There's a cat and mouse game between the company and McCrum that ought to be exciting, but by describing the hundreds of other cats and mice all playing small (or unknown) roles, it feels like reading a company's annual report. We never see the inside of Wirecard, never really understand how their scam worked. The book lists a cast of characters at the beginning because dozens of people play a part, but there is no focus other than findkng a way to get the truth out about Wirecard. Every meeting MeCrum had, every trip he took, every glass of beer he drank in a London bar. Money Men covered 7 years of investigation with every detail. We saw what was actually going on inside of Theranos as Holmes hid the reality of an impossible product from employees, from regulators, from customers, and from investors. We got to know each of them, their lives and their struggles. That book told the intimate stories of founder Elizabeth Holmes and a few senior staff members who risked their careers and their health to blow the whistle. I can't help comparing Money Men to Bad Blood, the story of the Theranos scandal by Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou. What should have been an exciting read of international conspiracy, corruption, spying, and even criminal charges lodged against the writer, was kind of a slog. But I was kind of disappointed by the storytelling. If you're into financial scandals, it's a must-read. So when Money Men came out, the story of the Wirecard scandal by Dan McCrum, the Financial Times journalist who broke the story, I had to rush out and buy a copy. I like to understand the people who perpetuate large-scale frauds and the details of how they pull it off. I love stories of accounting scandals, especially startups. Uncovering fake bank accounts, fake offices and possibly even a fake death, McCrum offers a searing exposé that will finally lay bare the truth. Money Men is the astonishing inside story of Wirecard's multi-billion-dollar fraud, Europe's biggest new tech darling revealed as a house of cards. The race was on to prove his suspicions and clear his name. Shadowy figures were following him through the streets of London, high-flying lawyers were sending ominous letters to his boss, and he was named as the prime suspect in a criminal inquiry. Before long he realised that he wasn't the only one in pursuit. In the space of a few short years, the company had come from nowhere to overtake industry giants like Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank on the stock market.Īs McCrum dug deeper, he encountered a story stranger and more dangerous than he ever imagined: a world of short sellers and whistleblowers, pornographers and private militias, hackers and spies. When journalist Dan McCrum followed a tip to investigate the hot new tech company challenging Silicon Valley, everything about Wirecard looked a little too good to be true: offices were sprouting up around the world, it was reporting runaway growth and the CEO even wore a black turtleneck in tribute to Steve Jobs. This is the stranger-than-fiction story of Wirecard, once a $30 billion tech darling, now a smouldering wreck, by the journalist who brought it crashing down - perfect for those who loved Bad Blood and Empire of Pain. 'A rip-roaring ride into the underworld of the global economy' Tom Burgis, author of Kleptopia Money Men instantly enters the canon of great financial crime books' Bradley Hope, author of The Billion Dollar Whale 'The financial investigation of the decade.
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