All Is Clouded by Desire Global Banking, Money Laundering, and International Organized Crime

Subjects:

• Crime & Justice » International Crime
• Law » Criminal Law

Reviews:

• Specialized collections in international crime or finance.
  —Choice February 2005

• Endorsement From Philip Jenkins,
  Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies
  Pennsylvania State University: Block and Weaver...present a stunning and richly informative picture of the complexities of criminality in a globalized environment. Their book has daunting implications for the political and law enforcement structures that will be needed to cope with the new world of international money-laundering.
• Endorsement From Frank Scarpittii,
  Distinguished Professor of Sociology
  University of Delaware: ...Their exhaustive research documents the unimaginable scope of Russian financial crime, the collapse of its banking industry, and the role of the Bank of New York in the theft of billions of dollars of Russian assets. From New York to Moscow and other points around the world, this is organized crime at its worst, perpetrated not by street-level hoodlums, but by bankers, businessmen, politicians and others willing to bankrupt a nation for personal gain. This is 'must' reading for those interested in international crime, as well as the recent history of Russia.
• Endorsement From Henry N. Pontell,
  Professor, Department of Criminology, Law and Society
  School of Social Ecology
  University of California, Irvine: A remarkable tale of global fraud that is impeccably researched...and convincingly provides the intricate details of a necessarily very complicated story. This book represents a major piece of scholarship in an area not touched upon by academics, and shows the enormous amount of fieldwork necessary to do it well. A must reading for those interested in the increasingly important, yet vastly understudied area of international financial fraud.
• Endorsement From Michael Levi, Professor, School of Social and Administrative Studies,
  University of Wales: This extraordinary and accessible book illuminates through the detailed case study method of living individuals and corporations, the interaction between motives, opportunities and techniques of white-collar and organized crime in a global financial system. The authors should be congratulated for their exposé of financial realpolitik, in which shady alliances between 'organised crime' and hypocritical corporate racketeers adjust to the forms of regulation that are put in place around the world, exposing the intentional and unintended gaps in the fabric of serious crime control.
• Endorsement From Sean Patrick Griffin, Ph.D.,
  Associate Professor of Administration of Justice, Penn State Abington
  and author of Philadelphia's Black Mafia: A Social and Political History: ...[A] scholarly yet lively and witty look into the serious crime community. Block and Weaver have greatly enhanced our understanding of so-called "transnational organized crime," all the while vividly depicting various relationships, conspiracies and their machinations among some interesting people. The authors have clearly done their homework and readers will be impressed with the depth of the field files, inter-office memoranda, government documents, research literature, news clippings and interview data into a fascinating and significant study.

Table of Contents:

• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction: The Bank of New York and Bruce Rappaport
• The Indonesian Affair: Spies, Lies, & Oil
• The Underworld of Banking and Financial Fraud: Inter Maritime and Castle Banks
• The Antigua Experience: Crooked Banks and Narcotraffickers
• Rappaport at Work: Iraq, Oman, and Iran/Contra
• The Bank of New York and Rappaport: Together at Last
• Moving Hot Money: Riggs National Bank and Valmet S.A.
• The Criminal Element: Benex and the Red Mafia
• Inkombank and BONY: The Rashomon Effect & The Klein Hypotheses
• Conclusion: The Crisis in Russian Banking and the Character of the Bank of New York