White Collar Crime

In Pirate Cove, Richard D. Bailey provides an insider’s chronicle of a white-collar crime whose headline-grabbing elements first appeared on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal. It’s the true, unvarnished, complete, totally untold, and fascinating story of how one honest man helped unravel the massive Southport Lane fraud perpetrated by the author’s former employer, 26-year-old self-proclaimed financial prodigy Alexander Chatfield Burns.

Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators' path to conquest. Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.

Forced out of the work-hard, play-hard world of Wall Street following the Crash of ’87, financial analyst Cary Cimino was determined to maintain his lifestyle of luxury and ease. Under the guidance of dubious businessman Jeffrey Pokross, Cimino embarked on an illegitimate underground career as a “financial adviser” to naïve investors. Cimino’s small-time operation soon spiraled into a large-scale crime ring when he and Pokross were reunited and met with Mafia wiseguy Robert Lino.

A small number of people, motivated by an insatiable greed for power and wealth, and backed by a pinstripe army of enablers, have driven the world to the brink of destruction. Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness and the author of Very Bad People, introduces us to some of the world's worst warlords, grifters and kleptocrats who can be found everywhere from presidential palaces to the board rooms of some of the world's best known companies. Pitted against them, the book also follows the people unravelling the deals, tracking the money and going undercover at great risk.

From the lead prosecutor on the Enron investigation, an eye-opening examination of the explosion of American white-collar crime. If "corporations are people, too", why isn't anyone in jail? A serious defect in a GM car causes accidents; Enron scams investors out of their money; banks bet on the housing market crash and win. In the race to maximize profits, corporations can behave in ways that are morally outrageous but technically legal.

The riveting true story behind the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, a cautionary tale of parenting gone wrong, the system that enabled families to veer so far off course, and the mastermind who made it all happen.

In 2006 an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor - the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide - was set daily by a group of easily manipulated administrators, and they could reap huge profits by nudging it fractions of a percent to suit their trading portfolios. This group generated incredible riches - until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.

The benefits of living in a digital, globalized society are enormous; so too are the dangers. The world has become a law enforcer’s nightmare and every criminal’s dream. We bank online; shop online; date, learn, work and live online. But have the institutions that keep us safe on the streets learned to protect us in the burgeoning digital world? Have we become complacent about our personal security—sharing our thoughts, beliefs and the details of our daily lives with anyone who might care to relieve us of them?

This nonfiction legal thriller traces the 14-year struggle of two lawyers to bring the most powerful coal baron in American history to justice. Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of America’s electric power. But wealth and influence weren’t enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the company’s mines - mines in which scores died unnecessarily.

En 2014, Elizabeth Holmes, fundadora de Theranos, parecía destinada a tomar el relevo de Steve Jobs. Su empresa, que llegó a valorarse en nueve mil millones de dólares, prometía revolucionar la industria médica a partir de una gota de sangre, lo único que, junto a la máquina de Theranos, haría falta para poner la sanidad al alcance de todos. El problema era uno solo: la tecnología no funcionaba. Cuando John Carreyrou, periodista del Wall Street Journal, empezó a hacer preguntas, lo que recibió fueron amenazas judiciales. Aun así, el diario publicó el primero de numerosos artículos sobre Theranos.

Although he was a suburban husband and father, living a far different life from The Wolf of Wall Street, Michael Kimelman had a good run as the co-founder of a hedge fund. But it all came crashing down in the wee hours of November 5, 2009, when the Feds came to his door, almost taking the door off its hinges. He was arrested as part of a huge insider trading case, and while he was offered a sweetheart no-jail probation plea, he refused, maintaining his innocence.

From New York's foremost bail bondsman with "over $30 million on the street" comes the story of a modern-day "fixer" who walks a fine line between hustler and humanitarian with clients ranging from the rich and famous to the mafia and gangs of New York. With from-the-gut prose, Ira Judelson sheds light on the highs and lows of the bondsman life. But Judelson is no process server.

A corrupt practice known as dual trading allowed powerful brokers to exploit investors, rig trades, and cover their losses at the expense of everyday traders. Despite industry pushback and two failed reform votes, these renegade traders, led by Michael Russo and Owen McAuliffe, refused to back down. Their relentless fight for market transparency and fair trading practices ultimately led to landmark financial reforms and shielded the CME from federal indictments during an FBI investigation into market manipulation.

For two decades, the water in the taps and wells of Mingo County didn’t look, smell, or taste right. Could the water be the root of the health problems - from kidney stones to cancer - in this Appalachian community? Environmental lawyer Kevin Thompson certainly thought so. For seven years, Thompson waged an epic legal battle against Massey Energy, West Virginia’s most powerful coal company, helmed by CEO Don Blankenship. Working with fellow lawyers and a crew of young activists, Thompson would uncover the ruthless shortcuts that put the community’s drinking water at risk.

In Tangled Webs, James B. Stewart reveals in vivid detail the consequences of the perjury epidemic that has swept our country, undermining the very foundation of our courts.With many prosecutors, investigators, and participants speaking for the first time, Tangled Webs goes behind the scene of the trials of media and homemaking entrepreneur Martha Stewart; top White House political adviser Lewis "Scooter" Libby; home-run king Barry Bonds; and Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff. Tangled Webs reaffirms the importance of truth.

On May 6, 2010, financial markets around the world tumbled simultaneously and without warning. In the span of five minutes, a trillion dollars of valuation was lost. The Flash Crash, as it became known, represented the fastest drop in market history. When share values rebounded less than half an hour later, experts around the globe were left perplexed. What had they just witnessed? Navinder Singh Sarao hardly seemed like a man who would shake the world's financial markets to their core.

Steven Donziger, a self-styled social activist and Harvard educated lawyer, signed on to a budding class action lawsuit against multinational Texaco. The suit sought reparations for the Ecuadorian peasants and tribes people whose lives were affected by decades of oil production near their villages and fields. During twenty years of legal hostilities in federal courts in Manhattan and remote provincial tribunals in the Ecuadorian jungle, Donziger and Chevron's lawyers followed fierce no-holds-barred rules.

Today's world is complicated: companies are becoming more powerful than nations, the lines between public and corporate institutions grow murkier, and the internet is shredding our privacy. To combat these onslaughts, people everywhere - rich and not so rich, in business and in their personal lives - are turning away from traditional police, lawyers, and government regulators toward a new champion: the private investigator.

En México, la corrupción de las grandes empresas es igual o peor que la de los gobernantes: algunas corporaciones no sólo mueven toneladas de dinero para burlar la ley, sino que lo hacen con total impunidad. Prácticamente nadie investiga o castiga a las transnacionales que reparten sobornos. Este libro—ganador del Premio de Periodismo Javier Valdez Cárdenas 2019—rompe el círculo vicioso de silencio y simulación y les pone nombre y apellido a las compañías señaladas por malas prácticas, explica los esquemas de la transa y las razones de la impunidad desatada.

Forty million Americans use some kind of online dating service and that number keeps rising. Every day online daters are defrauded out of tens of thousands of dollars by romance scammers. But did you know there is a new type of scammer you need to be educated about? Homegrown Romance Scams is written by an ex-scammer who will teach you everything you need to know about these scams.