Author Description

The exclusive story of a once-venerable Swiss bank that produced a conveyor belt of financial scandals and ultimately folded by Washington Post reporter Duncan Mavin. Credit Suisse was a 166-year-old bastion of Swiss banking. But a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, Credit Suisse banked dictators and drug dealers, hid stolen Nazi gold, and helped fraudsters fleece the bank's own clients out of billions of dollars. Its top executives oversaw a global operation that laundered money for autocrats; they hired spies to track one another through the cobbled streets of the Swiss financial capital; and they helped clients hide their money from the world's tax authorities. This is the story of the tawdry total meltdown of one of the biggest, most influential--and most scandal-ridden--banks on the planet. Uniquely sourced to tell the story of Credit Suisse's demise, Duncan Mavin has dozens of inside-the-room contacts who can spill exclusive details about the bank. Meltdown will appeal to the global audience of readers fascinated by the corruption that permeates international finance. It's an international tale that takes us from Mozambique to Australia, from Hong Kong to New York, and, of course, inside the hushed marble corridors of Zurich's banking elite. There has been a huge appetite for books on financial impropriety in recent years and this title will sit on shelves alongside Dark Towers by David Enrich, Kleptopia by Tom Burgis, and Money Men by Dan McCrum.