The Chicago Writers Association and Crime Writers of Canada Nonfiction Book of the Year – Finalist for Canada’s Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize
The larger-than-life exploits of 1920s Chicago con man extraordinaire Leo Koretz and his escape to a new life in Canada. Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation is a riveting tale of greed, glamour and one of the greatest swindles in history.
Paperback, ebook & audiobook available from Algonquin Books & HarperCollins Canada
FOR ALMOST TWENTY YEARS a charming, smooth-talking Chicago lawyer enticed hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million (upwards of $400 million today), most of it in phantom timberland and oil wells in Panama. His Bayano River Syndicate, he claimed, controlled millions of acres near the Canal Zone, including oilfields that produced a torrent of crude and earned investors an astounding 60 percent return.
Leo Koretz, right, with Cook County States Attorney Robert Crowe in 1924. The New York Times hailed Koretz as “the most resourceful confidence man in the United States.” (Author Collection)
His name? Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of the 1920s, a con man extraordinaire posing as a financial genius. The New York Times considered him “the most resourceful confidence man in the United States.”
His scam was simple: promise high returns and, as the money rolled in, use some to pay fat dividends to keep the stockholders happy while skimming off the rest. It’s the template Madoff used to rake in billions of dollars, a financial sleight of hand known as a ponzi scheme. Charles Ponzi used it to fleece unsuspecting immigrants, but Koretz mastered the scam long before Ponzi stole a dime and it took his imagination, bravado, and charisma to keep it running for almost two decades. When Ponzi’s fraud was exposed in 1920, Koretz’s investors never suspected they were next. They even gave their financial wizard a new nickname: “Our Ponzi.”
★ One of the 50 Best Biographies of all time — Esquire
★ A Wall Street Journal pick as one of the Top 5 books on swindlers
★ “8 True Crime Books So Riveting You Won’t Sleep” — First for Women magazine
★ the best con artist books of all time — New York magazine
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of Year, a National Post Best Book of the Year, a CBC Books choice for holiday gift-giving, and CNBC Power Lunch host Brian Sullivan’s pick as one of the top 5 books of 2015.
A Vanity Fair “Hot Type” pick and an Indie Next selection
An Amazon.com Business Book of the Year 2015 and Book of the Month
A Toronto Star / Metro Canada / Pittsburgh Tribune-Review / Raleigh News & Observer / NPR Utah recommended summer read
A Chapters/Indigo/Coles and BookNet Canada Indie bestseller
A Huffington Post Canada audiobook pick
The Chicago Writers Association’s Nonfiction Book of the Year, winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award and a finalist for Canada’s top award for nonfiction – the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize.
A cartoonist’s take on Koretz’s spectacular Bayano oil swindle (Chicago Daily News)
KORETZ LIVED WELL thanks to his gullible victims, splurging on a mansion overlooking Lake Michigan, Rolls-Royce limousines, suites at the finest hotels in Chicago and New York, mistresses and bootlegged booze. His house of cards came crashing down in 1923 when a group of investors organized a voyage to Panama to tour their lucrative holdings. Koretz stalled them for several months before approving the trip. “He told us he wanted us to see things for ourselves,” recalled Henry Klein, one of the syndicate’s largest shareholders. “He said we would be surprised.” Koretz saw them off, cleaned out his bank accounts, and disappeared before they discovered that the Bayano Syndicate was a sham.
Enter Chicago State’s Attorney Robert Crowe, a man whose ascent in the ruthless world of Chicago politics paralleled Koretz’s rise to financial stardom. Crowe and Koretz had begun their legal careers at the same law firm and, when the Bayano wizard’s swindle was exposed, he launched an international manhunt to bring his former colleague to justice.
Pinehurst Lodge near Caledonia – Koretz’s Nova Scotia hideaway. (Author Collection)
Koretz, sporting the beard he grew to pose as “Lou Keyte,” under arrest in Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Author Collection)
Koretz fled to Nova Scotia, on Canada’s Atlantic Coast. He grew a beard as a disguise, adopted the alias Lou Keyte, and posed as a retired financier-turned-literary critic. He converted a secluded hunting lodge into a posh estate where he entertained like a real-life Jay Gatsby and attracted a new circle of friends and female admirers. Chicago police and federal agents spent almost a year chasing anonymous tips and false leads. It began to look as if the master of the ponzi scheme might be a master escape artist as well.
EMPIRE OF DECEPTION recounts the exploits of one of the slickest con men in history. It recreates an era when it seemed as if everyone was entitled to easy riches – heady times not so different from our own. The incredible-but-true saga of Leo Koretz and his spectacular Jazz Age swindle exposes the pitfalls, then and now, of too much trust, too much greed, and too little common sense.
Check out My feature articles:
“Canada’s Madoff: How one of the greatest swindlers ever was nabbed in Halifax” – National Post
“The Jolly Millionaire: When a ponzi scheme artist moved to rural Nova Scotia” – The Walrus
BUY THE BOOK
Order the U.S. edition (Algonquin Books) from
Amazon.com (click here for a “sneak peek” inside) or
Barnes & Noble
Order the Canadian (HarperCollins) edition from Amazon.ca or Chapters.Indigo.ca
Listen to an excerpt from the audiobook from HighBridge Audiobooks
Order the large print edition from Thorndike Press
reviews
“Intoxicating and impressively researched, Jobb’s immorality tale provides a sobering post-Madoff reminder that those who think everything is theirs for the taking are destined to be taken.” – New York Times Book Review
Inside Detective magazine’s 1938 cover story on “lover boy” Leo Koretz. (Author Collection)
“Dean Jobb is a master of narrative nonfiction on par with Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City. Jobb’s biography of Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of the Jazz Age, is among the few great biographies that read like a thriller.” – Esquire, “The 50 Best Biographies of All Time”
“Comprehensively researched and enthralling … high-stakes drama of the first order … unmasking [a] master swindler and revealing the author as an equally masterful storyteller.” – Washington Post
“Reading Empire of Deception was like getting on the storied Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island … holding your breath throughout its peaks and valleys, then getting out of the car, flushed and shaken, only wanting to ride it all over again … [a] thrilling, too-wild-for-fiction tale.” – Globe and Mail
“Not since Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City has an author so eloquently captured the shadowy character of the city … masterful.” – BookPage
“The author keeps readers on edge following the scam’s collapse and the worldwide manhunt, as they wait to see if Koretz might just get away with it .... A highly readable, entertaining story offering a solid education for anyone lacking scruples and wanting to make money. Surely Bernie Madoff studied Koretz’s methods.” – Kirkus Reviews
“No one loved money more – or was better at persuading others to part with it – than Leo Koretz .... (A) lively tale of deceit.” – The Wall Street Journal
“A laugh-out-loud page-turner, full of gullibility and twists and turns … a jaw-dropping, rollicking good read.” – Booklist
“In our own wealth-besotted times, this well-researched story of Leo Koretz is a cautionary tale.” – Washington Independent Review of Books
“Fast-paced narrative … an absorbing tale of astonishing duplicity.” – Maclean’s
“A riveting look at a forgotten chapter in financial history … Empire of Deception offers a window into the golden age of cons and the human greed that drives such elaborate schemes.” – Times of India
“Fans of Erik Larson will love Jobb’s latest true crime masterpiece.” – Library Journal (starred review of audiobook edition)
“A fun read ... a well-paced, well-detailed piece of historical nonfiction about a man who bilked millions from “investors,” a la Bernie Madoff ... excellent pacing, and you’ll marvel at the sheer chutzpah (and skill) of Leo Koretz.” – An Amazon.com Best Business Book of 2015
“This lively, entertaining, and depressingly relevant history of a man and his con reads like a novel and will be enjoyed by fans of popular history as well as true crime.” – Library Journal (starred review)
“Through his thorough research into the historical record, Jobb is able to bring the scandalous fraud, and subsequent escape, of Leo Koretz to life …. This book may read like a work of entertaining fiction, but it is entirely well-researched historical fact.” – True Crime Index
“Meet the ‘forgotten con,’ the man who out Ponzi-ed Ponzi and Madoff … a story that seems to be as American as it can get, and it’s told well.” – The Christian Science Monitor
“Empire of Deception adds Leo Koretz to Chicago’s rogues’ gallery of the 1920s … great research … a masterpiece of narrative set-up and vivid language.” – Chicago Tribune
“Riveting … fascinating …. Long before Bernie Madoff, and even before Charles Ponzi, Leo Koretz perfected what came to be known as the Ponzi scheme.” – Columbus Dispatch
“Koretz is the forgotten forefather of investment fraud, and Jobb’s masterful account of his life (and sugary demise) makes for a compelling read.” – Atlantic Books Today
Awards & nominations
A display of finalists for the 2015 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize. (Juan Opitz photo)