Corporate Crime

Why were no bankers put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? Why do CEOs seem to commit wrongdoing with impunity? The problem goes beyond banks deemed "too big to fail" to almost every large corporation in America - to pharmaceutical companies and auto manufacturers and beyond. The Chickenshit Club - an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs - explains why.

Late one evening, investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500,000,000 in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.

The patriarch, C. F. Seabrook, was hailed as the "Henry Ford of Agriculture." His son Jack, a keen businessman, was poised to take over what Life called "the biggest vegetable factory on earth." But the carefully cultivated facade—glamorous outings by horse-drawn carriage, hidden wine cellars, and movie star girlfriends—hid dark secrets that led to the implosion of the family business. A compelling tale of class and privilege, betrayal and revenge three decades in the making, The Spinach King explores the author's complicated family legacy and the dark corners of the American Dream.

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.

In 1990, Victor Woods was charged by the US federal government with organizing a credit card scam worth more than forty million dollars. He refused to implicate his family and friends for a reduced sentence. His lawyer at the time remarked that he was “a breed apart.” In his authentic, matter-of-fact style, Woods shares the details of his evolution from a rebellious teen to a white-collar criminal and what inspired him to turn his life around while locked away as a federal inmate. Woods’s misdeeds and missteps remind us that sometimes we can be our own worst enemy.

The Real Fall of Union Carbide: Fraud, Corruption, and Mismanagement delves into the hidden story of how one of the world’s leading chemical corporations fell from grace. As Union Carbide rose to prominence for its innovation and safety record, it concealed a culture of greed and corruption behind its polished image. Told by a former U.S Treasury Special Agent and Union Carbide's Manager of Special Investigations, the book uncovers a web of fraud, bribery, and negligence within management, ultimately leading to the tragic Bhopal disaster and a total collapse of public trust.

TrafficKing uncovers a child sex trafficking case of epic proportions and the longest-running human trafficking case in US legal history - more poignant than the Lewinsky case, Watergate scandal, and Profumo affair combined. Eleven years after the registered level-3 sex offender was arrested, four cases associated with his 2005 criminal investigation remain open. The pedophile was not prosecuted under The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), a law enacted in Florida in 2000. In this gripping exposé, Sarnoff finds out why.

Arif Naqvi was charismatic, inspiring, and self-made—all the qualities of a successful business leader. The founder of Abraaj, a Dubai-based private-equity firm, Naqvi was the Key Man to the global elite searching for impact investments to make money and do good. In 2018, Simon Clark and Will Louch were contacted by an anonymous whistleblower who said Naqvi had swindled investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and offered bribes to sustain his billionaire lifestyle. In April 2019—months after their exposé broke—Naqvi was arrested on charges of fraud and racketeering.

As a private banker working for the largest bank in the world, UBS, Bradley Birkenfeld was an expert in Switzerland's shell-game of offshore companies and secret numbered accounts. He wined and dined ultrawealthy clients whose millions of dollars were hidden away from business partners, spouses, and tax authorities. As his client list grew, Birkenfeld lived a life of money, fast cars, and beautiful women, but when he discovered that UBS was planning to betray him, he blew the whistle to the US government.

Jennifer Robertson was working hard to build a life for herself from the ashes of her first marriage. Still only twenty-six, she swiped right on a dating app and met Gerry Cotten, a man she would not normally have considered—too young and not her type—but found she’d met her match.

In May of 2013, Max and Joyce Eliason entrusted their estate valued in excess of $250 million to the LDS law firm of Kirton McConkie located in Salt Lake City, Utah. They did so with the belief that their estate rich in oil properties was just as safe as the millions of dollars they had paid in tithes and offerings over the 59 years they were married. What has followed is the most criminal and heinous display of corruption which has led to Kirton McConkie and the leaders of the LDS Church unable to account for $1.00.

Arms trafficking, offshore accounts and luxury property deals. Super-yachts, private jets and super-car collections. blood diamonds, suspect oil deals, deforestation and murder. This is the world of Global Witness, the award-winning organisation dedicated to rooting out worldwide corruption. And this is co-founder Patrick Alley's revealing inside track on a breath-taking catalogue of modern super-crimes—and the 'shadow network' that enables them. Very Bad People is about going undercover in the world's most dangerous places and bringing down the people behind the crimes.

Carlos Ghosn always wanted more. Born in the Amazon, raised by a well-off—if scandalized—family in Beirut, and educated in Paris, Ghosn rose to prominence at Michelin in the United States, Renault in France, and Nissan in Japan. Along the way he earned monikers of Le Cost Killer, for his incisive business savvy, and Mr. 7-Eleven, for the hours he devoted to his work.

There's the world wide web - the internet we all know that connects us via news, email, forums, shopping, and social media. Then there's the dark web - the parallel internet accessed by only a select few. Eileen Ormsby has spent the past five years exploring every corner of the dark web. She has shopped on darknet markets, contributed to forums, waited in red rooms, and been threatened by hitmen on murder-for-hire sites.

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

An explosive, heartbreaking memoir from the widow of Mark Madoff and daughter-in-law of Bernard Madoff, the first genuine inside story from a family member who has lived through - and survived - both the public crisis and her own deeply personal tragedy. In this candid insider account, she talks about her idyllic wedding to Mark, what it was really like to be a part of the Madoff family, the build-up to Bernard's confession, and the media frenzy that followed. It is about the loss of the fairytale life she knew and the tragic and final loss of her husband.

Discover the shocking truth behind the relentless wave of crypto scams that have plagued the digital financial landscape. The Crypto Scammers is a gripping exposé that delves deep into the twisted world of deceit, murder, and financial manipulation, unraveling the intricate web of fraud, money laundering, NFT schemes, pump and dump tactics, and the seedy underbelly of dirty crypto exchanges.

As a rising star in pharmaceutical sales, Lisa Pratta wanted to believe that she was helping improve the lives of people who suffered from illness. But as she climbed the corporate ladder, she uncovered a sinister world of bribery, fraud, and sexual harassment—all papered over with a thin veneer of corporate respectability. At Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Lisa found herself at a small company with a blockbuster drug that could have been a lifeline for patients suffering from multiple sclerosis—that is, if it was prescribed properly.

No name is more synonymous with the evils of Wall Street than Bernie Madoff. Arrested for fraud in 2008 - during the depths of the global financial crisis - the 70-year-old market maker, investment advisor, and former chairman of the NASDAQ had orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in world history, fleecing thousands of investors across the globe to the tune of $65 billion. To this day, questions remain: Why did he do it? How did he get away with it for so long? What did his family know? Who is the elusive Bernie Madoff?

Charlie and Oliver Caruso are brothers who work at Greene & Greene, a private bank so exclusive you need two million dollars just to be a client. But when the door of success slams in their faces, they're faced with an offer they can't refuse: three million dollars in an abandoned account. No one knows it exists, and even better, it doesn't belong to anyone.