White Collar Crime

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 the world of high finance, multibillion-dollar Wall Street banks greedily guard their secrets. Enter Robert Kerbeck, a working actor who made his real money lying on the phone, charming people into revealing their employers’ most valuable information. In this exhilarating memoir that will appeal to fans of The Wolf of Wall Street and Catch Me If You Can, unsuspecting receptionists, assistants, and bigshot executives all fall victim to “the Ruse.”

When reclusive millionaire artist Robert Indiana died in 2018, he left behind dark rumors and scandal, as well as an estate embroiled in lawsuits and facing accusations of fraud. Here is the true story of the artist’s final days, the aftermath, the deceptive world that surrounded him, and the inner workings of art as very big business.

In the spirit of Evicted, Bait and Switch, and The Big Short, a shocking, heart-wrenching investigation into America’s housing crisis and the modern-day robber barons who are making a fortune off the backs of the disenfranchised working and middle class - among them, Donald Trump and his inner circle.

Journalist Kathleen McLaughlin knew she’d found a treatment that worked on her rare autoimmune disorder. She had no idea it had been drawn from the veins of America’s most vulnerable. So begins McLaughlin’s ten-year investigation researching and reporting on the $20-billion-a year business she found at the other end of her medication, revealing a “vampiric real-life story of modern-day greed” (Leah Sottile, host of Bundyville).

On July 17, 1971, Egil “Bud” Krogh was summoned to a closed-door meeting by his mentor—and a key confidant of the president—John Ehrlichman. Expecting to discuss the most recent drug control program launched in Vietnam, Krogh was shocked when Ehrlichman handed him a file and the responsibility for the Special Investigations Unit, or SIU, later to be notoriously known as “The Plumbers.” The White House Plumbers is Krogh’s account of what really happened behind the closed doors of the Nixon White House, and how a good man can make bad decisions, and the redemptive power of integrity.

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.

The Thunderbird Motel, 1977. J. J. Wedick and Jack Brennan - two fresh-faced, maverick FBI agents - were about to embark on one of their agency's first wire-wearing undercover missions. Their target? Charismatic, globetrotting con man Phil Kitzer, whom some called the world's greatest swindler. From the Thunderbird, the three men took off to Cleveland, to Miami, to Hawaii, to Frankfurt, to the Bahamas - meeting other members of Kitzer's crime syndicate and powerful politicians and businessmen he fooled at each stop.

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.

This account describes how a 28-year-old from Watford, Nick Leeson, plunged Barings Bank into ruin. In 1994, Leeson seemed to be making the company millions of pounds a week, but he explains how the cover-up of a colleague's small error led to the crash of Britain's oldest merchant bank.

In December 2008, the world watched as master financier Bernard L. Madoff was taken away from his posh Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, accused of swindling thousands of innocent victims - including friends and family - out of billions of dollars in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Madoff went to jail; he will spend the rest of his life there. But what happened to his devoted wife and sons?

It's easy to imagine Harold Shipman doting on his little grandkids, reading them stories from his lap and letting them play with his big, bushy beard. If you were told he was a doctor, I bet you'd imagine he was a good, kind and gentle one, with an easy, affable manner and deep care for his patients. Harold Frederick Shipman certainly projected all those qualities, but only so that he could hide the evil that lurked deep inside. Shipman abused his trust and used his position to kill.

When a band of backwoods hunters crash a corporate retreat in the wilderness, executives find themselves held hostage by men who will do anything to get the largest ransom in history. The corporate big shots hadn't wanted junior exec Jake Landry there. But now he's the only one who can save them.

When he’s recruited by Walker & Company, the most distinguished investment bank on Wall Street, starry-eyed MBA Richard Blum can’t believe his luck. Sadly, his fantasy world comes to a crashing end when he learns that some crooks have a taste for Gucci loafers and Saville Row suits. CEO Jack Grass and Mickey Steinberg, head of Mergers and Acquisitions, are running an insider trading ring right under his nose. Even worse, to keep the Feds off their trail, they made sure Richard appeared to be a key player.

When Michael Woodford was made president of Olympus - the company to which he had dedicated thirty years of his career - he became the first Westerner ever to climb the ranks of one of Japan’s corporate giants. Some wondered at the appointment - how could a gaijin who didn’t even speak Japanese understand how to run a Japanese company? But within months Woodford had gained the confidence of most of his colleagues and shareholders.

Former Wall Street whiz and current convict Mickey Steinberg is nearing the end of his three-year sentence at Yankton - the cushy country club prison where he's enjoyed celebrity status - and he's ready to get out and get back on top. He doesn't have the resources he once did, but he's already hatched a new plan to sell a forgery of a stolen Van Gogh painting through the shady underground art market. He and his new partner, the smooth-talking Paul Reece, have a mark in mind: The sleazy con-man art dealer who swooped in on Mickey's beloved ex-wife after he was locked up. But with his old partner, Jack Grass, hell-bent on revenge and his pre-prison life closed to him, it won't be easy.

“I'll never forget the first time I killed a man. Wait...I'm getting way ahead of myself calling it a killing. Yes, I did kill him, but you couldn't really classify it as a murder. I shot him in order to save an innocent person's life, in the line of duty. I used to be a cop. Until I killed - but a justified shooting - a young man by the name of Tommy Ray Wallace."

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!

For years, Monsanto declared that their product Roundup, the world’s most widely used weed killer, was safe. But that all changed in 2015, when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) analyzed data from scientific studies and concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was probably carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disagreed, other regulatory agencies got involved, and scientists clamored to understand the link between glyphosate and cancer.

Lean how to embezzle from a medical practice and more importantly how to prevent employees from stealing from your practice. Sometimes you have to think like a thief to catch a thief. This book shows you vulnerabilities you may not realize you have and how to deter, detect, and recover from employee theft.