With nearly two days worth of secret recordings, former Federal Reserve employee Carmen Segarra took her first-hand experiences with the unregulated banking world to the press. On Sept. 26, ProPublica and This American Life released Segarra's reports on the Fed’s inability and unwillingness to regulate large banks like Goldman Sachs, and the corruption that slipped through as a result.

Segarra was stationed by the Fed in 2011 to regulate Goldman Sachs following the 2008 financial crisis. It was a time when the Fed was under fire for not seeing the crash coming. However, after three years, the reserve hadn’t changed its practices, despite criticism.

In her short time at the Fed, Segarra was often asked to ignore or change meeting minutes when the company’s leadership said something revealing or questionable. One Goldman Sach executive said that consumer laws didn’t apply to wealthy clients. When Segarra spoke about the statement to examiners from the Fed, FDIC and banking authority who’d been in the meeting, a colleague told her, “you didn’t hear that.” On another occasion, a Fed veteran at Goldman Sachs, Mike Silva, told her that, “credibility at the Fed is about subtleties and about perceptions, as opposed to reality.”

Segarra has since been fired — and sued the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for wrongful termination. 

Who is the woman who took on the country’s financial sector? Segarra, 41, was born in Indiana, raised in Puerto Rico, graduated with degrees from Harvard, Columbia and Cornell, and became a leader in the Hispanic National Bar Association. She self-identifies as a whistleblower.

Listen to or read about the secret tapes