Empire of deception : the incredible story of a master swindler who seduced a city and captivated the nation

Author

Dean Jobb

Call Number

• 921 K844J (CEN)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, [2015]

Physical Description

x, 336 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Summary

"It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties ... Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people ... to invest as much as $30 million--upwards of $400 million today--in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama ... When Leo's scheme finally collapsed in 1923, he vanished, and the Chicago state's attorney, a man whose lust for power equaled Leo's own lust for money, began an international manhunt that lasted almost a year"--Provided by publisher.

Contents

• Our Ponzi
• Ambitions
• The law
• The gamble
• The dupe
• The big idea
• The syndicate
• The hanging judge
• The sting
• The confidence man
• The crime fighter
• The bubble
• The flight
• The smash
• The sensation
• The double life
• The victims
• The manhunt
• The alias
• The guide
• The hideaway
• The prince of entertainers
• The crime of the century
• The pariah
• The womanizer
• The trap
• The gang war
• The prisoner
• The return
• The confession
• The reckoning
• The final swindle.