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Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage
“Eamon Javers has produced a remarkable book about the secret world of business warfare—a world filled with corporate spies and covert ops and skullduggery… An important book that has the added pleasure of reading like a spy novel.” —David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z
Award-winning reporter Eamon Javers’s Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is a penetrating work of investigative and historical journalism about the evolution of corporate espionage, exploring the dangerous and combustible power spies hold over international business. From the birth of the Pinkertons to Howard Hughes, from presidents to Cold War spies, Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is, like Legacy of Ashes and Blackwater, a first rate political thriller that also just happens to be true.
Award-winning reporter Eamon Javers’s Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is a penetrating work of investigative and historical journalism about the evolution of corporate espionage, exploring the dangerous and combustible power spies hold over international business. From the birth of the Pinkertons to Howard Hughes, from presidents to Cold War spies, Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is, like Legacy of Ashes and Blackwater, a first rate political thriller that also just happens to be true.
324 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
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October 8, 2016
Privatization of security and intelligence capabilities is “extending the espionage culture of the cold war into the global economy.”
A phrase kept running through my head while reading while reading Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy, “Well, what would you expect?” We have privatized a lot of dodgy military work into the hands of entities like Blackwater (sorry, Xe), so it makes sense that an increasing amount of intelligence work would likewise be put into hands of entities that are not subject to congressional oversight. Of course, it’s not like this is brand new.
Javers offers interesting historical perspective, tracing the roots of today’s companies back to the era of the Pinkertons. You will learn some surprising things about that origin and about the rules they lived by, or claimed to live by. Of course, there are no rules these days, or very few. He traces some of the technological leaps that have advanced the capabilities of surveillance over the ages, from early wiretapping to the satellite technology and big-time private intel and security capacity of today. He tells of the rise and fall of several seminal security companies, each of which is very engaging. Howard Hughes does a turn here as well. Clifford Irving, Allen Pinkerton. The history telling here is both informative and entertaining.
In the world of private intel, there are two main trunks, private companies doing the work of governments and the same companies engaged in purely non-governmental research and operations. Some work involves little more than performing background checks on potential hires. But a lot involves spy vs spy intelligence gathering and sometimes facilitating dirty tricks on behalf of one corporate client against another corporation. Javers looks at both.
His organizing structure is to offer case studies as a way of telling his tales. There is a wonderfully illustrative story here about a corporate struggle between chocolatiers Nestle and Mars, fought by their respective private spooks. It captures the Armies of the Night feel of this world. It will come as no surprise that private intel firms were involved with Enron. And there are cases in which private intel companies are hired by the targets of their investigations to find out who is looking into their activities. Spooky.
Just as our public funds were spent training special ops personnel who now sell their services as mercenaries, the private intel world is staffed by former public servants from the CIA, FBI, NSA and any other three-letter governmental agency with intelligence gathering duties. (The schools of hard NOCs?) Your tax dollars at work. In the spirit of globalization, today’s private intel crews includes former members of the KGB and every other national intelligence service of note.
Although Javers does make note of how spies were placed in organizations like labor unions and Greenpeace, he does not emphasize the potential impact of increasing sophistication by intel companies on personal liberties. But the implication is clear. Today, we need not only be concerned about Big Brother, but about the entire bloody family.
In the same way that one should be alarmed about the rise of corporate military power, one should be concerned about the rise of unaccountable private intelligence entities. It seems inevitable that they will provide the same sort of cover for the government offered by private military contractors. Unwilling to actually gain popular support for a war, unwilling to institute a draft to give the army enough personnel? Don’t bother. Just hire private contractors. The bonus is that the private privates are not subject to the same rules as the military. In the same vein, in situations in which the government may be barred from performing particular monitoring or research tasks or intel operations, private firms may not be under the same restrictions, or even if they are subject to limitations, having private entities perform these questionable activities offers policy makers a layer of deniability. Personal freedom is a certain casualty here.
One of the externalizations of cost in today’s world can be found in the security business. Alarm systems that notify the police when a door or window is opened unexpectedly costs the public billions of dollars in wasted manpower, as the vast majority of such calls are false alarms. So the alarm company gets paid for providing a service, but the police force actually gets to do the work. In a similar way private intel organizations, because of the close ties between those still in government and their friends who have gone private, rely on government resources for help in performing their tasks, but the government does not get to share in the fees taken in by the private companies.
And for those who worship at the altar of free markets, this book shows yet another way in which the supposed Invisible Hand is being undercut. Why develop better products when you can steal one from your competition, or use dirty tricks to keep a superior product from market?
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is a must read, offering alarming, if not always new information about an aspect of today’s world of crucial importance to anyone who values his or her privacy and personal freedom. It is very readable and strangely enjoyable.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
This October 6, 2016 report by Matthew Rosenberg in the NY Times offers a very surprising look at the relationship between a Wall Street firm and the world of private intelligence operations - At Booz Allen, a Vast U.S. Spy Operation, Run for Private Profit
A phrase kept running through my head while reading while reading Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy, “Well, what would you expect?” We have privatized a lot of dodgy military work into the hands of entities like Blackwater (sorry, Xe), so it makes sense that an increasing amount of intelligence work would likewise be put into hands of entities that are not subject to congressional oversight. Of course, it’s not like this is brand new.
Javers offers interesting historical perspective, tracing the roots of today’s companies back to the era of the Pinkertons. You will learn some surprising things about that origin and about the rules they lived by, or claimed to live by. Of course, there are no rules these days, or very few. He traces some of the technological leaps that have advanced the capabilities of surveillance over the ages, from early wiretapping to the satellite technology and big-time private intel and security capacity of today. He tells of the rise and fall of several seminal security companies, each of which is very engaging. Howard Hughes does a turn here as well. Clifford Irving, Allen Pinkerton. The history telling here is both informative and entertaining.
In the world of private intel, there are two main trunks, private companies doing the work of governments and the same companies engaged in purely non-governmental research and operations. Some work involves little more than performing background checks on potential hires. But a lot involves spy vs spy intelligence gathering and sometimes facilitating dirty tricks on behalf of one corporate client against another corporation. Javers looks at both.
His organizing structure is to offer case studies as a way of telling his tales. There is a wonderfully illustrative story here about a corporate struggle between chocolatiers Nestle and Mars, fought by their respective private spooks. It captures the Armies of the Night feel of this world. It will come as no surprise that private intel firms were involved with Enron. And there are cases in which private intel companies are hired by the targets of their investigations to find out who is looking into their activities. Spooky.
Just as our public funds were spent training special ops personnel who now sell their services as mercenaries, the private intel world is staffed by former public servants from the CIA, FBI, NSA and any other three-letter governmental agency with intelligence gathering duties. (The schools of hard NOCs?) Your tax dollars at work. In the spirit of globalization, today’s private intel crews includes former members of the KGB and every other national intelligence service of note.
Although Javers does make note of how spies were placed in organizations like labor unions and Greenpeace, he does not emphasize the potential impact of increasing sophistication by intel companies on personal liberties. But the implication is clear. Today, we need not only be concerned about Big Brother, but about the entire bloody family.
In the same way that one should be alarmed about the rise of corporate military power, one should be concerned about the rise of unaccountable private intelligence entities. It seems inevitable that they will provide the same sort of cover for the government offered by private military contractors. Unwilling to actually gain popular support for a war, unwilling to institute a draft to give the army enough personnel? Don’t bother. Just hire private contractors. The bonus is that the private privates are not subject to the same rules as the military. In the same vein, in situations in which the government may be barred from performing particular monitoring or research tasks or intel operations, private firms may not be under the same restrictions, or even if they are subject to limitations, having private entities perform these questionable activities offers policy makers a layer of deniability. Personal freedom is a certain casualty here.
One of the externalizations of cost in today’s world can be found in the security business. Alarm systems that notify the police when a door or window is opened unexpectedly costs the public billions of dollars in wasted manpower, as the vast majority of such calls are false alarms. So the alarm company gets paid for providing a service, but the police force actually gets to do the work. In a similar way private intel organizations, because of the close ties between those still in government and their friends who have gone private, rely on government resources for help in performing their tasks, but the government does not get to share in the fees taken in by the private companies.
And for those who worship at the altar of free markets, this book shows yet another way in which the supposed Invisible Hand is being undercut. Why develop better products when you can steal one from your competition, or use dirty tricks to keep a superior product from market?
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is a must read, offering alarming, if not always new information about an aspect of today’s world of crucial importance to anyone who values his or her privacy and personal freedom. It is very readable and strangely enjoyable.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
This October 6, 2016 report by Matthew Rosenberg in the NY Times offers a very surprising look at the relationship between a Wall Street firm and the world of private intelligence operations - At Booz Allen, a Vast U.S. Spy Operation, Run for Private Profit
December 17, 2014
The title of this book intentionally evokes John Le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Javers' startling revelation is that the world of corporate espionage is peopled by former CIA, FBI, Secret Service, and military intelligence operatives. They apply their specialized training in surveillance, interrogation, deception, and psychological profiling. They exploit government contacts in both the U.S. and abroad. They employ bribery, dumpster diving, wire-tapping, and accessing phone records to achieve results for their clients. It's a job; most have no idea how the information they apply will be used. Nor do most of them care.
Although closely researched, the book reads like a succession of riveting stories. Howard Hughes, confectionery giants Mars and Nestlé, Enron, the Government of Dubai, Goldman Sachs, and the accounting firm KPMG are some of the high profile clients appearing in these pages. Frequently, in order to conceal their involvement, these clients work through third parties — lobbyists, public relations firms, lawyers and consultants. The information gathered may be applied to sway the rulings of regulatory agencies, sabotage the marketing campaign of a competitor, beat down the price of a prospective acquisition, or facilitate insider trading.
Many of these stories bear a striking resemblance to popular films. Hal Lipset was a private investigator in the 1960's. He was one of the first to exploit transistor technology, and gained fame by demonstrating his fake martini olive transmitter before a Senate panel. Lipset was the inspiration for Gene Hackman's character in The Conversation. The bribery and trash trolling activities of the corporate intelligence firm Beckett Brown are reminiscent of Bud Fox's “work” for Marsala Maintenace in the movie Wall Street. GeoEye is a company licensed to sell satellite images. Although there are restrictions on the resolution of the images, their availability reminded me of another Gene Hackman movie, Enemy of the State. Finally, the behavior assessment techniques of the company Business Intelligence Advisors, founded by Phil Houston, a top CIA interrogator, are reminiscent of Tim Roth's character in Lie To Me.
Not all of these stories of corporate intelligence activities involve illegalities. In a world of hostage-taking and terrorism, these same firms can provide an extra layer of safety for employees working abroad. Screening of prospective and current employees can help avert tragedies triggered by psychological instability. Investigation is part of the due diligence process for any proposed acquisition or investment.
I found Javers' book entertaining. However, it also points to seriously troubling trends. In a world where background checks are all but routine, surveillance can easily bleed into violation of privacy. Ironclad Non-disclosure agreements have become commonplace, hobbling employees seeking other employment. Job-seekers, a particularly vulnerable group, can find themselves being interviewed for non-existence positions and encouraged by the fake recruiter to reveal confidential information. All wars escalate. Aggressive counter-espionage campaigns and security officers elevated to security czars may result. It is important to remember that the beneficiaries of these corporate espionage experts are those with enormous wealth. The actual operatives and their subcontractors are modestly paid compared to the powerful “advisory boards” and directors whose contacts bring in the business. Many of these security agencies are hired by third parties like legal firms which operate on a cash rather than accrual basis, triggering enormous cash flow needs. One can only speculate about the shape these firms will assume in the new world of drones and government eavesdropping. Javers only briefly touches on these personal privacy issues. His concern is with kind of secrecy that isolates these activities from public scrutiny and oversight. Javers admits: “As a jounalist, I'm a strong believer in the importance of gathering information. And I'm a fundamentalist when it comes to the First Amendment. But what separates me, and reporters like me, from corporate spies is that we believe in making sure the information we report reaches the widest possible audience. Spies do the opposite: they make sure the details they harvest reach only a narrow — and very high-paying — audience.” (p.285)
Although closely researched, the book reads like a succession of riveting stories. Howard Hughes, confectionery giants Mars and Nestlé, Enron, the Government of Dubai, Goldman Sachs, and the accounting firm KPMG are some of the high profile clients appearing in these pages. Frequently, in order to conceal their involvement, these clients work through third parties — lobbyists, public relations firms, lawyers and consultants. The information gathered may be applied to sway the rulings of regulatory agencies, sabotage the marketing campaign of a competitor, beat down the price of a prospective acquisition, or facilitate insider trading.
Many of these stories bear a striking resemblance to popular films. Hal Lipset was a private investigator in the 1960's. He was one of the first to exploit transistor technology, and gained fame by demonstrating his fake martini olive transmitter before a Senate panel. Lipset was the inspiration for Gene Hackman's character in The Conversation. The bribery and trash trolling activities of the corporate intelligence firm Beckett Brown are reminiscent of Bud Fox's “work” for Marsala Maintenace in the movie Wall Street. GeoEye is a company licensed to sell satellite images. Although there are restrictions on the resolution of the images, their availability reminded me of another Gene Hackman movie, Enemy of the State. Finally, the behavior assessment techniques of the company Business Intelligence Advisors, founded by Phil Houston, a top CIA interrogator, are reminiscent of Tim Roth's character in Lie To Me.
Not all of these stories of corporate intelligence activities involve illegalities. In a world of hostage-taking and terrorism, these same firms can provide an extra layer of safety for employees working abroad. Screening of prospective and current employees can help avert tragedies triggered by psychological instability. Investigation is part of the due diligence process for any proposed acquisition or investment.
I found Javers' book entertaining. However, it also points to seriously troubling trends. In a world where background checks are all but routine, surveillance can easily bleed into violation of privacy. Ironclad Non-disclosure agreements have become commonplace, hobbling employees seeking other employment. Job-seekers, a particularly vulnerable group, can find themselves being interviewed for non-existence positions and encouraged by the fake recruiter to reveal confidential information. All wars escalate. Aggressive counter-espionage campaigns and security officers elevated to security czars may result. It is important to remember that the beneficiaries of these corporate espionage experts are those with enormous wealth. The actual operatives and their subcontractors are modestly paid compared to the powerful “advisory boards” and directors whose contacts bring in the business. Many of these security agencies are hired by third parties like legal firms which operate on a cash rather than accrual basis, triggering enormous cash flow needs. One can only speculate about the shape these firms will assume in the new world of drones and government eavesdropping. Javers only briefly touches on these personal privacy issues. His concern is with kind of secrecy that isolates these activities from public scrutiny and oversight. Javers admits: “As a jounalist, I'm a strong believer in the importance of gathering information. And I'm a fundamentalist when it comes to the First Amendment. But what separates me, and reporters like me, from corporate spies is that we believe in making sure the information we report reaches the widest possible audience. Spies do the opposite: they make sure the details they harvest reach only a narrow — and very high-paying — audience.” (p.285)
February 11, 2017
A compulsively readable account of early history of corpintel. And else.
August 22, 2017
Would it shock you to know that there are private-for profit spy agencies? Nah, me neither. After all, lately we've outsourced killing and torture, so why not snooping? And would it surprise you that most of these spies-for-hire graduated from the military or various three-letter agencies, took their rather expensive training into the private sector, and are now making mint in corporate warfare? No, it didn't surprise me, either -- if an 11B can swap pulling a trigger for Uncle Sam for doing it for Blackwater at a 10x bump in his salary, it seems perfectly reasonable that someone with years of often highly technical training would be able to do the same.
So if these revelations are old news to you, why would you want to read Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy?
Well, if you can get past the hyperventilating title and the heavy breathing on the back cover, you'll find a collection of okay stories about the Gordon Gekko edition of the Spy vs. Spy game. Author Javers is fond of using anecdotes to tell his tales,which is a whole lot more interesting to read than dry reporting. His prose is better-than-serviceable and he's good with the telling turn of phrase. He does a decent job distilling into a couple chapters the history of the spy-for-hire biz in the U.S., starting (predictably) with the Pinkertons. He introduces us to some interesting characters and throws in some occasional flash and sizzle to liven things up.
Private spies work two ends of the market. One is providing intelligence-related services to governments -- as specialized expertise, surge capacity, deniability, or a way to pad staff levels without busting authorized manpower caps. I had a couple contract analysts working for me when I went downrange a few years ago, and other than their work clothes, they were largely indistinguishable from my active-duty analysts.
The other end -- the one that causes all the breathlessness on the book cover -- is the corporate market. Companies use spies for most of the same reasons governments do (to get the scoop on the competition or pull off dirty tricks), except they pay a whole lot more money to do it and the spies probably have better expense accounts. The bulk of this book is given to stories of these corporate shadow warriors using social engineering, dumpster diving, suborning insider informants, running false-flag operations, and planting moles in order to winkle out the competitors' secret product plans or dirty laundry. (No waterboarding is mentioned, though that's probably just an oversight.) Companies use law and PR firms to set up cutouts between themselves and the spooks. While the data that public-sector 007s bring back from the cold goes into government databases or is used to feed Predators, the corporate spy agency's haul often ends up in court, feeding a whole different set of predators (lawyers) who are trying to defend against lawsuits or buttress a takeover battle.
Okay, so this sounds interesting enough. Why the lack of stars?
First, don't expect depth from Javers' reporting. The anecdotes skip like a stone from one puddle to the next without getting to the bottom of any of them. Then there's the repetition: there aren't very many variations on the dissatisfied-spooks-start-a-company-get-a-wealthy patron-cash-in-on-the-patron's-connections-and-get-rich narrative, but we see every single one of those variations. The missed opportunities start piling up, too. The chapter on the private-sector uses of high-quality overhead imagery (think satellites and drones) is potentially the most interesting, and also the shortest; the author mentions in passing the huge bolus of ex-Soviet spooks released on the world after 1989 without exploring in any meaningful way how it affected the spy industry; and the post-GWOT penetration of hard-core intelligence practices into civilian policing (such as fusion cells and joint intel centers) goes similarly unexamined.
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is probably a fine book for anyone who's been living in a remote monastery for the past ten years, or has otherwise managed to avoid the news since Saddam's statues started falling. Perhaps the book's revelations seemed fresher when it released in 2010 than they do today, and we're too jaded to be surprised anymore. Maybe I was expecting a deeper dive into methods and practices, or a view that stretched beyond the U.S. and U.K. Whatever the cause, I was left disappointed by the unfulfilled possibilities. Your mileage may vary, but I got about two and a half stars out of this and, like with Chinese food, a yearning for a more filling meal.
So if these revelations are old news to you, why would you want to read Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy?
Well, if you can get past the hyperventilating title and the heavy breathing on the back cover, you'll find a collection of okay stories about the Gordon Gekko edition of the Spy vs. Spy game. Author Javers is fond of using anecdotes to tell his tales,which is a whole lot more interesting to read than dry reporting. His prose is better-than-serviceable and he's good with the telling turn of phrase. He does a decent job distilling into a couple chapters the history of the spy-for-hire biz in the U.S., starting (predictably) with the Pinkertons. He introduces us to some interesting characters and throws in some occasional flash and sizzle to liven things up.
Private spies work two ends of the market. One is providing intelligence-related services to governments -- as specialized expertise, surge capacity, deniability, or a way to pad staff levels without busting authorized manpower caps. I had a couple contract analysts working for me when I went downrange a few years ago, and other than their work clothes, they were largely indistinguishable from my active-duty analysts.
The other end -- the one that causes all the breathlessness on the book cover -- is the corporate market. Companies use spies for most of the same reasons governments do (to get the scoop on the competition or pull off dirty tricks), except they pay a whole lot more money to do it and the spies probably have better expense accounts. The bulk of this book is given to stories of these corporate shadow warriors using social engineering, dumpster diving, suborning insider informants, running false-flag operations, and planting moles in order to winkle out the competitors' secret product plans or dirty laundry. (No waterboarding is mentioned, though that's probably just an oversight.) Companies use law and PR firms to set up cutouts between themselves and the spooks. While the data that public-sector 007s bring back from the cold goes into government databases or is used to feed Predators, the corporate spy agency's haul often ends up in court, feeding a whole different set of predators (lawyers) who are trying to defend against lawsuits or buttress a takeover battle.
Okay, so this sounds interesting enough. Why the lack of stars?
First, don't expect depth from Javers' reporting. The anecdotes skip like a stone from one puddle to the next without getting to the bottom of any of them. Then there's the repetition: there aren't very many variations on the dissatisfied-spooks-start-a-company-get-a-wealthy patron-cash-in-on-the-patron's-connections-and-get-rich narrative, but we see every single one of those variations. The missed opportunities start piling up, too. The chapter on the private-sector uses of high-quality overhead imagery (think satellites and drones) is potentially the most interesting, and also the shortest; the author mentions in passing the huge bolus of ex-Soviet spooks released on the world after 1989 without exploring in any meaningful way how it affected the spy industry; and the post-GWOT penetration of hard-core intelligence practices into civilian policing (such as fusion cells and joint intel centers) goes similarly unexamined.
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is probably a fine book for anyone who's been living in a remote monastery for the past ten years, or has otherwise managed to avoid the news since Saddam's statues started falling. Perhaps the book's revelations seemed fresher when it released in 2010 than they do today, and we're too jaded to be surprised anymore. Maybe I was expecting a deeper dive into methods and practices, or a view that stretched beyond the U.S. and U.K. Whatever the cause, I was left disappointed by the unfulfilled possibilities. Your mileage may vary, but I got about two and a half stars out of this and, like with Chinese food, a yearning for a more filling meal.
February 17, 2010
Sometimes you wish a book had a different author. I actually don't want to jump on Javers too much. The subject matter is interesting. But at the end of the day, they are just anecdotes and history sewn together without much cohesion or reason. There isn't much style or punch there either. And the writer doesn't really seem to be able to tie it together and take it to the next level. Maybe like a newspaper or magazine reporter, who just isn't ready to transition to a book that's much more than a collections of articles. And as much as he traces the industry back to the Pinkerton days, I'm not sure the author is as well-versed in the deep background as he should be. (For instance, he doesn't seem to realize the difference between the KGB and the GRU)
Having said all that, I don't regret reading the book, and I enjoyed it, for what it's worth. It covers fascinating subject matter, and one that's relevance has yet to be full understood. From Big Four companies that are infiltrated in the service of battles between shadowy Russian banks and oligarchs, to super-rich hedgefund managers who unleash international surveillance on A-list Hollywood stars to win over jet-setting Israeli supermodels, there's a lot of drama here. If the subject matter interests you, definitely check it out. Just don't expect more than a lot of these interesting stories.
Having said all that, I don't regret reading the book, and I enjoyed it, for what it's worth. It covers fascinating subject matter, and one that's relevance has yet to be full understood. From Big Four companies that are infiltrated in the service of battles between shadowy Russian banks and oligarchs, to super-rich hedgefund managers who unleash international surveillance on A-list Hollywood stars to win over jet-setting Israeli supermodels, there's a lot of drama here. If the subject matter interests you, definitely check it out. Just don't expect more than a lot of these interesting stories.
August 18, 2016
It was an amazing read !! How the espionage culture of cold war was extended into the global economy. The forerunner of private investigation ( Allan Pinkerton , 1st private detective ) & how it all began - private intelligence firms, now comprising spies, ex-CIA, ex-FBI, ex-KGB, employees at military & govt. security services. At this point private intelligence service wasn't limited for combating crime ; rather expanded beyond international economy, global market, corporate rivalry, market control, assessment & background check for potential investment & recruits. Satellite spying how evolved for market control & helped USA in Afghanistan & Iraq War.
The writer tried to dig into the details of how this whole system functions , how the morality of the investigators could be questioned & how this could be employed for the interest of the public !
The writer tried to dig into the details of how this whole system functions , how the morality of the investigators could be questioned & how this could be employed for the interest of the public !
January 31, 2021
Nat Rothschild invested in Diligence Inc.
1985: Stephen Solarz (NY) congressman, chair of House Foreign Affairs Subcomittee, asked friend Jules Kroll to investigate Philipines klepokrat/dictator Ferdinand Marcos, copmleted pro-bono. Four buildings (worht $300mn in total) in NYC 200 Madison Avenue, the Herald Center at Herald Square, the Crown Building at 730 Fifth Avenue, and 40 Wall Street (is that where the Goldman Sachs HQ is now?). Subcommittee hearing in May 1986.
1990: Kuwaiti dictators hired Kroll to find the money/wealth of Iraqi dicator Sadam Hussein after the invasion (turns out 5% of the $200bn oil revenue was stolen by Hussein of 10 years). Hachette (French magazine that published Car and Driver) is controlled by Jean-Luc Lagardère, who also controls the French arms company, Matra, which sold arms to Iraq. Saddam's half brother Barzan al-Takriti (Tikriti? Nicknamed/codenamed al-Tikriti because they are born or from Tikrit, the place Saddam went back to in spiderhole before capture [old habits die hard, favourite food - some special fish was available there] fucking Arab names are so loose, just like in Asia) set up Panama-registered Montana Management, Inc., in 1979 and bought shares of Hachette publishers on the Paris Bourse, eventually owning up to 9% of the company.
1992: Russia's new alcoholic leader Boris Yeltsin hired Kroll (15 agents at $1,500 each per day) to track down (estimated $6 to $8) billions of dollars worth of stolen public assets (by oligarchs and Putin buddies) such as food and oil field equipment where the trails led to Cyprus and Monte Carlo.
[Perhaps the decision to hire Kroll was at the suggestion/advice of US political consultants? In the end the report was dumped anyway after obfuscating the investigation anyway. Russian paranoia knows no bounds and continues today]
2008: Jules Kroll retired. GFC revealed the naked swimmers as the tide receded. 2009 revealed Allen Stanford was one of those many naked swimmers in the $7bn Stanford Financial Group ponzi scam (Texas to Antigua in the Carribbean) but Kroll was running a propaganda campaign in defense of the scam. Vanity Fair writer Bryan Burrough was hassled by Kroll to leave the money-launderer alone. (Pirate of the Carribbean, July 2009, VF)
"EASTON IS SITUATED on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, an enormous peninsula that separates Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. About a ninety-minute drive from Washington, D.C., the Eastern Shore is an elegant weekend getaway for the capital’s moneyed elite. Former vice president Dick Cheney and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld both own multimillion-dollar properties in the small Eastern Shore town of Saint Michaels. Many other Washington insiders—politicians, agency heads, lawyers, and lobbyists—spend weekends in the small waterfront towns that dot the pastoral Eastern Shore landscape.
Though connected to the mainland by the 4.3-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the Eastern Shore is still its own world. Indeed, the Maryland portions of this landmass have tried to secede from the state on several occasions. Long cut off from the outside world, the region thrived on agriculture and fishing. Oysters, crabs, and corn dominated the economy for hundreds of years. Today, tourism, sailing, and real estate speculation are included in the economic mix, but many parts of the area remain remarkably unchanged since the nineteenth century."
"Beckett Brown International was a spy firm begun in the early 1990s by a small group of veterans of the Secret Service. The firm’s clients included the multibillion-dollar Carlyle Group, the Gallo wine company, Wal-Mart, and the cosmetics company Mary Kay. And over time, it spied on Greenpeace and other environmental activists, gun-control groups, and companies large and small." Chapter 6
"BBI engaged in “intelligence collection” for Allied Waste; it conducted background checks and performed due diligence for the Carlyle Group, the Washington-based investment firm; it provided “protective services” for the National Rifle Association; it handled “crisis management” for the Gallo wine company and for Pirelli; it made sure that the Louis Dreyfus Group, the commodities firm, was not being bugged; it engaged in “information collection” for Wal-Mart; it conducted background checks for Patricia Duff, a Democratic Party fundraiser then involved in a divorce with billionaire Ronald Perelman; and for Mary Kay, BBI mounted “surveillance,” and vetted Gayle Gaston, a top executive at the cosmetics company (and mother of actress Robin Wright Penn), retaining an expert to conduct a psychological assessment of her. Also listed as clients in BBI records: Halliburton and Monsanto."
{Hmm I wonder who uses these services still? No surprises if the Swampies & Trumpistas do.
Trumpy's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' brother Erik Prince (China's spy and Dubai's...and KSA's etc) of Blackwater infamy (renamed to Xe and Academi) must be making a quick easy buck out of all this mess too. DeVos is part of the AmWay scam fortune. It's like scamming and greediness is genetic.}
Raelynn Hillhouse, who blogs about corporate intelligence for thespywhobilledme.com
In March 2009, two reporters I admire greatly—Glenn Simpson and Sue Schmidt of the Wall Street Journal—announced their resignations. They formed SNS Global, LLC, a firm that will do what Simpson described as “some public interest work and some consulting.”2 Both are well known in the world of investigative reporting: Schmidt won a Pulitzer Prize after breaking the story of the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff; and Simpson has made a career out of probing the darker reaches of money laundering, financial crime, financing of terrorists, and all sorts of corporate misconduct. Now their skills are available for hire on the private market, too. The quest for an information edge goes on.
Kroll’s office is just outside Georgetown. From there, it’s a short walk to the offices of Investigative Group International, which is headed by Terry Lenzner, the man who became known as Bill Clinton’s private investigator during the scandal over Monica Lewinsky. There are more: Executive Action, Fairfax Group, and Corporate Risk International all have headquarters in this area, offering some combination of risk management, investigative, and intelligence services. The offices of Koshkin’s Trident Group are in Rosslyn, Virginia.
A fifteen-minute drive away in northern Virginia, the firm Total Intelligence Solutions operates what it calls a “global fusion center”—a data gathering operation—at its bland corporate offices. I toured the facility with Matthew Devost, who was the company’s president in 2008—an unassuming guy who on that day was wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis. Devost is something new in the intelligence world: he has spent his entire career in the private sector—not in the government. His career is a sign that the private-sector intelligence business has reached its next stage of evolution. The industry is now incubating the careers of intelligence professionals from entry level to executive rank.
Devost told me he’d worked on a dramatic intelligence operation in Lebanon in 2006. Total Intelligence Solutions worked frantically during that year’s thirty-four-day war between Israel and Hezbollah extremists. The corporate clients had employees trapped in Lebanon when the shooting started, and needed to get them out. Devost and his colleagues used real-time satellite images and a network of private informants on the ground to determine which bridges had been bombed, and where heavy fighting might
In 1995, Mike Reynolds and Christopher James—both veterans of the British intelligence agency MI6—combined forces to start the firm. Reynolds had served British intelligence in Berlin during the cold war, and James was a veteran of the British special forces as well as the intelligence agency.
Dubai Holding (which, because Dubai is a monarchy, thus belongs to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum) hired the American law firm DLA Piper to work on its behalf. The law firm in turn hired the public relations firm Levick Strategic Communications. And the PR firm hired TD International (TDI), a private intelligence firm that is based in Washington, D.C., and employs a number of CIA veterans.
The founder of TDI is William Green, who is described at the firm’s Web site as “a former U.S. diplomat specializing in multilateral affairs.” Several sources say he is a former CIA officer. A partner at the firm is Ron Slimp, who is described as a “former U.S. diplomat and trade negotiator,” and who once described himself in an e-mail to a colleague as a “former spy.
The stories of six corporate intelligence operations around the world show how intelligence is becoming increasingly interconnected with the global economy:
Veracity, which hosted the meeting in New York, does business for clients all over the world.
TD International, an intelligence firm that is run by several veterans of the CIA and is based in Washington, D.C., represents a sheikh who is based in Dubai.
Johann Benöhr is a private investigator in Berlin, where he deals with strict government regulations and the German public’s angst about spying of any sort.
Hakluyt, a firm based in London, once hired a German spy to penetrate Greenpeace on behalf of global oil companies.
Hamilton Trading Group is a small consultancy founded by a former CIA officer and a former KGB operative who ran into serious trouble with the Putin government in Russia.
Trident Group, based in Virginia, also has ties to Russia: it was founded by a former Soviet military intelligence officer. It works for some of the largest American companies and law firms.
[All the above is copy+paste quotes from ebook.]
Dubai and UAE is one dodgy place, I freakin' knew it. Now they're pedo traffickers for sure too to boot. DLA Piper is one dodgy crooked law firm too, reaffirmed yet again.
1985: Stephen Solarz (NY) congressman, chair of House Foreign Affairs Subcomittee, asked friend Jules Kroll to investigate Philipines klepokrat/dictator Ferdinand Marcos, copmleted pro-bono. Four buildings (worht $300mn in total) in NYC 200 Madison Avenue, the Herald Center at Herald Square, the Crown Building at 730 Fifth Avenue, and 40 Wall Street (is that where the Goldman Sachs HQ is now?). Subcommittee hearing in May 1986.
1990: Kuwaiti dictators hired Kroll to find the money/wealth of Iraqi dicator Sadam Hussein after the invasion (turns out 5% of the $200bn oil revenue was stolen by Hussein of 10 years). Hachette (French magazine that published Car and Driver) is controlled by Jean-Luc Lagardère, who also controls the French arms company, Matra, which sold arms to Iraq. Saddam's half brother Barzan al-Takriti (Tikriti? Nicknamed/codenamed al-Tikriti because they are born or from Tikrit, the place Saddam went back to in spiderhole before capture [old habits die hard, favourite food - some special fish was available there] fucking Arab names are so loose, just like in Asia) set up Panama-registered Montana Management, Inc., in 1979 and bought shares of Hachette publishers on the Paris Bourse, eventually owning up to 9% of the company.
1992: Russia's new alcoholic leader Boris Yeltsin hired Kroll (15 agents at $1,500 each per day) to track down (estimated $6 to $8) billions of dollars worth of stolen public assets (by oligarchs and Putin buddies) such as food and oil field equipment where the trails led to Cyprus and Monte Carlo.
[Perhaps the decision to hire Kroll was at the suggestion/advice of US political consultants? In the end the report was dumped anyway after obfuscating the investigation anyway. Russian paranoia knows no bounds and continues today]
2008: Jules Kroll retired. GFC revealed the naked swimmers as the tide receded. 2009 revealed Allen Stanford was one of those many naked swimmers in the $7bn Stanford Financial Group ponzi scam (Texas to Antigua in the Carribbean) but Kroll was running a propaganda campaign in defense of the scam. Vanity Fair writer Bryan Burrough was hassled by Kroll to leave the money-launderer alone. (Pirate of the Carribbean, July 2009, VF)
"EASTON IS SITUATED on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, an enormous peninsula that separates Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. About a ninety-minute drive from Washington, D.C., the Eastern Shore is an elegant weekend getaway for the capital’s moneyed elite. Former vice president Dick Cheney and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld both own multimillion-dollar properties in the small Eastern Shore town of Saint Michaels. Many other Washington insiders—politicians, agency heads, lawyers, and lobbyists—spend weekends in the small waterfront towns that dot the pastoral Eastern Shore landscape.
Though connected to the mainland by the 4.3-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the Eastern Shore is still its own world. Indeed, the Maryland portions of this landmass have tried to secede from the state on several occasions. Long cut off from the outside world, the region thrived on agriculture and fishing. Oysters, crabs, and corn dominated the economy for hundreds of years. Today, tourism, sailing, and real estate speculation are included in the economic mix, but many parts of the area remain remarkably unchanged since the nineteenth century."
"Beckett Brown International was a spy firm begun in the early 1990s by a small group of veterans of the Secret Service. The firm’s clients included the multibillion-dollar Carlyle Group, the Gallo wine company, Wal-Mart, and the cosmetics company Mary Kay. And over time, it spied on Greenpeace and other environmental activists, gun-control groups, and companies large and small." Chapter 6
"BBI engaged in “intelligence collection” for Allied Waste; it conducted background checks and performed due diligence for the Carlyle Group, the Washington-based investment firm; it provided “protective services” for the National Rifle Association; it handled “crisis management” for the Gallo wine company and for Pirelli; it made sure that the Louis Dreyfus Group, the commodities firm, was not being bugged; it engaged in “information collection” for Wal-Mart; it conducted background checks for Patricia Duff, a Democratic Party fundraiser then involved in a divorce with billionaire Ronald Perelman; and for Mary Kay, BBI mounted “surveillance,” and vetted Gayle Gaston, a top executive at the cosmetics company (and mother of actress Robin Wright Penn), retaining an expert to conduct a psychological assessment of her. Also listed as clients in BBI records: Halliburton and Monsanto."
{Hmm I wonder who uses these services still? No surprises if the Swampies & Trumpistas do.
Trumpy's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' brother Erik Prince (China's spy and Dubai's...and KSA's etc) of Blackwater infamy (renamed to Xe and Academi) must be making a quick easy buck out of all this mess too. DeVos is part of the AmWay scam fortune. It's like scamming and greediness is genetic.}
Raelynn Hillhouse, who blogs about corporate intelligence for thespywhobilledme.com
In March 2009, two reporters I admire greatly—Glenn Simpson and Sue Schmidt of the Wall Street Journal—announced their resignations. They formed SNS Global, LLC, a firm that will do what Simpson described as “some public interest work and some consulting.”2 Both are well known in the world of investigative reporting: Schmidt won a Pulitzer Prize after breaking the story of the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff; and Simpson has made a career out of probing the darker reaches of money laundering, financial crime, financing of terrorists, and all sorts of corporate misconduct. Now their skills are available for hire on the private market, too. The quest for an information edge goes on.
Kroll’s office is just outside Georgetown. From there, it’s a short walk to the offices of Investigative Group International, which is headed by Terry Lenzner, the man who became known as Bill Clinton’s private investigator during the scandal over Monica Lewinsky. There are more: Executive Action, Fairfax Group, and Corporate Risk International all have headquarters in this area, offering some combination of risk management, investigative, and intelligence services. The offices of Koshkin’s Trident Group are in Rosslyn, Virginia.
A fifteen-minute drive away in northern Virginia, the firm Total Intelligence Solutions operates what it calls a “global fusion center”—a data gathering operation—at its bland corporate offices. I toured the facility with Matthew Devost, who was the company’s president in 2008—an unassuming guy who on that day was wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis. Devost is something new in the intelligence world: he has spent his entire career in the private sector—not in the government. His career is a sign that the private-sector intelligence business has reached its next stage of evolution. The industry is now incubating the careers of intelligence professionals from entry level to executive rank.
Devost told me he’d worked on a dramatic intelligence operation in Lebanon in 2006. Total Intelligence Solutions worked frantically during that year’s thirty-four-day war between Israel and Hezbollah extremists. The corporate clients had employees trapped in Lebanon when the shooting started, and needed to get them out. Devost and his colleagues used real-time satellite images and a network of private informants on the ground to determine which bridges had been bombed, and where heavy fighting might
In 1995, Mike Reynolds and Christopher James—both veterans of the British intelligence agency MI6—combined forces to start the firm. Reynolds had served British intelligence in Berlin during the cold war, and James was a veteran of the British special forces as well as the intelligence agency.
Dubai Holding (which, because Dubai is a monarchy, thus belongs to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum) hired the American law firm DLA Piper to work on its behalf. The law firm in turn hired the public relations firm Levick Strategic Communications. And the PR firm hired TD International (TDI), a private intelligence firm that is based in Washington, D.C., and employs a number of CIA veterans.
The founder of TDI is William Green, who is described at the firm’s Web site as “a former U.S. diplomat specializing in multilateral affairs.” Several sources say he is a former CIA officer. A partner at the firm is Ron Slimp, who is described as a “former U.S. diplomat and trade negotiator,” and who once described himself in an e-mail to a colleague as a “former spy.
The stories of six corporate intelligence operations around the world show how intelligence is becoming increasingly interconnected with the global economy:
Veracity, which hosted the meeting in New York, does business for clients all over the world.
TD International, an intelligence firm that is run by several veterans of the CIA and is based in Washington, D.C., represents a sheikh who is based in Dubai.
Johann Benöhr is a private investigator in Berlin, where he deals with strict government regulations and the German public’s angst about spying of any sort.
Hakluyt, a firm based in London, once hired a German spy to penetrate Greenpeace on behalf of global oil companies.
Hamilton Trading Group is a small consultancy founded by a former CIA officer and a former KGB operative who ran into serious trouble with the Putin government in Russia.
Trident Group, based in Virginia, also has ties to Russia: it was founded by a former Soviet military intelligence officer. It works for some of the largest American companies and law firms.
[All the above is copy+paste quotes from ebook.]
Dubai and UAE is one dodgy place, I freakin' knew it. Now they're pedo traffickers for sure too to boot. DLA Piper is one dodgy crooked law firm too, reaffirmed yet again.
July 27, 2013
This book is a must read for understanding our world. The old saying is to hold your friends close but hold your enemy closer rings true here especially in the high stake games of money and politics. The NSA, SAC, Enron, and even Nestle's chocolate has a piece of this action. Javer's weaves the history of spying and takes you to the newest kind of spies. Each story seems to be a bid more amazing and although everyone knows they are spies they just cannot seem to always find them until someone or something leaks the truth to those that are being spied on.
The business of spying now has matured to a point where instead of hiring ex CIA, FBI, KGB,or M6 professionals, they are now recruited right out of college and indoctrinated into the ways and means of the undercover world.
High tech is becoming bigger but human intelligence still is a key factor in finding out what your competition does not want to to know. The government still might have the upper hand in some areas of technology but even information glean from satellites can be purchased from private companies for as little as a few hundred dollars which could make the difference between a million or billion dollar profit.
This was never part of my curriculum at college but I think we need to open that door and ensure those who think they have the world by the tail find out that the company they work for already know their shoe size and which Goodwill store they bought it from.
The business of spying now has matured to a point where instead of hiring ex CIA, FBI, KGB,or M6 professionals, they are now recruited right out of college and indoctrinated into the ways and means of the undercover world.
High tech is becoming bigger but human intelligence still is a key factor in finding out what your competition does not want to to know. The government still might have the upper hand in some areas of technology but even information glean from satellites can be purchased from private companies for as little as a few hundred dollars which could make the difference between a million or billion dollar profit.
This was never part of my curriculum at college but I think we need to open that door and ensure those who think they have the world by the tail find out that the company they work for already know their shoe size and which Goodwill store they bought it from.
May 19, 2010
My thoughtful husband heard about this book on public radio and got it for me for mothers day. It sounds like a very interesting book, and it was, I suppose. But I just didn't like it that much in the end.
I like espionage, I like clever people finding clues, but it turns out I only like them when they are fighting for a cause. Give me a guy spying on the Nazis! All the spies in this book are former government employees now making a living as corporate spies. It's the story of one cold hearted CEO trying to beat the other equally cold hearted CEO in making a buck. Not exactly inspiring. I didn't give a damn who won or lost.
The book was interesting in many parts, but I just couldn't get excited about the corporate world. It somehow manages to be both boring and mean spirited. James Bond would never sell out like the agents in this book. Seriously.
I like espionage, I like clever people finding clues, but it turns out I only like them when they are fighting for a cause. Give me a guy spying on the Nazis! All the spies in this book are former government employees now making a living as corporate spies. It's the story of one cold hearted CEO trying to beat the other equally cold hearted CEO in making a buck. Not exactly inspiring. I didn't give a damn who won or lost.
The book was interesting in many parts, but I just couldn't get excited about the corporate world. It somehow manages to be both boring and mean spirited. James Bond would never sell out like the agents in this book. Seriously.
May 14, 2024
first half of the book (history of espionage) was much more explosive than the second half (espionage today), but i won’t count it against the author because it is extremely impressive to have found so much information on modern espionage to begin with.
had so much with this book and learned so much! spies and corporate secrets and international deceit and double crosses - and it’s all true!
docking one star only because i found that listening to the audiobook was necessary for denser parts - but the stories and training parts make for INCREDIBLE physical book reads :)
had so much with this book and learned so much! spies and corporate secrets and international deceit and double crosses - and it’s all true!
docking one star only because i found that listening to the audiobook was necessary for denser parts - but the stories and training parts make for INCREDIBLE physical book reads :)
May 3, 2018
Fantastic account of some of the more famous events of corporate espionage, such as Enron and the Chocolate War. Rare instances of language.
April 16, 2025
A comprehensive, yet appropriately condensed treatment on the history and goings-on of the private intelligence gathering sector.
April 5, 2020
Fascinating.
January 3, 2021
This is an excellent book covering modern history of spying. It starts with the Pinkertons evolving from crime investigations into completing corporate due diligence for large companies.
Other agencies that started after Pinkertons included Krolls, Becket Brown, BIA and numerous others. These spy agencies investigate numerous companies. One in particular was Nestlé’s chocolate spying on Mars chocolate during the development of new chocolate products.
These companies also completed work around the world for other countries including Russia, which needed help recovering billions of dollars of assets that disappeared with communism.
The spy industry developed as technology progressed. In certain instances they would infiltrate companies with their own paid employee’s to uncover the interworking of secret organizations. The technology continued to develop from written reports, of overheard conversations, to recordings from wire tapping telephone lines. This led to wireless listening devices that recorded conversations. And now Satellite’s orbiting the earth continuously, take pictures of our every move on a daily schedule.
I find it very interesting that agencies would retrieve shredded documents from company garbage bags, reassembling them in an effort to unravel internal secrects and future detail business plans.
These spy’s would secretly listen to high level private company meetings with select shareholders, creditors and investors in a attempt to determine if the speaker was deceitful about quarterly earnings that were about to be released to the public. If concerns were evident, the stock could be sold by hedge funds before the public has knowledge, saving them millions of dollars.
The author concludes the book by covering foreign spy networks like London's Hakluyt and company. He also talks about the Sheikh Mo, owner of Dubai, who keeps a staff of former CIA veterans on his payroll to gather intelligence on people and companies.
This book enlightened my perspective on how far countries, large companies, including hedge funds will go to protect there asset and customer base.
Other agencies that started after Pinkertons included Krolls, Becket Brown, BIA and numerous others. These spy agencies investigate numerous companies. One in particular was Nestlé’s chocolate spying on Mars chocolate during the development of new chocolate products.
These companies also completed work around the world for other countries including Russia, which needed help recovering billions of dollars of assets that disappeared with communism.
The spy industry developed as technology progressed. In certain instances they would infiltrate companies with their own paid employee’s to uncover the interworking of secret organizations. The technology continued to develop from written reports, of overheard conversations, to recordings from wire tapping telephone lines. This led to wireless listening devices that recorded conversations. And now Satellite’s orbiting the earth continuously, take pictures of our every move on a daily schedule.
I find it very interesting that agencies would retrieve shredded documents from company garbage bags, reassembling them in an effort to unravel internal secrects and future detail business plans.
These spy’s would secretly listen to high level private company meetings with select shareholders, creditors and investors in a attempt to determine if the speaker was deceitful about quarterly earnings that were about to be released to the public. If concerns were evident, the stock could be sold by hedge funds before the public has knowledge, saving them millions of dollars.
The author concludes the book by covering foreign spy networks like London's Hakluyt and company. He also talks about the Sheikh Mo, owner of Dubai, who keeps a staff of former CIA veterans on his payroll to gather intelligence on people and companies.
This book enlightened my perspective on how far countries, large companies, including hedge funds will go to protect there asset and customer base.
May 2, 2010
Not a bad effort, but this book skimps on the juicy bits. I guess it's because people need to cover their rears. I mean, we get some good stories about many of the operations and techniques companies in the corporate espionage business use to gather intelligence. There aren't too many surprises, either. Especially the "revelation" that government spies moonlight in the private sector to augment their paychecks. Not too earthshattering. Maybe the author was commenting on the ethical justification behind such a practice...I don't know.
But this book could have been so much better had we heard about all the gray ops we all suspect these companies execute to get what they're looking for. That's the juicy stuff I'd love to read about. But I realize that's too much to ask, since these companies can face prosecution for being naughty.
Oh, well. I guess I'll have to leave it to Hollywood and movies like "The International" to satisfy me when it comes to the shadowy world of corporate intrigue and espionage.
But this book could have been so much better had we heard about all the gray ops we all suspect these companies execute to get what they're looking for. That's the juicy stuff I'd love to read about. But I realize that's too much to ask, since these companies can face prosecution for being naughty.
Oh, well. I guess I'll have to leave it to Hollywood and movies like "The International" to satisfy me when it comes to the shadowy world of corporate intrigue and espionage.
June 5, 2016
With a few interesting anecdotes, overall a disappointment. I heard an interview with the author and the book sounded quite interesting - little did I realize the interview included pretty much anything of substance in the book. #ItShould'veBeenAPamphlet.
Here's how the chapters are structured: (1) Name some firm that does something fairly predictable (2) Fawn over the founder's resumes (3) Fawn over the resumes of people the founder knows (4) Try to include an example, but when the companies won't give you one, make up what you think probably happened and (5) When they won't tell you the outcome, make that up too.
It's a difficult book to write because of the sensitive nature of things, but, well, that doesn't leave it feeling less vacuous.
I did finish it though? :)
Here's how the chapters are structured: (1) Name some firm that does something fairly predictable (2) Fawn over the founder's resumes (3) Fawn over the resumes of people the founder knows (4) Try to include an example, but when the companies won't give you one, make up what you think probably happened and (5) When they won't tell you the outcome, make that up too.
It's a difficult book to write because of the sensitive nature of things, but, well, that doesn't leave it feeling less vacuous.
I did finish it though? :)
April 15, 2013
This should have been an interesting book. It's about spies - real ones, around us - hacking phone lines and emails, tailing people, pretending to be people they're not, going undercover.
And yet, aside for a few interesting anecdotes, and the history of the private eye profession (about one Mr. Allen Pinkerton), it's a boring read.
The style is more report and less story. While the amount of research is impressive, I really care very little about the birthplace of every CIA agent turned corporate spy.
And yet, aside for a few interesting anecdotes, and the history of the private eye profession (about one Mr. Allen Pinkerton), it's a boring read.
The style is more report and less story. While the amount of research is impressive, I really care very little about the birthplace of every CIA agent turned corporate spy.
June 15, 2014
I had high expectations for this book because the subject matter sounded interesting, and it was informative but ultimately, I think, shallow. He surveys the world of corporate espionage without nearly as much contemplation of potential ramifications as I would like. It ends up being a series of cool anecdotes from people who aren’t especially forthcoming. Maybe it’s because I’m just coming off of reading some James Stewart, who holds nothing back, but while quick/compelling, ultimately unsatisfying.
March 14, 2010
This book was quite interesting, from dumpster diving, to tactical behavior assessment (assessing lying by observing people's behaviors), to satellite surveillance, and everything in between. Corporate espionage is a HUGE, HUGE business. Oh boy - was I naive! Big Brother is here. Susan
April 16, 2010
This is a great book. I would highly recommend it for those in competitive intelligence as full of examples of what NOT to do, but described in a highly entertaining way. Fabulous read.
April 18, 2023
RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: “PINKERTON’S… FBI… CIA… HOWARD HUGHES… 007… MAFIA… KGB… SPIES & DETECTIVES… ET AL”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book takes the reader on a historical behind the scenes tour of everything from modern day *SPY-VS-SPY-VS-SPY* to the history of the detective industry… including the mesmerizing story of “ALLAN PINKERTON, THE MAN ACKNOWLEDGED TO BE THE INVENTOR OF THE PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE BUSINESS” in the 1850’s. Pinkerton even established rules of ethics for his agents… and as modern times approached… modern detectives cast those well-intentioned guidelines out the window. The Pinkerton Agency whose catch phrase and image was “The Eye That Never Sleeps” with a picture of an open eye led to the phrase “private-eye”. Pinkerton’s “battled corporate thieves, stalked bank robbers, and chased Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the Jesse James gang across the Wild West. During the Civil War, Pinkerton agents foiled an early attempt to assassinate President Lincoln and sent spies into the Confederacy.” As the author leads you to modern… and at times despicable… corporate espionage… it all leads back to the foresight of Pinkerton’s. “In 1871, the U.S. Department of Justice outsourced much of its investigative work for the year to the Pinkerton’s on a $50,000.00 contract. The firm grew so large and successful that its mission, tactics, and organization ultimately became the inspiration for the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI itself.”
In between the early days and modern day espionage the reader will delight in the stories of the CIA working with the Mafia… and Howard Hughes creating his own personal CIA… and the infighting between the real CIA and Howard Hughes. The author provides first hand commentary from one of the few men who worked for Howard Hughes in his declining years… and actually met him. The explosive growth of the spying/espionage/detective business is fueled mostly by former FBI, CIA, KGB, etc agents. In fact… shockingly… active duty CIA employees are allowed to work for these agencies in their off hours to make extra money. The government figures if they don’t allow this they will lose their investment in the men and women they’ve trained due to their limited government compensation. Another area that is covered in depth… and is really “eye-opening” is the use of satellite espionage. There are actually times… different private satellite companies can provide more information to other countries than a complete country can get themselves.
Along with the history of Pinkerton’s… perhaps the most interesting segment of this book is “THE CHOCOLATE WAR”… the stranger than fiction… constant… hateful… personal… battle between Nestlé’s and Mars. Though this “chocolate-battlefield” has no physical limit… or time expiration… the specific conflict over *NESTLE-MAGIC-CANDY” a two-inch-plastic-Disney-toy-covered-with-chocolate… has more twists and turns than a major international war. There are spies… double spies… lies between executives… janitor’s paid in cash for trash… phones bugged… fake bar customers… fake dinner customer’s… fake reports of choking’s… lies to the government… spy planes… satellite photo’s… and more. “MARS EXECUTIVES WORRIED THAT THE SMALL PLASTIC TOY INCLUDED INSIDE THE NESTLE MAGIC CANDIES COULD BECOME A COLLECTOR’S ITEM. IT COULD HAVE TURNED INTO A FAD LIKE “TICKLE ME ELMO”, THEY GRUMBLED, BECOMING THE MUST-HAVE CHILDREN’S GIFT OF THE YEAR.”
Oh… and by the way… did you know that “UNTIL 1999, GERMAN COMPANIES COULD DEDUCT BRIBES THEY PAID ABROAD FROM THEIR TAXES?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book takes the reader on a historical behind the scenes tour of everything from modern day *SPY-VS-SPY-VS-SPY* to the history of the detective industry… including the mesmerizing story of “ALLAN PINKERTON, THE MAN ACKNOWLEDGED TO BE THE INVENTOR OF THE PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE BUSINESS” in the 1850’s. Pinkerton even established rules of ethics for his agents… and as modern times approached… modern detectives cast those well-intentioned guidelines out the window. The Pinkerton Agency whose catch phrase and image was “The Eye That Never Sleeps” with a picture of an open eye led to the phrase “private-eye”. Pinkerton’s “battled corporate thieves, stalked bank robbers, and chased Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the Jesse James gang across the Wild West. During the Civil War, Pinkerton agents foiled an early attempt to assassinate President Lincoln and sent spies into the Confederacy.” As the author leads you to modern… and at times despicable… corporate espionage… it all leads back to the foresight of Pinkerton’s. “In 1871, the U.S. Department of Justice outsourced much of its investigative work for the year to the Pinkerton’s on a $50,000.00 contract. The firm grew so large and successful that its mission, tactics, and organization ultimately became the inspiration for the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI itself.”
In between the early days and modern day espionage the reader will delight in the stories of the CIA working with the Mafia… and Howard Hughes creating his own personal CIA… and the infighting between the real CIA and Howard Hughes. The author provides first hand commentary from one of the few men who worked for Howard Hughes in his declining years… and actually met him. The explosive growth of the spying/espionage/detective business is fueled mostly by former FBI, CIA, KGB, etc agents. In fact… shockingly… active duty CIA employees are allowed to work for these agencies in their off hours to make extra money. The government figures if they don’t allow this they will lose their investment in the men and women they’ve trained due to their limited government compensation. Another area that is covered in depth… and is really “eye-opening” is the use of satellite espionage. There are actually times… different private satellite companies can provide more information to other countries than a complete country can get themselves.
Along with the history of Pinkerton’s… perhaps the most interesting segment of this book is “THE CHOCOLATE WAR”… the stranger than fiction… constant… hateful… personal… battle between Nestlé’s and Mars. Though this “chocolate-battlefield” has no physical limit… or time expiration… the specific conflict over *NESTLE-MAGIC-CANDY” a two-inch-plastic-Disney-toy-covered-with-chocolate… has more twists and turns than a major international war. There are spies… double spies… lies between executives… janitor’s paid in cash for trash… phones bugged… fake bar customers… fake dinner customer’s… fake reports of choking’s… lies to the government… spy planes… satellite photo’s… and more. “MARS EXECUTIVES WORRIED THAT THE SMALL PLASTIC TOY INCLUDED INSIDE THE NESTLE MAGIC CANDIES COULD BECOME A COLLECTOR’S ITEM. IT COULD HAVE TURNED INTO A FAD LIKE “TICKLE ME ELMO”, THEY GRUMBLED, BECOMING THE MUST-HAVE CHILDREN’S GIFT OF THE YEAR.”
Oh… and by the way… did you know that “UNTIL 1999, GERMAN COMPANIES COULD DEDUCT BRIBES THEY PAID ABROAD FROM THEIR TAXES?”
May 16, 2020
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy threw up conflicting feelings for me.
On the one hand, this book did what it says on the tin: it provides a rough historical sketch of the emergence of the private intelligence industry, focusing specifically on corporate espionage.
And yet — although undoubtedly well-written — it never quite managed to be enthralling.
Yes, there were interesting glimmers of tradecraft and information, most particularly surrounding the techniques used by various sides during the Chocolate War between Nestlé and Mars (I found the fact that spies would replace the stolen trash with dummy trash quite entertaining).
But other than that, after reaching its conclusion, I was left with the feeling that I had read a jumbled assortment of anecdotes gleaned from conversations with a potpourri of private intelligence operatives (all from a similar background with various government intelligence services). And although the firm names and operations differ, the book somewhat repetitively recounts how various retired government spies are all doing more or less the same thing: repurposing their skills in the private sector for greater compensation and selling them to the highest bidder.
The book whet my palette enough that I would like to learn a little more about private and corporate espionage.
But it wasn't as enthralling or page-turning read as I had expected.
On the one hand, this book did what it says on the tin: it provides a rough historical sketch of the emergence of the private intelligence industry, focusing specifically on corporate espionage.
And yet — although undoubtedly well-written — it never quite managed to be enthralling.
Yes, there were interesting glimmers of tradecraft and information, most particularly surrounding the techniques used by various sides during the Chocolate War between Nestlé and Mars (I found the fact that spies would replace the stolen trash with dummy trash quite entertaining).
But other than that, after reaching its conclusion, I was left with the feeling that I had read a jumbled assortment of anecdotes gleaned from conversations with a potpourri of private intelligence operatives (all from a similar background with various government intelligence services). And although the firm names and operations differ, the book somewhat repetitively recounts how various retired government spies are all doing more or less the same thing: repurposing their skills in the private sector for greater compensation and selling them to the highest bidder.
The book whet my palette enough that I would like to learn a little more about private and corporate espionage.
But it wasn't as enthralling or page-turning read as I had expected.
September 8, 2023
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy
40/2023
I’ve had this one on my bookshelf unread for about a decade. But the parallels here to “Original Sin” by Bleddyn Bowen make it an interesting one.
The book examines the history and reality of corporate espionage. It briefly addresses ethical issues, more of which would have been welcome. The history section strings together disparate anecdotes but falls short of a compete genealogy of the trade. The second section details high level tactics and techniques that are used by these corporate spies. On balance it’s entertaining enough without quite cracking the shell of the very secretive actors involved.
One anecdote that stands out is the relationship between eccentric billionaire mogul Howard Hughes and private intelligence- he used it for his own palace intrigue as well as for competitive reasons. Sometimes less than ethically.
One wonders how much farther this has expanded amongst today’s billionaire class, who increasingly see themselves on par with nation-states. If accounts like Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill” are any indicator, the use of these tools against unsuspecting folk is only getting worse.
40/2023
I’ve had this one on my bookshelf unread for about a decade. But the parallels here to “Original Sin” by Bleddyn Bowen make it an interesting one.
The book examines the history and reality of corporate espionage. It briefly addresses ethical issues, more of which would have been welcome. The history section strings together disparate anecdotes but falls short of a compete genealogy of the trade. The second section details high level tactics and techniques that are used by these corporate spies. On balance it’s entertaining enough without quite cracking the shell of the very secretive actors involved.
One anecdote that stands out is the relationship between eccentric billionaire mogul Howard Hughes and private intelligence- he used it for his own palace intrigue as well as for competitive reasons. Sometimes less than ethically.
One wonders how much farther this has expanded amongst today’s billionaire class, who increasingly see themselves on par with nation-states. If accounts like Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill” are any indicator, the use of these tools against unsuspecting folk is only getting worse.
December 17, 2024
A fascinating and illuminating read. On some level I always knew that corporations were willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead, but actually hearing the stories, learning the methods, and meeting the people who make corporate espionage possible just makes it clear how much these ultra-wealthy international conglomerates can get away with.
My only gripe is with this book is how soft-handed Javer deals with these spies and corporations. He is at worst mildly admonishing, but more often than not, he speaks of his interviewees and their escapades with reverence. The life of a corporate spy is not as daring or exciting as James Bond, but it is certainly more consequential, tangible and detrimental to all our lives.
My only gripe is with this book is how soft-handed Javer deals with these spies and corporations. He is at worst mildly admonishing, but more often than not, he speaks of his interviewees and their escapades with reverence. The life of a corporate spy is not as daring or exciting as James Bond, but it is certainly more consequential, tangible and detrimental to all our lives.
April 2, 2018
The overall topic was pretty interesting, spying in the corporate world is quite usual according this book. Book is full of interesting stories about spies and spying overall. I was hoping the book would analyze the phenomenon a bit more, but it stayed mainly on telling the interesting stories.
For me it was a bit hard to follow, since the key people in the book kept on changing for every chapter. That made it a bit hard to follow for me. I do understand that with telling so many stories, this is inevitable, but it still bothered me a bit.
I would recommend the book everyone who likes real life stories and is interested in the corporate world. It's quite ok book.
For me it was a bit hard to follow, since the key people in the book kept on changing for every chapter. That made it a bit hard to follow for me. I do understand that with telling so many stories, this is inevitable, but it still bothered me a bit.
I would recommend the book everyone who likes real life stories and is interested in the corporate world. It's quite ok book.
September 9, 2017
Interessant og fascinerende bok om spionasje. En kontinuerlig strøm av ex-militære spioner tilbyr nå sine tjenester og teknikker til private selskaper. Mye av det de finner utnyttes rått av finansielle institusjoner.
Boken er et nyttig slag i trynet på naive fjellaper. Det er en (informasjons)krig der ute; og de beste finner nesten hva som helst... Denne boken tar reisen fra starten med små detektivselskaper til dagens high-tech overvåkningsselskaper.
Boken er et nyttig slag i trynet på naive fjellaper. Det er en (informasjons)krig der ute; og de beste finner nesten hva som helst... Denne boken tar reisen fra starten med små detektivselskaper til dagens high-tech overvåkningsselskaper.
October 2, 2018
I really enjoyed Mr. Javer’s work. Written nearly a decade ago, Mr. Javers made mention of Mr. Glenn Simpson previously of the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Simpson has been in the news, in somewhat unfavorable light.
Mr. Javers argues in the epilogue for more openness about the corporate spy industry. One can hope he returns to that important work. More people need to be awakened to it. The stakes are high.
Mr. Javers argues in the epilogue for more openness about the corporate spy industry. One can hope he returns to that important work. More people need to be awakened to it. The stakes are high.
April 26, 2020
Well researached and written. A glimpse of a world few of us know, though having worked for a mega corporation in the past I've seen the faintest shades of this paranoia, with project code names and monitoring of staff. The older I get, these dog-eat-dog stories make one wonder who they can trust... it just makes me want to remove myself further and further from this type of system. Time to move to the woods and raise some chickens...
May 7, 2020
Read as research into topic of corporate espionage--clearly written, fact-filled. Good narrative nonfiction storytelling. I didn't know much about this topic and appreciated the clarity and high level of detail--I also learned a lot about the lines blurred by government sponsored espionage and agencies (like the CIA) and private security/investigative firms and corporate espionage. Fast read.
August 20, 2023
Come on. The first half of the book was about the Pinkertons and Kroll - institutions of vanilla corporate private security services. That hardly fits the idea of corporate espionage, and the same could be said to the book's lengthy explorations of various OSINT techniques. But I guess the tradecraft of many short sellers sounds better packaged as 'espionage'. Boring!
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