received $126 million from the U.S. government. Now age 53, he retired and lives with his wile and daughter in the tony enclave of Tarpon Springs, Fla.
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