Tag: scams

Top Books About Financial Swindles, Scandals, and Scams

If you are looking for some springtime reading, then books about financial swindles, scandals, and scams should interest you. All these books are non-fiction, the real thing, and provide true stories that are pretty incredible.

I have real all of these books, except the last one, and I highly recommend all of them. Enjoy.

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
You have probably heard of the Silk Road but do you know anything about the guy behind it? How he started it, how it grew beyond his or anyone’s wildest dreams, and how money and power can corrupt. It also corrupted some members of law enforcement. An amazing story and a book that reads like a page-turner mystery.

Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Tom Wright & Bradley Hope
If you have seen the Wolf of Wall Street movie, but you don’t know where the money came from to make the movie, you need to read this book! How billions were swindled with the help of a major investment banking company. The parties were unbelievable, and included such guests as Leonardo DiCaprio and Paris Hilton. The jewelry was unbelievable. The yachts were unbelievable.

Alligator Blood by James Leighton
An Australian in his 20s goes from delivering pizzas to becoming one of the richest people in Australia from online poker. What happens next …

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder
A timely book these days. How the author made a huge amount of money trading Russian shares, and the dark consequences of doing so.

Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street by Sheelah Kolhatkar
About, Steve Cohen, SAC Capital, insider trading, government investigators, and billions of dollars in profits.

The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader’s Tale of Spectacular Excess by Turney Duff
Autobiographical story of sex, drugs, hedge funds, and lots of money.

The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History by David Enrich
Have not read this yet, but it’s on my next non-fiction book to read. 4.5 stars on Amazon.

Happy reading!

 

 

 

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$2 Billion Crypto Fraud: BitConnect Promoter Pleaded Guilty

by Fred Fuld III

One of the directors of BitConnect, Glenn Arcaro, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy for his role in the BitConnect scam, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

BitConnect went out of business in 2018. Prosecutors said that the company was “a textbook Ponzi scheme”. The DoJ said investors lost over $2 billion in the fraud.

Bitconnect was created in 2016 with the goal of allowing users to lend the value of the Bitconnect coin in return for interest payments.

The BitConnect coin, known as BCC, rose from a post ICO price of $0.17 to an all-time high of $463 in December 2017; it tanked to $0.40 as in March of 2019.

Billion Dollar Whale: One of the Biggest Financial Swindles in History

by Fred Fuld III

If you haven’t read the book, Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World, by Tom Wright & Bradley Hope, you need to read it.

Do you know what all of the following have in common (in no particular order)?

Paris Hilton
Leonardo Dicaprio
Martin Scorsese
Malasia
Swiss Banks
Kleptocracy
Wolf of Wall Street Movie
Hollywood
Wall Street
Goldman Sachs
$500,000,000 Yacht
Miranda Kerr
$325,000 Ferrari
Supermodels
$33.5 million Manhattan condominium
President Obama
President Trump
Jamie Foxx
Busta Rhymes
Kasseem Dean
Alicia Keys
Swizz Beatz
Money Laundering
Cyprus
China
Macau
Indonesia
Bali
United States
12,000 pieces of jewelry
567 handbags
423 watches
FBI
Casinos
Million dollar parties
Las Vegas

All of the above are connected to a man named Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman who is accused of swindling billions of dollars, indirectly from the Malaysian government, and spending it on huge parties with actors, models, numerous bottles of champagne, gambling, and entertainment, in addition to expensive homes around the world.

Ironically, according to the book, Low funded the Martin Scorsese movie The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which was based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, the convicted stock market manipulator and boiler-room operator.

The story of Low reads like a financial mystery and thriller, and I rarely say this about a non-fiction book, but it is a page-turner.

So if you are looking for some end of summer reading, and if you like to read about frauds, scams, and swindles,  Billion Dollar Whale will definitely keep you occupied.


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Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals

It is rare that I ever say this about a non-fiction book, but I couldn’t put this book down. Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals by Bart R. McDonough is the most thorough guide on protecting yourself from cyber criminals.

It is a captivating book with numerous true anecdotes about the victims of cyber crime, which are included with every chapter and the most interesting parts of the book.

For example, there is the story of the woman who met a man on an online dating site and “loaned” him $72,000. When she tried to meet the man in person, he never showed up.

Another victim was a woman who received a phone call from her local hospital saying that her baby would have to be taken from her and turned over to child protective services because they detected meth in the baby. The woman said that, first, she didn’t have a baby, and second, she never used drugs in her life. Apparently, someone stole this woman’s medical ID so that the bad woman’s birth of her baby would be covered by the innocent woman’s insurance.

For some of the victims, you wonder how they could fall for a scam but others you feel sorry for, especially the grandparent scam victims.

If you think you know all the email scams, like email phishing, do you know what spear phishing is? How about whaling, clone phishing, SMS phishing, or pretexting?

At the end of every chapter, the author provides advice on how to protect yourself from the particular digital threat, whether you have a Windows or Mac computer, whether you have an Android or an iPhone, whether you use T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, or AT&T, and so on.

With the ubiquitous hacks, scams, privacy compromises, and identity thefts taking place, everyone should read Cyber Smart. I highly recommend it.

What I’m Reading: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup: The Theranos & Elizabeth Holmes Story




by Fred Fuld III

Actually, I’m not currently reading, I just finished reading Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou, and my first comment is “Wow”.  This is the story of the rise and fall of the notorious blood-testing company, Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes when she was 19 years old. The company, which claimed it could do numerous tests from one drop of blood, was valued at $9 billion at one time, and now is out of business.

This is one of the most extensive and thoroughly researched books on a corporate collapse that I have ever read. Carreyrou conducted numerous interviews  and writes the book in such a way that it comes across as a real life mystery and thriller.

If you don’t know the Theranos story, that’s probably a good thing and I won’t ruin it for you by giving away a lot of the details. But those of who were duped by Holmes, according to Carreyrou, include the following:

  • Steve Burd, Safeway CEO
  • Wade Miquelon, CFO Walgreens
  • James Mattis, current United States Secretary of Defense and a former United States Marine Corps general
  • George Shultz, former Secretary of State
  • Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State
  • Larry Ellison, co-founder, executive chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle Corporation
  • Rupert Murdock, Executive Chairman of News Corp and Executive Co-Chairman of 21st Century Fox (who invested over $100 million in the company)
  • And many, many other wealthy and high level individuals

If you are looking for some “can’t put it down” reading for the fall season, I highly recommend  Bad Blood. It is the twelfth most read book according to Amazon Charts and 90% of the ratings are five stars.

Beware of Fake Stock Brokerage Firms

Would you believe that crooks are actually creating fake broker-dealers in order to swindle you out of your money? In the old days, con men would set up real brokerage firms, then either churn your account, push penny stock pump-and-dump stocks on you, or on rare occasions, sell you totally fraudulent tax shelters.

But now, fictitious brokers and investment adviser companies are being created and many have names that sound like legitimate firms.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has a listing of a whole bunch of these scams. One interesting thing to note is that 28 of these firms are from New York, whereas only three are from California.

In the “old days,” most of the scams worked out of Newport Beach and Century City in California. I guess these days, New York adds more legitimacy to an investment company.

In addition to these fake companies, the SEC also provides a list of Unregistered Soliciting Entities Impersonating Genuine and Former US Registered Securities Firms.

Plus, some companies claim to be registered with an “official” United States agencies, that are either fake or pretend to be part of the U. S. Government. This is a list of fictitious governmental agencies.

If you have any doubt about a firm that you are planning on doing business with, check them out.

You can check out brokers and brokerage firms at:

FINRA BrokerCheck

You can check out investment advisors at:

Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website