True Crime Business

Blowback is a non-fiction, first-person memoir about the unintended consequences of failed workplace ethics. Blowback, a prequel to Whistleblower (Bay Tree Publishing, 2010) is based on real events that took place before the whistle was blown. Faculty member, scientist, and educator Amy Block Joy loved her job at the University of California, Davis. For two decades, she administered a highly successful, multi-million-dollar poverty program that provided training to thousands of Californians who needed it most. Working diligently to enforce the federal, state, and university rules, she was ...

When Bill Bratton became a Boston street cop after his return from serving in Vietnam, he was dismayed by the corrupt old guard, and it is fair to say the old guard was dismayed by him, too. But his success fighting crime could not be denied. Propelled by extraordinary results, Bratton had a dazzling rise, and ultimately a dazzling career, becoming the most famous police commissioner of modern times. The Profession is the story of that career in full.

As an associate of the Gambino family, Ferrante relied on his instincts to pull off some of the biggest heists in US history. By the age of 21, he had netted millions of dollars for his employers. His natural talent for management led Mafia bosses to rely on him. After being arrested and serving an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence, Ferrante went straight. He realized that the Mob's most valuable business lessons would allow him to survive and thrive in the real world.

About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa’s wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans - and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Weise, to name a few. Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as ‘The Stellenbosch Mafia’, the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert?

Media and law enforcement work at cross-purposes. Law enforcement want to solve a case as fast as possible and put the guilty behind bars. The media want a case to drag on as long as humanly possible and do all they can to extricate every last bit of drama, drop by bloody drop, in order to hold the attention of the millions of viewers who have gotten hooked. Law enforcement must abide by rules. The media make their own rules, and even then break them or find ways to work loopholes into them.

On the morning of March 27, 1995, four quick shots cracked through Milan’s elegant streets. Maurizio Gucci, heir to the fabulous fashion dynasty, had been ambushed, slain on the steps to his office by an unknown gunman. Two years later, Milan’s chief of police entered the sumptuous palazzo of Maurizio’s ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani - nicknamed “the Black Widow” by the press - and arrested her for the murder. Did Patrizia kill her ex-husband because his spending was wildly out of control? Or is it possible Patrizia didn’t do it at all?

Even if we live within sight of the sea, it is easy to forget that our world is an ocean world. The open ocean, that vast expanse of international waters, begins just a few miles out and spreads across three-fourths of the globe. It is a place of storms and danger, both natural and manmade. And at a time when every last patch of land is claimed by one government or another, it is a place that remains radically free.

Award-winning investigative journalist and contributing Wired editor Scott Carney leads listeners on a breathtaking journey through the macabre underworld of the global body bazaar, where organs, bones, and even live people are bought and sold on The Red Market. The Red Market sheds a blazing new light on the disturbing, billion-dollar business of trading in human body parts, bodies, and child trafficking, raising issues and exposing corruptions almost too bizarre and shocking to imagine.

Born into one of America's most illustrious trading families, Sam Israel was determined to strike out on his own. After apprenticing with one of the greatest traders of the 1980s, he founded his own fast-growing hedge fund, promising investors extraordinary returns. But it was all an elaborate charade.

A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known.

The way most white-collar crime works is by manipulating institutional psychology. That means creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds. Financial crime seems horribly complicated, but there are only so many ways you can con someone out of what’s theirs.

Step into the gripping, electrifying narrative of 3X World Champ, the true story of a three-time kickboxing champion whose life took a wild turn into the shadowy world of marijuana smuggling. Set against the backdrop of 1980s Miami—a time of glitz, glamour, and organized crime—this memoir unveils the astonishing career of Thaddeus J. "Ted" Pryor.

In Fool Me Once, renowned expert Kelly Richmond Pope shows fraud in action, uncovering what makes perps tick, victims so gullible, and whistleblowers so morally righteous, while also encouraging us to look at our own behaviors and motivations in the hopes of protecting ourselves and our companies.

By the time you finish this book, you'll have a better understanding of—and perhaps more compassion for—perpetrators; a renewed connection to victims; and an appreciation for those who blow the whistle.

Based on extensive insider interviews and participation, acclaimed author Ben Mezrich's Straight Flush tells the captivating rags-to-riches tale of a group of University of Montana frat brothers who turned a weekly poker game in the basement of a local dive bar into AbsolutePoker.com, one of the largest online companies in the world. But then the U.S. Department of Justice placed a bull's-eye on Absolute Poker. Did they fold - or double down and ride their hot hand?

In December 2008, the world watched as master financier Bernard L. Madoff was taken away from his posh Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, accused of swindling thousands of innocent victims - including friends and family - out of billions of dollars in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Madoff went to jail; he will spend the rest of his life there. But what happened to his devoted wife and sons?

McKinsey earns billions advising almost every major corporation as well as countless governments, including Britain's, the USA's and China's. It boasts of its ability to maximise efficiency while making the world a better place. Its millionaire partners and network of alumni go on to top jobs in the world's most powerful organisations. And yet, shielded by non-disclosure agreements, its work remains largely secret—until now. In this propulsive investigation, two prize-winning journalists reveal the reality.

It was a time when anything seemed possible, instant wealth, glittering fame, fabulous luxury, and for a run of magical weeks in the spring and summer of 1920, Charles Ponzi made it all come true. Promising to double investors' money in three months, the dapper, charming Ponzi raised the "rob Peter to pay Paul" scam to an art form and raked in millions at his office in downtown Boston.

Secrecy World offers a disturbing and sobering view of how the world really works and raises crucial questions about financial and legal institutions we may once have trusted. This audiobook discusses the fragile scaffolding upholding any tax haven, the flexible laws of banking, and the radiating impact of an international financial scandal.

At the height of the roaring 20s, Swedish émigré Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after Kreuger's suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged.

This account describes how a 28-year-old from Watford, Nick Leeson, plunged Barings Bank into ruin. In 1994, Leeson seemed to be making the company millions of pounds a week, but he explains how the cover-up of a colleague's small error led to the crash of Britain's oldest merchant bank.