White Collar Crime

In the tradition of Michael Lewis and Tom Wolfe, a fascinating and frightening behind-the-scenes look at the interconnected cultures of hackers, security specialists, and law enforcement. A cybersecurity professional turned journalist, Kate Fazzini illuminates the many lies companies and governments tell us about our security, the lies criminals tell to get ahead, and the lies security leaders tell to make us think they are better at their jobs than they are.

Tras el éxito de Camisas azules, manos negras (caso Oceanografía) y El cártel negro, Ana Lilia Pérez regresa con el que tal vez sea el trabajo más ambicioso de su carrera: Mares de cocaína, una estremecedora investigación acerca del tráfico de drogas que se lleva a cabo en cientos de rutas náuticas a escala internacional, donde incluso algunos cárteles mexicanos ya han impuesto el pago de piso.

1982: Oregon businessman Phil Champagne, age 52, dies in a tragic boating accident off Lopez Island. He is survived by one ex-wife, four adult children, an octogenarian mother, and two despondent brothers. Phil didn't know he was dead until he read it in the paper. All things considered, he took it rather well. So did Phil's brother, Mitch, the beneficiary of a 1.5 million dollar policy on Phil's life.

On a hot day in July 1988, Frank Casteel and his wife planned an outing on property they had recently acquired atop Signal Mountain in Tennessee. They would be celebrating their wedding anniversary. Several years later, that day's events would be rewritten. Despite crime scene contamination, a complete lack of evidence, and a span of missteps and misconduct by investigators and prosecutors, Frank would be charged and eventually wrongfully convicted of a triple homicide.

The second in a trilogy, this collection features 18 of the world's most outrageous scams and hoaxes. They all really happened and were taken from firsthand accounts, newspaper reports, or historical documents found in public libraries. They date as far back as the late 1800s, but most are more recent. However, you won't find any defrauded widows or orphans in these stories; the victims are institutions or corporations quite capable of defending themselves, and the crooks who match wits with them are just as savvy. You could almost call it a fair fight!

Lloyd Constantine began his career in legal services, representing impoverished clients in civil rights and constitutional cases. Decades later, he would make headlines for representing retailers and consumers against a cartel that undermined one of the fundamental tenets of commerce in America: competition. A man who thrives on competition himself, Constantine now gives us the insider's story on the biggest antitrust lawsuit in history - a case that pitted his small firm against financial-industry giants Visa and MasterCard, along with Clifford-Chance, the largest law firm in the world.

I Did It is the story of Gina Champion-Cain, the mastermind behind the largest woman-led Ponzi scheme in US history—$400 million. This real-life story includes a multitude of participants, banks, hedge funds, egomaniacs, and small-time crooks, all fueled by greed, stupidity, and a keen desire to look the other way. And even when they were looking in the right direction, all of these people and entities saw nothing.

Described by one literary critic as "Jack Kerouac narrating the adventures of Thomas Pynchon's character, Tyrone Slothrop, only in Russia," Sovok takes you on a front-row view of the transition from Soviet Union to liberated Russia, and her return back to today's tyranny. McKinney describes his interactions for over 20 years with dissidents, billionaires, mob bosses, presidents, bureaucrats, and political leaders, while he constantly breaks laws and bends rules, as do most of the people he works with.

On April 9, 2021, Chris wrote an email to his stakeholders, admitting having squandered millions of investor dollars as the CEO of Bellatorum Resources, a Texas-based energy fund. Part-memoir and part-manual, Burning Bellatorum is a brutally honest story written down in Chris’ own words as he reflects upon his journey, explains his decisions, and articulates exactly why and how he orchestrated the fraud. With Bellatorum’s story as the backdrop, he brings to light invaluable lessons for novice to intermediate investors, fund managers, and entrepreneurs.

In this compelling story of greed, chicanery and tarnished idealism, two Wall Street Journal reporters investigate a man who Bill Gates and Western governments entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars to make profits and end poverty but now stands accused of masterminding one of the biggest, most brazen frauds ever.

In March 2021, an obscure financial technology company called Greensill Capital collapsed, going into administration. As it unravelled, a multibillion-dollar scandal emerged that would shake the very foundations of the British political system, drawing in swiss bankers, global CEOs, and world leaders, including former British Prime Minister, David Cameron. At the centre was an Australian financier named Lex Greensill. Pyramid of Lies charts the meteoric rise and spectacular downfall of Greensill and his company.

Like most people, before author Donato Alfredano gets caught up in the system, he's hardly given the issue of prison a thought. But his unanticipated arrest at JFK Airport on a charge of official misconduct was a reality check that would forever change his views on incarceration, and on a larger scale, life.

A partir de la nacionalización de la industria petrolera, por ochenta años Pemex fue el principal sostén de la economía mexicana, una maquinaria generadora de billones y billones de dólares por la producción y venta del oro negro y sus derivados, sólo que, a pesar de ser un bien público, sus ganancias y beneficios se repartieron entre pocas manos.

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. Ponzi’s Scheme is the amazing true story of the irresistible scoundrel who launched the most successful scheme of financial alchemy in modern history–and uttered the first roar of the Roaring Twenties.

My past was always just beneath the surface. I couldn't look into someone's eyes without them knowing the truth. The truth is...the day I met Jeremy changed me forever. More than once, I thought it would be my last day. The feelings of despair were so intense I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I was so ashamed. The double life, the $94 million in stolen money, and the FBI investigation.

Whitaker Wright led a truly extraordinary life. From his humble beginnings as an impoverished preacher, he crossed the Atlantic to prospect for gold, surviving a Native American massacre and making his fortune. When the bubble burst, he returned to England and soon became one of the world’s richest men, entertaining the Kaiser and the Prince of Wales on his steam yacht. But his downfall was as dramatic as his ascent.

In November 1974, British MP and former cabinet minister John Stonehouse walked into the sea off a beach in Miami and disappeared, seemingly drowned. Then he was found—on the other side of the world, in Australia—and his extraordinary story began to come to light: a Labour cabinet minister and a devoted family man, also in a long-term affair with his secretary, and a spy for the Czech State Security agency, who had committed fraud and attempted to fake his own death to escape catastrophic business failures.

When Mosilo Mothepu was appointed CEO of Trillian Financial Advisory, in March 2016, the prospect of being at the helm of a Black-owned financial consultancy was electrifying for a Black woman whose twin passions were transformation and empowering women. Three months later, suffering from depression and insomnia, she resigned with no other job lined up. In October 2016, a written statement handed to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela detailing Trillian’s involvement in state capture was leaked to the media.

Martin T. Manton was a corrupt federal appeals court judge in New York who was convicted in 1939 and sent to prison. At the time, this was a hugely important story: Manton was considered the highest-ranking judge in the United States after the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, and was nearly appointed to that august body in 1922. Yet his story has never been told in book-length form before, and never with the benefit of such exhaustive research.

It started innocently enough, with calls to celebrities' houses alongside her teenage twin sister. Soon, Tanya Smith realised she could convince utility companies to amend the balances of her friends and neighbours, clearing elderly relatives' overdue electricity bills with a single phone call. Eventually, as she tested the limits and realized she could get past any gatekeeper, this superpower, as she came to think of it, morphed into something else: she wanted access to the actual money herself.