De Duistere Bank: De schokkende ontmaskering van Deutsche Bank

by David Enrich

Het Schokkende verhaal van de Deutsche Bank als het symbool van roekeloos, gewetenloos en crimineel beleid in de bankenwereld.
David Enrich, financieel redacteur bij The New York Times, doet al jaren grondig onderzoek naar de schimmige praktijken van de Deutsche Bank. Zijn bevindingen zijn onthutsend, van de financiële steun bij het bouwen van Auschwitz tot de samenwerking met inmiddels veroordeelde criminelen als Jeffrey Epstein, Russische oligarchen en terroristische regimes. Om voet aan de grond te krijgen in Amerika begon de bank bovendien een samenwerking met een vastgoedmagnaat die door alle andere banken was geweigerd: Donald Trump.
In De duistere bank heeft topbankier Bill Broeksmit een hoofdrol, na zijn zelfmoord werd duidelijk dat hij te veel geheimen kende van zijn werkgever Deutsche Bank. Enrich geeft die geheimen nu genadeloos prijs.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Politics, History, Finance, Economics, Audiobook

420 pages, Paperback

First published February 18, 2020

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Trump in the White House there would presumably be extensive digging into every deal he’d ever done, every partner he’d ever worked with, every loan he’d ever received—many of which involved Deutsche. And the facts that Trump’s election was under a cloud because of Russia’s efforts to sway the vote and that his leading lender had for years been engaged in money-laundering activity in Russia—well, it didn’t take a genius to realize that real or imagined dots would soon be connected linking Deutsche to Russia to Donald Trump. This was especially true since the bank a decade earlier had connected Trump with wealthy Russians as he prepared to build resorts in Hawaii and Mexico.

We all know that those much anticipated revelations have had scant time in the sun, but we also know that Deutsche Bank (DB) is where a whole bunch of the bodies are buried. In looking at DB, Donald Trump makes up only a small part of the book, but he is the tale that wags the dog in this biography of a bank. Donald Trump is a deadbeat, a con man extraordinaire. After getting massive loans from a range of New York banks, and stiffing them, resulting in massive losses, he was essentially blacklisted in New York. No reputable bank would lend him anything. Yet, as he announced his candidacy for the presidency, there was one financial entity still willing to do deals with him. How did DB get to a point where they were the only bank in the world that would lend money to such a complete fiscal lowlife. How could any bank make loans of billions of dollars to him and his family?


David Enrich - image from AirMail.News

Enrich introduces us early to a key figure in understanding DB’s secrets. Val Broeksmit was the ne’er do well stepson of Bill Broeksmit, a reasonably ethical guy who had been called on multiple times to step in at DB and make sure things were being done on the up and up. When they were not, he let upper management know. This does not mean that his advice was always heeded. But there came a time when regulators were closing in, and a part of DB where he had particular responsibility had been doing business in an unacceptable way. He had missed it. Years of working at this mad company had taken a toll. He had retired or tried to retire several times, but, like Michael Corleone in Godfather III, he finds it is not so easy to stay out. The years of major stress and this final failing, his internalization of the stresses of the company, became too much. Bill hanged himself. (although Val thinks he was killed) Val managed to get his hands on considerable quantities of stepdad’s communications. How he uses this trove, and how it is used by others, researchers, authors, and government officials, forms a tranche that permeates the modern story of the bank. As an example of how greed turns good people turn bad, though, it is never made clear that Broeksmit had ever really done anything illegal or clearly unethical. Maybe it is more that this criminal corporation had destroyed a guy who was basically decent, who had the temerity to ask how bank actions might affect their clients.


Bill Broeksmit - image from The New York Post

Enrich gives us a look at the bank’s beginnings in the 19th century, its later alignment with Nazis, as it removed Jews from its board and staff, its financing of the construction of Aushwitz, and its survival, after the war. The USA wanted the bank liquidated, but the UK wanted it around to help in paying the UK the war debts Germany had agreed to.


Val Broeksmit - image from the NY Times

DB settled in to being a conservative bank, serving businesses, and scrupulously looking after their clients’ interests. But a new element entered as derivatives began to grow from a conservative way to hedge one’s risks to a form of casino gambling. DB looked to expand from its European roots to a global presence. They brought in people, from the USA and elsewhere, who had the expertise to establish DB in these new markets.


Josef Ackermann - image from The Irish Times - DB CEO from 2002 to 2012 – he led the huge expansion of the corporation

It was wildly successful, even if the paper DB held, now that it was gambling with its own as well its clients’ money, might be wildly overvalued. DB had made itself into the largest bank in the world. Part of the success was because the top bosses demanded insane levels of growth. At one point it was expected that profits should grow 25% a year. In no sane world was this possible. But there were, however, insane ways to achieve the goal. Do business with dodgy characters with whom no one else wanted to do business, and charge them hefty fees for the privilege. People like Russian oligarchs, middle eastern royal families, and kleptocrats, were eager for ways to transform their local currencies into dollars or euros, and DB was more than happy to help. They were also willing to match eastern dirty laundry with western spin cycles, and thus were able to connect Russian officials busy looting their nation’s resources with, say, real estate developers in need of large cash infusions to pursue expensive projects, for a piece of the action. Legality was an unfortunate victim to such transactions. International sanctions were ignored. Adherence to fiduciary norms took a hit. The result was that DB eventually became known for the stain of its dishonesty with its own customers, and willingness to cut legal corners to sustain an unnatural level of growth. Neither did the Mad Max atmosphere at the bank do much for the people working there, except, of course, for those directing the crimes, who made off with staggering sums.

Enrich tells the DB story by focusing on a series of individuals at the upper levels of management, offering not only a look at where they came from and what they did in their executive positions, but a take on their personalities, what made them tick, even, for some, their family lives. This approach is a common, but effective one, that succeeds in making the DB story not one of a glass-encased corporate entity (or, a person, according to Mitt Romney) but a human story, with some decent people, some bad guys, and some really, really bad guys.


The DB towers in Frankfurt – image by Krisztian Bocs for Bloomberg

There are some fun bits in here that are likely to surprise you, like how Val and his trove of dad’s intel got connected with Adam Schiff by way of Moby. Mostly, though, Val’s doings seem sad rather than enlightening, but do offer a bit of a look at how difficult it can be, sometimes, for journalists and investigators to secure much-needed information, when the source is less than a standup sort.


Anshu Jain - Co-CEO of DB from 2011 to 2015 – he left as a result of the the Libor Rate-fixing Scandal - image from FirstPost.com

By the end you will see how it came about that DJT had found a financial home with DB, and you will know what it took for a conservative institution to have totally lost its mind and evolved into a grand scale criminal enterprise. And you will be left wondering just how long it will take for the wheels of justice to grind their way to delivering actual justice to so many who flaunt the laws to the detriment of the rest of us.

In the final months of the Obama administration, all signs had pointed to charges soon being filed against bank employees and probably the bank itself. At the very least, a multibillion-dollar financial penalty looked all but certain.Something curious, however, had happened as soon as Trump took the oath of office. The investigation had gone silent. Week after week, Deutsch’s lawyers and executives wondered when they would get an update. At first, they worried that the delay spelled trouble. Perhaps, after campaigning as a populist, after vowing that he was “not going to let Wall Street get away with murder,” Trump planned an aggressive crackdown on banking malfeasance. Perhaps, after having his election victory tarnished by Russian interference, Trump would try to dispel those suspicions with a high-profile assault on Russian money laundering. But as the months passed, and nothing happened, executives’ fears faded. One source of relief was the realization that two of the Justice Department’s most powerful prosecutors, Geoffrey Berman and Robert Khuzami, both had previously represented Deutsche…Bank executives soon concluded that Russia was off-limits, too hot to handle, for the Trump administration. So, it seemed, was Deutsche.

Review first posted – February 28, 2020

Publication dates
----------February 18, 2020 - hardcover
----------December 16, 2020 - trade paperback



=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s GR, Twitter, Instagram and FB pages

Interviews
----- Expected case against Deutsche Bank disappeared in Trump transition
-----Rachel Maddow - Transcript of the entire show
-----NPR - 'Dark Towers' Exposes Chaos And Corruption At The Bank That Holds Trump's Secrets - by Dale Davies

Items of Interest
-----Why are so many bankers committing suicide?
-----NY Times – by Enrich - Me and My Whistle-Blower
-----The Libor Scandal

[Donald Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is all about Deutsche Bank. The Donald Trump material is mostly added to get you to buy the book. There are no revelations about Trump's relations with the bank that have not already been disseminated; however, it is presented in clear and coherent prose and that was worth the price of the book. The true revelations of the book are the machinations of banking and finance that are so non-productive and often destructive to the economy and real people's lives. The old saying the money is the root of all evil is the lesson. Tragic impositions on lives and the moral dilemmas folks face in business, finance and gobs of money are very poignantly unmasked here. The complexity of people allowed to treat banked money is always shocking and this book is a documentation of a great deal of that. The author was very sensitive to an average person's understanding of banking in this era. Thanks to Rachel Maddow for recommending this book.

[Michael Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 Ways the Trumps Allegedly Tried to Conceal Financial Fraud

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/...

===========

The Apprentice story....

https://thebulwark.com/the-worlds-bro...

===============

Months after that inaugural episode of The Apprentice in January 2004, Trump filed his individual tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year. The red ink spilled from everywhere, even as American television audiences saw him as a savvy business mogul with the Midas touch.

Six key findings from the New York Times' Trump taxes bombshell

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...

==========

After Trump got a $125 million loan from Deutsche Bank to renovate 40 Wall Street, he rented a penthouse suite there to a Russia-born criminal named Felix Sater, who would spend the ensuing decades working closely with Trump’s company, including trying to arrange for a Trump-branded tower to be built in Moscow in 2015 and 2016. Deutsche became Trump's regular banker. More loans followed as Deutsche rushed headlong into a relationship that would have serious implications for the bank— and for the world.

Trump once called the banker's home and tried to persuade him and his wife, Dara Mitchell, a high-powered art saleswoman at Sotheby’s, to fly to Atlantic City in Trump’s helicopter with him. Dara nixed it. She had recently endured an evening seated next to Trump at a Manhattan fundraiser and was in no hurry to repeat the experience.

============

Justin Kennedy, (son of Supreme Court justice, Anthony Kennedy) was now a managing director and had become a key point of contact for Trump. Kennedy sometimes sat with Trump in his luxury box at the US Open tennis tournament or at Manhattan nightclubs, where Trump would park himself at a table in the corner, facing outward, holding court like a Mafia don.

In 2000, the bank had plunked down another $150 million to be used for the renovations of Trump’s building at 40 Wall Street. The next year, Deutsche agreed to extend Trump a mortgage worth more than $900 million— at the time, the largest ever on a single property— so he could buy the General Motors Building. And in 2002, Deutsche agreed to refinance about $70 million that he owed on some of his Atlantic City casinos.

But it proved hard to convince Deutsche salespeople to pitch Trump products. “Let me talk to your salespeople,” he requested. And Trump came to deliver a pep talk. “Fellas, I know this isn’t the easiest thing you’ve had to sell,” he acknowledged. “But if you get this done, you’ll all be my guests at Mar-a-Lago.” Trump was always good at pushing an audience’s buttons— a weekend with Trump at Mar-a-Lago: bragging rights that not even money could buy— and this new incentive did the trick. The salesmen worked the phones, cast a wider net for more clients, and managed to sell an impressive $485 million of junk bonds.

The following year, with his casinos on the rocks, Trump’s company stopped paying interest on the bonds and filed for bankruptcy protection. (“I don’t think it’s a failure; it’s a success,” Trump spun.)

He had declared to the bank that he was worth roughly $3 billion. But when Deutsche crunched the numbers that his accountants had compiled, they concluded that the real number was about $788 million. Meanwhile, Deutsche steered very rich Russians into the Trump ventures.

However, there was more to Trump’s relationship with Deutsche than money. The bank was still trying to establish its brand in the United States, and despite his financial woes, Trump— whose hit TV show The Apprentice had debuted in 2004 on NBC— provided splashy publicity for the bank.

--------

CODA.....

Trump has NEVER been a financial success, in spite of his claims to be a billionaire. He squandered the $400 million plus dollars his father gave to him. He had no idea how to run a business. Many people don't seem to understand that The Apprentice was just play-acting. He's trying to make up for that now by using his current position as an opportunity for kleptomania.

In 2019, The New York Times broke the story (below) that Donald Trump for over a decade had managed to lose more money than any other American and, in some years, twice as much as any other American, according to the I.R.S. information on high earners. Indeed, in 1990 and 1991, his core businesses lost more than $250 million each year—more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the sampling for those years. Trump claims to be a great businessman who was wildly successful, while in fact he was one of the greatest failures in modern American business history.

This is the man Republicans chose because of his business smarts and success?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us...

================

Mary Trump delivered boxes of Trump financial data to the NYT in 2018, which resulted in this expose of Trump tax evasion. The article won a Pulitzer.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...

============

Putin's Puppet

By the late 1990s, Trump was generally considered to be uncreditworthy and bankrupt. He owed about four billion dollars to more than seventy banks, of which some $800 million was personally guaranteed. He never showed any inclination or capacity to pay back this debt. After his 2004 bankruptcy, no American bank would lend him money. The only bank that did so was Deutsche Bank, whose colorful history of scandal belied its staid name. Interestingly, Deutsche Bank also laundered about $10 billion for Russian clients between 2011 and 2015. Interestingly, Trump declined to pay back his debts to Deutsche Bank.

Russians had to transform a failed real estate developer into a recipient of their capital. Second, this failed real estate developer had to portray, on American television, a successful businessman. Finally, Russia intervened with purpose and success to support the fictional character “Donald Trump, successful businessman” in the 2016 presidential election.

Russians knew Trump for what he was: not the “VERY successful businessman” of his tweets but an American loser who became a Russian tool.

Russian money saved him from the fate that would normally await anyone with his record of failure.

A Russian oligarch bought a house from Trump for $55 million more than Trump had paid for it. The buyer, Dmitry Rybolovlev, never showed any interest in the property and never lived there—but later, when Trump ran for president, Rybolovlev appeared in places where Trump was campaigning. Trump’s apparent business, real estate development, had become a Russian charade. Having realized that apartment complexes could be used to launder money, Russians used Trump’s name to build more buildings.

============

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Throughout reading this book, I was very confused by all the different people and the role they played at Deutsche Bank. I really missed an overarching story and the point that the author tried to make. Although the situation itself is interesting, the writing style reminded me a lot of the book ’Bad Blood’ by John Carreyrou about biotech company Theranos that faked its results. In that review, I wrote:

“The author drops way too many names, and writes a lot about unimportant details. This is not essential to the story! [...] Most importantly, many of the questions that I had before/while reading this book never got answered. [...] Except that the whole situation is bizarre and therefore interesting, the book has very few redeeming qualities.”

I feel the same way about Dark Towers unfortunately!

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Germany’s Deutsche Bank has a long history of some, frankly, “odd” financial dealings that began when the bank was created from putting together many banks to make one large one. Some of these shenanigans involve Donald Trump’s business loans, but David Enright looks at the bank in its history in his book, “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and an Epic Trail of Destruction”.

Russian oligarchs mix with shady characters from all over the world in money laundering that other banks wouldn’t touch. Why would Deutsche Bank make specious loans? Who was behind the bank’s business decisions and how do people like a US Supreme Court Justice figure into American politics? David Enright’s book is a great read which exposes the dirty side of Deutsche Bank and its dealing.

[Miss M · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a shit show.

[Eric_W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book Trump should have tried to ban. Forget Bolton et al. It reveals the incestuous relationship between a bank, Russia, money laundering, and its most famous client. The bank that Donald Trump came to rely on to subsidize his shrinking empire after banks in the US refused to loan him money, having been stiffed by him too often. He had a habit of just not repaying the loans.(A running joke is that Donald had written many books on making deals and business, but they all ended with Chapter 11.)

The bank itself, after having been taken over by US traders, was getting into trouble by emphasizing short-term profits through ever-increasing levels of risk. Traders were paid by the estimated return on a bet, usually using derivatives which formerly had been better used to lower risk. They would often over-estimate the return knowing that their compensation would not be adjusted downward if the bet failed to return their estimate. Many were earning millions every year in bonuses.

Steve Bannon, quoted in Fire and Fury, noted that the Trump family was all about cash. Eric Trump had been quoted as saying they could get all the money they needed from Russia, and Bannon (who himself has been charged with stealing money from Wall donors) saw the insatiable appetite for money that the Trump family had. Bannon"s story was interesting in itself. He had been a trader at Goldman Sachs, but his father had suffered financial collapse in 2008 and that turned Bannon into a flaming revenge artist vowing to get the eastern bankers, i.e. a standard economic populist. He allied himself with Trump's populist rhetoric.

It gets even messier as Enrich lays out the connections between Justin Kennedy to the Trump family. In case anyone has forgotten, Brett Kavanaugh clerked for Anthony Kennedy, Justin's father, who interceded with Trump on Kavanaugh’s behalf. The banks affairs became so entangled that there were several suicides of bank officers and lawyers who despaired of unethical and illegal machinations. Greed and money laundering would appear to be at the heart of much modern finance and Trump was right in the middle.

The all consuming emphasis on profit meant that traders would go anywhere, to any country, that needed hard currency. Since most of the world's trades were conducted in US dollars, much of those transactions occurred through New York. And since Deutsche was trading with rogue countries under US sanction, like Iran, Syria, and Russia, interest was aroused in intelligence and legal quarters. When it became apparent that US soldiers were being killed in Iraq by weapons used by terrorists being supported by Iran, the families of the dead soldiers filed suit against Deutsche. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, money laundering became endemic and an audit revealed that Russian mafia money was pouring into the US through Deutsche's Eastern Europe connections, most of it being washed in New York's lucrative luxury real estate market. Guess who was a big player in that market?

After the crash of 2008, caused in large part by the risky bets using unusual financial instruments of big banks, especially Deutsche, country leaders looked to those bank leaders for advice. In Germany, Merkle went to Ackerman, head of Deutsche whose advice profited no one more than Deutsche itself.

Without going into too much detail and having no desire to spoil a great story, thousands of emails from a Deutsche banker who had committed suicide fell into the hands of reporters. They revealed that the loans Trump had personally guaranteed (meaning the bank could go after his personal wealth should he default on the huge number of loans he had with them) had been layered off to a Russian bank, meaning that the loans were actually coming from the Russians. (Remember that Eric Trump had bragged his family could get all the money they wanted from the Russians.) So you had a situation where a new American president owed millions of dollars to a Russian bank that was controlled by the KGB.

A fascinating, if disturbing, read. Stay tuned, the story continues.

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

No New Revelations about Trump and Few about Deutsche Bank

This book is not very well written and it doesn’t live up to its hype.

Trump’s name is highlighted in the subtitle to sell books, but there is nothing very revealing about Donald Trump beyond what we already know.

Given Trump’s record of bankruptcies, his reputation for litigation, and his general character, he ran out of banks that were willing to lend him money. This fact is well known.

News will be made at some point if Trump’s financial records held at Deutsche Bank become public. There are no such revelations in this book or even a slight lifting of the curtain.

So the story, as found in Dark Towers, is about the poor internal controls and a “profit above all” culture at Deutsche Bank. It is not a Trump tell-all, although Trump benefitted from Deutsche’s compartmentalization, lack of controls, and nonexistent ethical culture.

Some two years after Trump the businessman had stiffed Deutsche and other banks for hundreds of millions, he found a conduit to borrow hundreds of millions through the Deutsche Private Bank -- assisted by private banker Rosemary Vrablic. The left hand at Deutsche had no idea what the right hand was doing. Trump has always seemed to find a way to continue to work scams. At Deutsche, he found an opening that he could squeeze through.

The author profiles several Deutsche executives responsible for the bank’s troubles, including Josef Ackermann, regarded, at the time he was CEO, as a brilliant banker and later discredited. No better was Anshu Jain who, along with Jurgen Fitschen, was Ackermann’s successor and who drove the bank further into the ground.

But most of all, Enrich provides tedious detail about one man, Bill Broeksmit, the Deutsche Bank risk manager who committed suicide, and his son Val who retrieved many of his father’s business e-mails and who provided author Enrich and a handful of other journalists, as well as regulators, with access to the contents. We are told in excruciating detail about every incident of the son’s drug use, his estrangement from his mother, and his desire to hold Deutsche accountable for the suicide of his father. This narrative is sad but unenlightening. Again and again, Enrich teases, “What did Broeksmit know about Deutsche that led him to suicide?” He never answers the question and by the end of the book the reader might wonder, “Who cares?”.

It is true that Deutsche has been involved in just about every scandal that money center banks have engaged in -- money laundering (particularly Russian oligarch money), LIBOR manipulation, the inability to develop investment banking talent (and overpaying to hire outside talent who almost always disappointed), lack of investment in technology and internal controls, pursuit of short term profits by taking on unwise risk, tax evasion, on and on.

There is indictment of regulators both in the U.S. and Europe, who acted lethargically or not at all. Year after year Deutsche was found to be poorly run, violating regulations and laws, and becoming a risk to the entire banking system. But regulators never moved beyond warnings and never held the bank or its management to account. That’s a point worth making.

While traditional banks around the world grappled with the changes that technology, communications, and international markets presented, the German banking culture and Deutsche's interlocking connections with large German industrial companies in the postwar period made the transition to innovation and investment banking particularly hard. There is no insightful examination of Deutsche's problems of corporate history and culture.

The contents of the Broeksmit e-mails merely confirm many of the misdeeds already well known to regulators and previously reported in the press. So nothing in this book is a significant journalistic scoop. Instead it is a tedious 361 page read.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considerable detail on the machinations of Deutsche Bank and their dealings in the derivatives market on Wall Street. Dark Towers is the story of a staid, old organization run by fusty Germans that encountered Wall Street and liked the results all the while making increasingly risky investments leveraged by derivatives. The only bank willing to take a chance with the likes of Donald Trump, a profligate real estate grifter with multiple loan defaults to his name AND his high risk soon to be son-in-law Jared (who introduced him to Deutsche Bank). It all seemed like a sweet deal until the Feds and European regulators started levying fines in the 100's of millions of dollars/euros for a host of illegal trading activities on Deutsche; then against all odds Trump became the president of the U.S., which naturally horrified Deutsche Bank given his new authority, penchant for default and the ill will that would likely result if the bank were to call in their >$700M in loans on his failing real estate empire.

You wonder how this happened and realize that one person virtually unknown despite all the negative news about Trump and his business dealings (Rosemary Vrablic) an account rep with Deutsche Bank's Private Wealth organization was able to persuade her management to keep fronting loans for yet another real estate project to Trump. While Deutsche Bank may be the lender the betting line is that it's actually Russia's VTB Bank among others that hold the loans which makes the outcome of the Supreme Court case filed by State of NY seeking Trump's financials all the more intriguing. Stay tuned...

[Rick Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked his other book “Spider Network” about the manipulation of LIBOR. This book didn’t have the same punch. There was a combination of not enough focus on the “holy shit” information. Russian money laundering, the context of the risk associated with lending to the Trump organization, etc. And an over focus on a lot of information that didn’t really do much. I honestly didn’t understand the focus on Val in the second half of the book.

In general it’s appalling how loose DB was in their pursuit of short term profits. And how easy it was for them to get away with negligence.

[Adam]

++++++======
FYI: 'a son of Supreme Court Justice...' that would be Kennedy, Justin Kennedy - daddy made way for career alcoholic and rapist to become Trumpy's pick for bench to overturn Roe v Wade.

[britt_brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crooked ass lender backs crooked ass debtor. Here are the the storied lives of megalomaniacs: sketchy derivatives, unorthodox multimillion-dollar loans, zero ethics, and more than one suicide. This shit blows my (former) corporate-multimillion/billion-dollar-loan-analyst mind. A bit dry, but a worthy read.

[Matias Singers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think of “Dark Towers” first and foremost as a comprehensive book on the modern history of Deutsche, and it does a great job at that. There are a couple of initial chapters about the bank’s founding, involvement with the American railway, and dealings with the Nazis during World War II.

The many detailed accounts of mismanagement and how the company went off the tracks both culturally and morally is told through stories on several high-ranking figures (i.e., Bill Broeksmit, Edson Mitchell, Anshu Jain, Rajeev Misra).
The details leading up to the 2008 financial crisis are described well, especially on the risky derivatives plays Deutsche was doing at the time - only really making it through the crisis by betting against the housing market (as described in books like “Big Short”).

As another reviewer mentioned, the Trump chapters seem to have been sort of tacked on later and are only really connected with the rest of the storylines at the very end of the book.

The books provide great insights into how a large organization ended up so far astray, and how a dangerous mix of unchecked bankers and mind-boggling monetary incentives ended up without proper oversight and controls in place.
I learned a ton about the inner workings of banks and money laundering schemes at scale, especially how banks like Deutsche were instrumental in assisting Russians with moving money away from the Kremlin.

I think the author spent a bit too much time on Val (Bill Broeksmit’s adopted son), but that was expected since he was the primary source for David Enrich - and it does help move the story along, almost like a novel at times.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very readable and troubling account of the rise and fall of Deutsche Bank. It shows the drive of institutional greed and taking huge risks, such as on derivatives, to make money. It reveals how one arm of the bank loaned Trump money when he was in default of a multi-million dollar loan to another arm of the bank. The loan from the private banking arm allowed him to pay what he owed to the investment banking division. It records how Trump defaulted on junk bonds Deutsche had helped sell to try to keep his casino afloat. It records how Deutsche Bank was the only one who would deal with Trump because his record of payments was so dismal. It reminds us of the bank reporting suspicious activity in 2016 as Don Jr. moved funds to a number of Russian individuals at the same time Russia was interfering with the U.S. presidential election. (311,312) It reveals the panic bank officers experienced when they realized a man deeply indebted to them had just been elected president of the U.S.

This is a sobering account of big money and influence. It is a startling story of some lives being ruined while others, such as Trump's, were propped up by continual loans. I highly recommend it.

[Zohreh Avatefi hafez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard this book summary in Blinkist and I think if I am a financialist or political historian maybe it is useful.
این کتاب را به کسانی که به جریانهای مالی مخفی جهانی علاقمندند توصیه می کنم. روند سیاه ترکیب پول و سیاست جذاب بود.

[Bettie]

Dark Towers review: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and a must-read mystery: David Enrich delivers a master class in financial sleuthing but much about bank and billionaire remains unknown

The author's name is 'Enrich' ?

[Ross Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

good but it bummed me out

[Elena Granger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't read stories like that. Actually it was my first book of the type. And I have some mixed feelings. It was a pretty readable, descent story of the rise and fall of the Deutsche Bank (and actually not much about Trump except the parts, which are already published).
Big money always lead to the huge impacts. So it was expectable that some lives were ruined, some improved.
But I expected more secrets to be revealed, more captivating read. So maybe the book is really great, but didn't meet my higher expectations.

[MassiveMichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on the immoral business practices of Deutsche Bank and how it’s loans contributed a lot to the rise of Donald Trump

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 3 out of 5]

The arcane world of international banking poses formidable barriers to those trying to understand the weaknesses and misdeeds of this part of the financial system. The simple and utterly common practice of establishing subsidiaries in countries with few rules and little oversight means that chicanery can gallop along even as the mother bank cloaks itself in the dress of "responsible business."

Secrecy is paramount in financial world, and ghouls and demons rule in the dark. So it goes for Deutsche Bank, as revealed in this incredible work of research by financial reporter David Enrich. He makes it relatively easy to understand how money laundering works in "mirror trades" for example, through Cyprus where stolen rubles magically become dollars. Or the insane reasoning of the private wealth division which under division head Rosemary Vrablic, a Trump pet, low interest, high risk loans were repeatedly granted to the bankrupt criminal Trump who everyone in the banking world knew was a thief with a consistent record of not paying his debts (that is billions in theft folks, next time you get riled up a welfare cheat, be sure to put this level of theft into the scales, please). And the backing by Russian banks (sharing debt with DB and directly controlled by Putin) makes it clear why this sorry character is a Russian dupe, easy to manipulate and open to blackmail.

The proprietary trading which scored huge profit margins for the bank while selling crap derivatives to its own customers was amply exposed in the wake of the Great Recession 2008-? -- yet, DB continued to do this long, long after. Its lies about its fiscal health, its deceit about its balance sheet (which contains billions in nearly worthless investments that would cause the bank to fail if it tried to get rid of holdings this huge) -- this is an Dracula that any reasonable government should kill with a silver stake in the heart. Instead, investigations bungled, delayed, subjected to jurisdictional sleight-of-hand, and prosecutions openly dropped by loan-holders such as Brute 45 himself and related thieving GOP adherents. Yes, it has finally shuttered its trading business and in a tribute to business innovation for the white collar criminal class has created a "bad bank" to sell off those worthless assets gradually, so the sales do not tank the market and destroy DB. But the people who created these practices, profited from them, and still approve s0-called "free market" lifting of regulations (such as defanging Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), have retained their personal wealth, escaped jail, and continued their employment, handling billions of dollars of our assets, while only rarely paying a slap-on-the-wrist fine. It is exciting and useful to know about how this system works, yet the conclusion is really crushing: no bad deed will be punished and business as usual continues to strip assets from ordinary Americans to line the pocket of the worst of the one percent. Malefactors will not lose their jobs or become unemployable in the industry they used for massive schemes of fraud. Ugh. It's hard to comprehend how Enrich can continue reporting on this sewer system without upchucking all over his laptop.

[Nancy Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting account of a good bank gone bad. The venerable German institution gets swept up into the Wall Street scene, with a lot of greedy wonder boy traders raking in short term profits until the bottom inevitably falls out. Most of us have a hard time wrapping our minds around derivatives but one fact stands out: they're not for the faint of hard.
Bankers become gamblers. Suicides happen.
One of the original founders of the investment division, Bill Broeksmit, commits suicide. Signs point to his chagrin over an investigation into some funny business at the bank. Too much detail to go into in a review, but well covered in the book, written by a New York Times journalist who became involved with the late Broeksmit's son Val, a would-be whistle blower.
Lots of detail, mostly intriguing, sometimes headache-inducing. My reason for no more than 3 stars is that to me, this book isn't over. It seemed to be just wrapped up to get it to press. I realize this is non-fiction and things don't always wrap up as neatly as one would like, but this leaves us dangling. An updated edition is needed when at some point.
Definitely worth reading, though, because it's absorbing and offers an interesting look at the insides of an investment bank whose managers have become blinded by greed.
Good dirt on Donald Trump, too. How they kept loaning him money is almost beyond comprehension. If I had his powers of persuasion I'd be rich too lol.
Great example of a corporation that puts the short term enrichment of its management far above the welfare of its country, customers and shareholders. Certainly not the only one, as we saw after the Big Bailouts last decade. Yes, that means you, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.

[molosovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spannender Einblick in ein Unternehmen, für das ich vor knapp 20 Jahren auch mal als Zeitarbeiter ne Woche gejobbt habe. War damals™ meine erste Begegnung mit Leuz, die aufn Klo koksen bzw. in der Kabine weinend Frust bewältigen.

Gut erzählt mit Understatement gesprochen. Idealer Recherche-Stoff für Kreative, die irgendwas schreiben wollen über institutionelle Machtgebilde, zB Staats-Magier eines Fantasy-Romans.

Bester Running ›Gag‹: Dank der völlig verballerten IT-Infrastruktur mit zig verschiedenen Systemen, die nicht miteinander kompatibel sind, läßt sich ganz vorzüglich Nachvollziehbarkeit verunmöglichen und Verantwortungszuordnung verschleiern.

Krassester Gag: Investment-Sparte setzt, wie alle anderen Banken auch, Trump auf rote Liste, weil er eben seine Kredite nicht zurückzahlt, aber bei der Privatkunden-Sparte nehmen sie ihn dann wieder mit offenen Armen auf und werfen ihm Geld nach.

NATÜRLICH ist das Buch, obwohl auch auf Deutsch erschienen (bei Redline), bei uns so gut wie kein Thema (kein Eintrag bei Perlentaucher). Grad mal ne Handvoll Interviews mit Enrich in deutschen Medien.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was interesting, but not what I expected. Trump was only a small part of the story. It was mostly about Deutsche Bank and how reckless and criminal they are as a bank. I had to skim a lot because the loan was coming due (haha) and there are just so many details, too many people to keep track of. I started with the audio but couldn't follow along because of all the names and events, and just everything, so I switched to the ebook and was able to take things slower, but there is A LOT jammed into this book and it's a lot to absorb no matter the format. I did learn things, but I think I'll go back to the audio someday so I can get everything I skipped.

[Haleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a quick and engaging read. A fascinating history of DB. As a compliance professional I just 👀

[MM Suarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible, you just can't make this stuff up!

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This self-titled exposé lacked a lot of exposing. Truly, this could have been so much more — Enrich, either for fear of retaliation or out of sheer stupidity — only just barely scratches the surface of the criminality and conspiracy of Deutsche, Trump, and Russia. I can absolutely guarantee there is a LOT more to this story.

For example: the fact that Alla, Bill Broeksmit’s wife, is Ukrainian, should be notable for the fact that it is highly suspicious. Deutsche’s associations with VTB aren’t just suspicious — they immediately make Deutsche at the very least complicit in Russian money laundering, espionage, and conspiracy, if not a main (and knowing) accomplice. Joe Ackermann’s Russophoilia isn’t a weird, suspicious quirk; it is proof that he is a willing Russian agent, working for the Russian government in pursuit of the destruction of the western world order.

[SassyBooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could be the translation, but even though it was an interesting story, I felt like it could've been written better.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well-researched. Enrich writes authoritatively on financial/accounting topics while never allowing the various scandals bog down into a mess of technical jargon. It’s amazing how very unlike a bank these huge “banking” institutions have become. They’re actually casinos where the degenerate gamblers run the show and morality is for chumps.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads well, but ultimately is disappointing. The book essentially makes the case that Deutsche Bank (DB) may have been the shadiest of all the financial institutions who got big fines, literally billions of dollars in fines, for manipulating a variety of financial instruments and devices.

In 2008 DB found a way to help fraudsters manipulate tax refunds on the sale of carbon emissions permits. DB had a team of London traders engaged in trading these permits. The British government eventually tightened up its rules. But, before the practice was stopped DB raked in $250 million in illegal refunds.

One of the shadiest DB officials was Christian Bittar who found ways to manipulate Libor (London interbank offered rate). “Libor (is used) as the basis for trillions of dollars of interest-rate derivatives.” (Yes, you almost need a finance degree to follow the story, and that is a weakness of this book. The book would benefit greatly from the addition of a glossary of the key financial terms.) Bittar was so successful at gaming the system that he pulled down a $100 million bonus in 2009. There are plenty more examples of shady practices by Deutsche Bank traders, the most egregious of which may have been the money laundering they did for Russian oligarchs. In the author’s words they functioned as a “Russian Laundromat.” I am not going to give you details, you’ll have to read the book yourself.

Okay, the infamous Rosemary Vrablic, who got Trump his loans, gets considerable treatment as does the Trump consigliere, Jared Kushner. You can read the book for more. Jared and his partner in crime, Ivanka, are featured in some detail. Ivanka is good at manipulating people, but Jared is the brains of the operation. There are no hero’s in the book. DB’s avarice is the stuff of legend.

Ultimately, the book leaves the reader disappointed and with questions. Why is financial regulation so weak? Why is no one from Deutsche Bank in prison? And, how, considering the incredible losses DB sustained, are they still afloat? And, finally, where does all this money come from?

So then, how i rate this book? I could go a 3 or a 4, it is extremely well written. But too often I found myself scratching my head trying to figure out what exactly was happening and how? So, i am calling this a 3.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greed has no boundaries. The greedy are in charge of the country. Take heed.