A few weeks later, I was talking to an old colleague and they revealed that the story that came from stakeholders was that the accounting team found the error, and I left in disgrace (despite that not being my department?).
So if you find an embarrassing mistake and you do not control the narrative, you have to proceed very carefully.
Write everything down and make sure everyone knows you’re writing it down. Saves a lot of hassle like that.
That sounds like defamation to me.