Corporate Crime

In 1988, Judge Joe O'Kicki was regarded by his peers as one of the most brilliant legal minds in the United States. He was newly remarried, sworn in as the president judge of a Pennsylvania county and on the fast track to a federal bench . . . Silently, however, a state police vice unit was in the midst of covert operation into O'Kicki's personal affairs. The judge would be accused of soliciting bribes, frequenting brothels, and running the county as if he were a "battleship commander." Later he'd concoct a plan to flee the country and exact revenge on his enemies.

O Brasil assistiu nos últimos anos ao rápido crescimento da JBS, que, nas mãos dos irmãos Wesley e Joesley Batista, saiu da condição de pequena empresa familiar para transformar-se em gigante mundial. Já no auge do sucesso, Joesley trocou o seu iate Blessed (“Abençoado”, em inglês) por um novo e maior, que batizou de Why Not (“Por que não?”). O sugestivo nome parecia indicar os rumos que os irmãos estavam dispostos a trilhar. Por que não subornar políticos para aprovar leis que favorecessem a empresa? Por que não crescer contando com atalhos e privilégios de uma rede estatal de benefícios?

23 luglio 1993. Raul Gardini, carismatico personaggio della scena economica mondiale, viene trovato in un lago di sangue nella sua camera da letto. Un colpo alla tempia, sparato da distanza ravvicinata. Omicidio o suicidio? Da tempo aveva il fiato sul collo dei magistrati, forse stava per essere arrestato. Quella stessa mattina Gardini avrebbe dovuto recarsi in procura per essere ascoltato riguardo alla maxitangente Enimont, la madre di tutte le tangenti, autentica spada di Damocle sospesa sul destino dell’intera classe politica italiana.

In Circle of Friends, award-winning journalist Charles Gasparino chronicles the massive federal crackdown that has already put some of the biggest names on Wall Street behind bars. Circle of Friends is not a defense of insider trading, but it does offer an account of the politics of Wall Street crime fighting, revealing the behind-the-scenes ambitions that motivate headlines and burnish political careers. A riveting work of narrative nonfiction, as engrossing and explosive as fictional thrillers of the finest magnitude.

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.

At 2:00 a.m. on October 2, 2001, Robert Stevens entered a hospital emergency room. Feverish, nauseated, and barely conscious, no one knew what was making him sick. Three days later he was dead. Stevens was the first fatal victim of bioterrorism in America. Bioterrorism expert Leonard Cole has written the definitive account of the Anthrax attacks. Cole is the only person outside law enforcement to have interviewed every one of the surviving inhalation-anthrax victims, along with the relatives, friends, and associates of those who died.

Den of Thieves tells, in masterfully reported detail, the full story of the insider-trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice. Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart shows for the first time how four of the biggest names on Wall Street - Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine - created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions.

Leland Faust unmasks Wall Street's unsavory tactics in powerful detail by giving listeners a high-level view of how the financial services industry misleads them, overcharges them, and exposes them to needless risk. He documents the financial industry's alluring come-ons, airbrushed risks, high-stakes gambling, half-truths, misleading statements, outlandish predictions, tricks to overcharge customers, bad deals, and outright fraud by the most prominent and renowned of Wall Street's players.

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.

Allen Stanford is a man who lives by his own rules. From building an empire that conned people out of $8 billion to landing a helicopter in the center of Lord’s Cricket Ground, he has never done anything by halves. Throughout this book, we will take an always interesting, sometimes humorous, and plenty staggering look at the life of Sir Allen Stanford. We will cover his younger years at Baylor where he pretended he was related to the founder of Stanford University all the way up to his claimed amnesia soon after the FBI had cuffed him.

When the City of London police raided the home of boiler room suspect and stockbroker mason's home in 2011, what came next was a roller-coaster ride from hell taking this former city boy into the bowels of one of Europe's most notorious prisons. Housing murderers, rapists, cartel members and this middle-class boy from Essex. Not Another Prison Diary tells you what happened in the aftermath of the UK's first "Wolf of Wall Street" style conviction. "Want to see inside? What about "Inside"!

These days - in the age of the internet and so called “social networking” - the seemingly bold actions of my own generation seem very mild in comparison. Now days, two kids that think they're in love send each other sexually explicit text messages - known as “sexting” - complete with nude photos taken with their cell phone cameras.

A federal agent goes rogue in 1970s-era Detroit and becomes its number one heroin distributor. But also among his crimes are extortion, illegal gun sales and explosives to gangs and the Detroit Mafia, fraud, blackmail, attempt to rob an armored car, threat to bomb the airport, and more. He was a dirty fed who operated under the noses of both his agency and the police for years, but a simple mistake brought his attention to his superiors, and it took two cunning and relentless internal affairs agents to hunt him down and bring him and his gang to justice.

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.

During the onslaught of legal actions during the Savings and Loans crisis of the 1980s, John Smith came to realize the extent of his employer's wrongdoing, and that he too had been one of many deceived. He discovered that you don't have to commit a crime to be convicted of one, and after years of turmoil, he discovered the relief when the FBI finally informed him 15 years after his sentencing that he should never have been prosecuted in the first place.

Johan af Donner har blivit synonym med bedragare av värsta sorten; en som stjäl från jordens fattiga för att finansiera sitt eget överklassliv. Under tio års tid svindlade han till sig nästan 8 miljoner kronor från Röda Korset och Cancerfonden, där han var en högt uppsatt chef. 2010 dömdes Johan af Donner i Svea Hovrätt till fem års fängelse. I Guldsot får man följa af Donners trygga uppväxt i villaförorten Saltsjö-Duvnäs, hans första steg in i reklambranschen och hans kometkarriär på Röda Korset och Cancerfonden. Men också hans växande kriminalitet, dramatiska kriser och självmordsförsök.

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.

Charles Deville Wells has two loves in life: Jeannette, his beautiful French mistress, and his sumptuous yacht, the Palais Royal. At the risk of losing both, Wells stakes everything he owns at the roulette tables in Monte Carlo's world-famous casino - and in the space of a few days he breaks the bank, not once but 10 times, winning the equivalent of millions in today's money. Is he phenomenally lucky? Has he really invented an 'infallible' gambling system, as he claims? Or is he just an exceptionally clever fraudster?

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.

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.