Business Crime

Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive...

We are all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done “Margulies tells the stories of people who have done monstrous things but are not monsters, are not forever defined by their worst acts. He writes beautifully of pain and loss, but also of redemption and transformation….A wonderfully...

A human physiology expert lays out the basic facts to explain why the idea of biological sex as a binary is simply wrong. Biological sex is as nuanced as gender. Many of us are biologically more typically masculine in some ways and more typically feminine in others. The constellation of traits...

Rarely does a week go by without a well-known executive being indicted for engaging in a white-collar crime. Perplexed as to what drives successful, wealthy people to risk it all, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes spent seven years in the company of the men behind the largest corporate crimes in history - from the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the Ponzi schemers Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford.

Travel back to a small Southern town where, before there was Duncan Motors, there were the Duncan brothers: Louis, aka Sweet Lou, a lover of ladies and life and a man you did not want to cross; Lawrence, aka Larry, a screw-up as attracted to trouble as it was to him; and Lavernius, better known as LC, the soft-spoken college boy who simply wanted to sell cars.

How a miracle treatment turned deadly and changed the course of the AIDS crisis. By the mid 1980s, AIDS hysteria was so rampant that a fearful and prejudiced public ignored stories of gay men falling ill with lesions and mouth ulcers. President Reagan avoided mentioning the disease entirely...

A fascinating examination of the world of private investigators by a 21st-century private eye. 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...

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?

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE By an award-winning technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal, a behind-the-scenes look at the manipulative tactics Facebook used to grow its business, how it distorted the way we connect online, and the company insiders who found the...

The inside story of a band of entrepreneurial upstarts who made millions selling painkillers—until their scheme unraveled, putting them at the center of a landmark criminal trial. THE BASIS FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE PAIN HUSTLERS STARRING EMILY BLUNT AND CHRIS EVANS "Unfolds with the...

Based on fifteen years of research, Glock is the riveting story of the weapon that has become known as American’s gun. Today the Glock pistol has been embraced by two-thirds of all U.S. police departments, glamorized in countless Hollywood movies, and featured as a ubiquitous presence on...

"Taub explicitly and persuasively places the breakdown of enforcement and accountability in the context of money and class."--The New York Times How ordinary Americans suffer when the rich and powerful use tax dodges or break the law to get richer and more powerful--and how we can stop it. There...

A thrilling, exclusive exposè of the hacker collectives Anonymous and LulzSec. We Are Anonymous is the first full account of how a loosely assembled group of hackers scattered across the globe formed a new kind of insurgency, seized headlines, and tortured the feds -- and the ultimate betrayal...

What would be the "right" price for your loved one - and can you avoid putting others at risk by paying it? What prevents criminals from maltreating hostages? How do you (safely) pay a ransom? Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business uncovers how a group of insurers at Lloyd's of London have solved these thorny problems for their customers. Based on interviews with industry insiders (from both sides), as well as hostage stakeholders, it uncovers an intricate and powerful private governance system ordering transactions between the legal and the criminal economies.

Unfinished Business was an idea conceived between Paul Ferris and writing partner Reg McKay. When Reg passed away in 2009, Paul got on with his life. A film The Wee Man was based on one of his books and released in 2013. Three years later, a new alliance was formed between Paul and true crime writers Stuart Wheatman and Steve Wraith, and the idea was reimagined. Paul wanted to pay tribute to Reg while revisiting the notion that he still had things he wanted to say.

Sri Lanka, 2009. Decades of civil war and bloodshed are being brought to an end at last – by any means necessary. In the capital, Colombo, tenacious journalist Ameena Fernando is murdered, execution-style, on a busy street near her home, with no witnesses. With pressure growing to find Ameena’s killers, CIA agent Ellie Harper is sent to seek justice for the journalist’s death with strict instructions: Find something, but not too much. It’s her first time returning to the island after her last mission went tragically awry four years prior, and Ellie has more than one ghost to lay to rest.

Murray Tepper would say that he is an ordinary New Yorker who is simply trying to read the newspaper in peace. But he reads while sitting behind the wheel of his parked car, and his car always seems to be in a particularly desirable parking spot. Not surprisingly, he is regularly interrupted by...

Niles has just returned from eight years of serving his country as a Special Forces sniper. He's looking forward to a consulting job with Dynamic Defense and spending time with his family, including his bipolar mother, Lorna, and his hard-drinking uncle, Willie. What Niles doesn't know is that Dynamic Defense is actually a CIA front. He's not interested in joining them, but they won't take no for an answer.

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.

What happens when trust in the people managing your financial future is broken? Sheila Sanford and her husband, Gil, lived a cautious, careful life, making responsible decisions to protect their retirement. When they hired Saul, a financial advisor with a promising reputation, they believed they were making a wise choice. But what began as steady, transparent advice slowly became a web of complicated investments, missed payments, and growing doubts.