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Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation
A rollicking story of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, over-the-top and under-the-radar deceit, illicit sex, and a brilliant and wildly charming con man who kept a Ponzi scheme alive perhaps for longer than anyone else in history.
It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone’s rise to underworld domination, Chicago’s corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters, and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million--upwards of $400 million today--in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. When Leo’s scheme finally collapsed in 1923, he vanished, and the Chicago state’s attorney, a man whose lust for power equaled Leo’s own lust for money, began an international manhunt that lasted almost a year. When finally apprehended, Leo was living a life of luxury in Nova Scotia under the assumed identity of a book dealer and literary critic. His mysterious death in a Chicago prison topped anything in his almost-too-bizarre-to-believe life.
Empire of Deception is not only an incredibly rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it’s a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity.
“A captivating tale of high-flying financial chicanery in 1920s Chicago. Dean Jobb tells the story of Leo Koretz, a legendary con artist of Madoffian audacity, with terrific energy and narrative brio. A thoroughly enjoyable read.” —Gary Krist, New York Times bestselling author of City of Scoundrels
“This highly readable account of a major swindle in the Roaring Twenties in Chicago will convince any sensible reader that when it comes to investing in crackpot schemes, nobody ever learns anything by experience. Leo Koretz did exactly what Bernie Madoff did, and came to the same end, as did his investors. A dramatic read, and a useful lesson!” —Michael Korda, author of Charmed Lives
“Empire of Deception is a sure thing--a book guaranteed to entertain and make you rich (in knowledge, that is). Dean Jobb has found a fascinating yet little-known jazz-age tale and told it with style and smarts. Get in on the action.” —Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author
of Get Capone
“Begin with a Bernie Madoff, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing con man, pursued by a power-hungry prig of a public prosecutor; add the great hog-trough feeding frenzy of 1920s Chicago; stir with great writing and enterprising research; and there you have it: A wonderfully entertaining read!” —Michael Lesy, author of Wisconsin Death Trip and Murder City
It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone’s rise to underworld domination, Chicago’s corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters, and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million--upwards of $400 million today--in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. When Leo’s scheme finally collapsed in 1923, he vanished, and the Chicago state’s attorney, a man whose lust for power equaled Leo’s own lust for money, began an international manhunt that lasted almost a year. When finally apprehended, Leo was living a life of luxury in Nova Scotia under the assumed identity of a book dealer and literary critic. His mysterious death in a Chicago prison topped anything in his almost-too-bizarre-to-believe life.
Empire of Deception is not only an incredibly rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it’s a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity.
“A captivating tale of high-flying financial chicanery in 1920s Chicago. Dean Jobb tells the story of Leo Koretz, a legendary con artist of Madoffian audacity, with terrific energy and narrative brio. A thoroughly enjoyable read.” —Gary Krist, New York Times bestselling author of City of Scoundrels
“This highly readable account of a major swindle in the Roaring Twenties in Chicago will convince any sensible reader that when it comes to investing in crackpot schemes, nobody ever learns anything by experience. Leo Koretz did exactly what Bernie Madoff did, and came to the same end, as did his investors. A dramatic read, and a useful lesson!” —Michael Korda, author of Charmed Lives
“Empire of Deception is a sure thing--a book guaranteed to entertain and make you rich (in knowledge, that is). Dean Jobb has found a fascinating yet little-known jazz-age tale and told it with style and smarts. Get in on the action.” —Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author
of Get Capone
“Begin with a Bernie Madoff, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing con man, pursued by a power-hungry prig of a public prosecutor; add the great hog-trough feeding frenzy of 1920s Chicago; stir with great writing and enterprising research; and there you have it: A wonderfully entertaining read!” —Michael Lesy, author of Wisconsin Death Trip and Murder City
353 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 19, 2015
498 people are currently reading
3705 people want to read
About the author
Dean Jobb
32 books244 followers"Jobb's true crime stories are not to be missed" – CrimeReads
I specialize in true crime and I'm drawn to overlooked or forgotten stories. My new book, A Gentleman and a Thief, coming in June 2024, tells the incredible story of Arthur Barry, one of the world’s most successful jewel thieves, who charmed the elite of 1920s New York, brazenly swiped gems worth millions of dollars from their posh country estates, and outfoxed the police and private detectives on his trail.
My previous books include The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream , winner of the inaugural CrimeCon CLUE Award for Best True Crime Book of 2021 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. It recreates Scotland Yard's hunt for a Victorian Era serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Britain, the U.S. and Canada. Empire of Deception, the rollicking tale of Chicago con man Leo Koretz and his amazing 1920s oil swindle, was the Chicago Writers Association's Nonfiction Book of the Year. Esquire proclaimed it one of the best biographies of all time.
I'm also the author of The Acadian Saga: A People's Story of Exile and Triumph , which chronicles the expulsion of French-speaking Acadians from Eastern Canada more than two centuries ago and the founding of Louisiana’s Cajun culture.
My books have won the Crime Writers of Canada Award for best true crime book and I have been a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize, Canada's top award for nonfiction.
My true crime column "Stranger Than Fiction" appears in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and I write book reviews and features for The Irish Times, CrimeReads, the Washington Independent Review of Books and other major publications. I'm a professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax and teach in the King's MFA in Creative Nonfiction program.
I specialize in true crime and I'm drawn to overlooked or forgotten stories. My new book, A Gentleman and a Thief, coming in June 2024, tells the incredible story of Arthur Barry, one of the world’s most successful jewel thieves, who charmed the elite of 1920s New York, brazenly swiped gems worth millions of dollars from their posh country estates, and outfoxed the police and private detectives on his trail.
My previous books include The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream , winner of the inaugural CrimeCon CLUE Award for Best True Crime Book of 2021 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. It recreates Scotland Yard's hunt for a Victorian Era serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Britain, the U.S. and Canada. Empire of Deception, the rollicking tale of Chicago con man Leo Koretz and his amazing 1920s oil swindle, was the Chicago Writers Association's Nonfiction Book of the Year. Esquire proclaimed it one of the best biographies of all time.
I'm also the author of The Acadian Saga: A People's Story of Exile and Triumph , which chronicles the expulsion of French-speaking Acadians from Eastern Canada more than two centuries ago and the founding of Louisiana’s Cajun culture.
My books have won the Crime Writers of Canada Award for best true crime book and I have been a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize, Canada's top award for nonfiction.
My true crime column "Stranger Than Fiction" appears in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and I write book reviews and features for The Irish Times, CrimeReads, the Washington Independent Review of Books and other major publications. I'm a professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax and teach in the King's MFA in Creative Nonfiction program.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews
May 6, 2015
My sincere thanks to Netgalley for providing the e-galley of Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation due to be published May 19, 2015 by Algonquin Books/
“Something for Nothing.” “Nothing for Something.” There is something seductive about that quote which fits Empire of Deception to a tee. Con, sting, fraud, double-cross, swindle, scheme, cheat, deception, no matter the word you use to describe the crime, Leo Koretz is a master of the game. I admit my attraction, the lure of this man, even cheering for Koretz to escape the arm of the law only to realize what this truly means. The magnetic pull of a Leo Koretz is captivating and disastrous all in one.
I’m a fan of true crime, particularly narratives of those who are able to cunningly bilk the public out of their hard earned money. I’m familiar with the financial swindles of Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi, and Allen Stanford. Leo Koretz, not at all. Who was this charismatic man, a man of style and affluence, a man well liked and respected, in the backdrop of Twenties Chicago? This was remedied in Dean Jobb’s meticulously researched Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation. Looking back on history many a great empire has fallen and so this one will but not before an intriguing story has been told.
”He was the kind of smooth talker who could sell refrigerators in Alaska.”
The interesting thing about Koretz’s ”dip into dishonesty” was that he rarely needed to convince you to buy. People were begging to purchase shares in his Panama Bayano Oil Syndicate. Koretz’s attitude with a prospective client was one of limited availability making you all the more anxious to invest your cash.
How does a man who start out as a law abiding citizen practicing law become one of the most notorious swindlers this country ever saw?
”I was a very poor, struggling young lawyer, hungry, for anything in the way of a client,” he would recall.”I needed money badly.”
So it began.
There are some very interesting thoughts about money and greed explored in this book. Leo Koretz justifies his deed with the quote I used in my opening comment.
”They wanted something for nothing,” he explained. ”I gave them nothing for something.”
Before it ends you will know how Koretz’s scam worked. You may not believe the gullibility of his victims but then I wonder how many of us would not have put down our own money for the promises of riches. A mesmerizing read to say the least, a cautionary tale for something that sounds too good to be true.
“Something for Nothing.” “Nothing for Something.” There is something seductive about that quote which fits Empire of Deception to a tee. Con, sting, fraud, double-cross, swindle, scheme, cheat, deception, no matter the word you use to describe the crime, Leo Koretz is a master of the game. I admit my attraction, the lure of this man, even cheering for Koretz to escape the arm of the law only to realize what this truly means. The magnetic pull of a Leo Koretz is captivating and disastrous all in one.
I’m a fan of true crime, particularly narratives of those who are able to cunningly bilk the public out of their hard earned money. I’m familiar with the financial swindles of Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi, and Allen Stanford. Leo Koretz, not at all. Who was this charismatic man, a man of style and affluence, a man well liked and respected, in the backdrop of Twenties Chicago? This was remedied in Dean Jobb’s meticulously researched Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation. Looking back on history many a great empire has fallen and so this one will but not before an intriguing story has been told.
”He was the kind of smooth talker who could sell refrigerators in Alaska.”
The interesting thing about Koretz’s ”dip into dishonesty” was that he rarely needed to convince you to buy. People were begging to purchase shares in his Panama Bayano Oil Syndicate. Koretz’s attitude with a prospective client was one of limited availability making you all the more anxious to invest your cash.
How does a man who start out as a law abiding citizen practicing law become one of the most notorious swindlers this country ever saw?
”I was a very poor, struggling young lawyer, hungry, for anything in the way of a client,” he would recall.”I needed money badly.”
So it began.
There are some very interesting thoughts about money and greed explored in this book. Leo Koretz justifies his deed with the quote I used in my opening comment.
”They wanted something for nothing,” he explained. ”I gave them nothing for something.”
Before it ends you will know how Koretz’s scam worked. You may not believe the gullibility of his victims but then I wonder how many of us would not have put down our own money for the promises of riches. A mesmerizing read to say the least, a cautionary tale for something that sounds too good to be true.
July 27, 2015
This is another colorful story from the history of a city whose history is as colorful as a 4th of July fireworks show. The story is about the Bernie Madoff of Roaring Twenties Chicago, Leo Koretz. While I am a life long resident of the Chicago area and a devotee of Chicago history I must admit never having heard of this story before reading this book. The fact that the scandal was about greedy rich people being bilked and the scandal breaking shortly before the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder case may have been reasons that this incident hasn't garnered any historical mention. Nevertheless, this book was a fair and detailed telling of a classic large scale Ponzi scheme. What makes Koretz's crime so noteworthy is that he managed to keep it in play for neatly 20 years and he swindled his closest friends and family including his own mother. When the scam blew-up he fled to Nova Scotia where he assumed a new identity and resurrected his lavish lifestyle. He was eventually undone by a tailor and returned to Chicago to face his criminal consequences. The crime depicted is not particularly stirring, at least not by the standards of Chicago history, but the details concerning Chicago politics and criminal justice were to me, a retired Chicago criminal lawyer, were very interesting and amusing. A solid telling of a story that has lessons for the present as the Roaring Twenties and the easy money attitudes of that time are very similar to present day attitudes. What is it they say about knowing your history?
December 18, 2019
4|5 ⭐️
• Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge - 19. A book of nonviolent true crime •
• Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge - 19. A book of nonviolent true crime •
Read
June 26, 2015My review here originally appeared in The Washington Post.
The first chapter of Dean Jobb’s comprehensively researched and enthralling account of the life, times and crimes of Leo Koretz begins in June 1922 at Chicago’s posh Drake Hotel. An elegant banquet celebrates “Oil King” Koretz, the “New Rockefeller” whose Bayano Syndicate, a timber business turned oil empire, has made many of his friends and associates filthy rich. A “fine vellum” booklet at each place setting offers a satirical bio of the man of the hour, including a jesting reference to “Our Ponzi,” such a ludicrous comparison to the inventor of the infamous Ponzi method of defraudig investors that “the diners roared with laughter.” By the end of a chapter that also sketches Chicago as a capital of both business and crime, and evokes the roaring, booming 1920s, Jobb unpacks the first irony of “Our Ponzi,” unmasking the master swindler and revealing the author as an equally masterful storyteller.
Koretz’s story proves to be high-stakes drama of the first order. After his family immigrated to the United States from Bohemia when Koretz was 8, he quickly set out on a path to a good education and American success. A superior student and gifted debater, the boy became his high school’s leading fundraiser for good causes. After graduating, he clerked at a law firm and took evening courses to earn his degree. It was as a young lawyer that Koretz took what he called his first “dip into dishonesty,” offering a fake mortgage to a client with money to invest. From there he went on to invent increasingly elaborate confidence schemes, including a slew of fictitious claims on Arkansas rice farms.
“Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation” by Dean Jobb. (Algonquin/ )
After Koretz made his own “fool mistake” in 1908, investing in a bogus land deal in Panama, he came up with a “big idea” about that faraway country’s Bayano region, and then bigger ideas after that, until his syndicate had 5,000 employees, plans for a pipeline spanning Panama, orders for a dozen tankers to transport oil to the States and increasingly generous buyout offers from Standard Oil — each declined in turn, or so Koretz said. Along the way, he honed his strategy of “negative salesmanship,” building on what one duped client called “the principle that a person will literally fight for something that is most difficult to get.” The more Koretz discouraged investors, the more he insisted that no stock was available, the more those wealthy friends wanted in: “They camped at the curb outside my home, and at my doorstep,” he recalled.
The ultimate irony of Koretz’s career is that he was performing the Ponzi maneuver — misusing contributions from new investors to pay dividends to earlier ones — before Charles Ponzi himself. (As Jobb notes, it could have been called the Koretz scheme, except that Ponzi got caught first.) And while Ponzi’s scheme fell apart within a single year (1920), Koretz’s persisted for nearly two decades. Even when the fictional syndicate began to dismantle in 1923, Koretz still enjoyed everyone’s confidence. Sending off a batch of freshly hired executives to Panama to inspect operations, and using the trip’s length to buy time for his escape, he was handed a literal blank check for yet another deal, to be filled out “once he knew exactly how much money was needed.”
Click here for more information!
And that’s not even the halfway point of an audacious story that also features secret love nests and affairs with many women; multiple identities, rough disguises and a stint of hiding in plain sight; an international manhunt, a fateful knock at the door and a gripping court drama; and so many of Koretz’s shenanigans in chapter after chapter that the margins of my copy of the book are now punctuated with strings of red exclamation points. Even when he lands in prison, his plotting’s not done; an “escape plan” is still ahead.
High-stakes hijinks give the story a rollicking feel, but Jobb manages great poignancy, too, from his portrait of Koretz’s wife, Mae, stung by her husband’s betrayal and committed to making amends to his victims, to brief anecdotes about those victims, such as the dining-car steward who invested his life savings and then quit his job “to live off the profits he was certain were headed his way.”
Koretz’s life parallels that of his prosecutor, state’s attorney Robert Crowe, best known for convicting the thrill killers Leopold and Loeb. Crowe and Koretz both graduated from Chicago high schools in 1898, a year Jobb calls “a pivotal one for the United States, marking its transformation from young nation to global superpower.” The two men began legal careers in the same firm, and despite their different paths, Jobb notes that “both would prove . . . willing to do what had to be done to get ahead.” That Crowe ends up pursuing and prosecuting Leo would be inevitable in fiction; here, it’s just another of the story’s dense ironies. More than backdrop, Chicago’s corrupt political scene and gangland violence spur Crowe’s intense focus on indictments and prosecution. His ambitions need a win.
After peaking in true-crime magazines and criminology textbooks of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, Koretz’s fame waned. While Ponzi’s name lives on in such venues as the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the Oxford English Dictionary, Koretz didn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry until just after this book was published. This lively and sweeping account seems to have already given a master con artist his due, putting him in the “pantheon of pyramid-building swindlers.”
The first chapter of Dean Jobb’s comprehensively researched and enthralling account of the life, times and crimes of Leo Koretz begins in June 1922 at Chicago’s posh Drake Hotel. An elegant banquet celebrates “Oil King” Koretz, the “New Rockefeller” whose Bayano Syndicate, a timber business turned oil empire, has made many of his friends and associates filthy rich. A “fine vellum” booklet at each place setting offers a satirical bio of the man of the hour, including a jesting reference to “Our Ponzi,” such a ludicrous comparison to the inventor of the infamous Ponzi method of defraudig investors that “the diners roared with laughter.” By the end of a chapter that also sketches Chicago as a capital of both business and crime, and evokes the roaring, booming 1920s, Jobb unpacks the first irony of “Our Ponzi,” unmasking the master swindler and revealing the author as an equally masterful storyteller.
Koretz’s story proves to be high-stakes drama of the first order. After his family immigrated to the United States from Bohemia when Koretz was 8, he quickly set out on a path to a good education and American success. A superior student and gifted debater, the boy became his high school’s leading fundraiser for good causes. After graduating, he clerked at a law firm and took evening courses to earn his degree. It was as a young lawyer that Koretz took what he called his first “dip into dishonesty,” offering a fake mortgage to a client with money to invest. From there he went on to invent increasingly elaborate confidence schemes, including a slew of fictitious claims on Arkansas rice farms.
“Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation” by Dean Jobb. (Algonquin/ )
After Koretz made his own “fool mistake” in 1908, investing in a bogus land deal in Panama, he came up with a “big idea” about that faraway country’s Bayano region, and then bigger ideas after that, until his syndicate had 5,000 employees, plans for a pipeline spanning Panama, orders for a dozen tankers to transport oil to the States and increasingly generous buyout offers from Standard Oil — each declined in turn, or so Koretz said. Along the way, he honed his strategy of “negative salesmanship,” building on what one duped client called “the principle that a person will literally fight for something that is most difficult to get.” The more Koretz discouraged investors, the more he insisted that no stock was available, the more those wealthy friends wanted in: “They camped at the curb outside my home, and at my doorstep,” he recalled.
The ultimate irony of Koretz’s career is that he was performing the Ponzi maneuver — misusing contributions from new investors to pay dividends to earlier ones — before Charles Ponzi himself. (As Jobb notes, it could have been called the Koretz scheme, except that Ponzi got caught first.) And while Ponzi’s scheme fell apart within a single year (1920), Koretz’s persisted for nearly two decades. Even when the fictional syndicate began to dismantle in 1923, Koretz still enjoyed everyone’s confidence. Sending off a batch of freshly hired executives to Panama to inspect operations, and using the trip’s length to buy time for his escape, he was handed a literal blank check for yet another deal, to be filled out “once he knew exactly how much money was needed.”
Click here for more information!
And that’s not even the halfway point of an audacious story that also features secret love nests and affairs with many women; multiple identities, rough disguises and a stint of hiding in plain sight; an international manhunt, a fateful knock at the door and a gripping court drama; and so many of Koretz’s shenanigans in chapter after chapter that the margins of my copy of the book are now punctuated with strings of red exclamation points. Even when he lands in prison, his plotting’s not done; an “escape plan” is still ahead.
High-stakes hijinks give the story a rollicking feel, but Jobb manages great poignancy, too, from his portrait of Koretz’s wife, Mae, stung by her husband’s betrayal and committed to making amends to his victims, to brief anecdotes about those victims, such as the dining-car steward who invested his life savings and then quit his job “to live off the profits he was certain were headed his way.”
Koretz’s life parallels that of his prosecutor, state’s attorney Robert Crowe, best known for convicting the thrill killers Leopold and Loeb. Crowe and Koretz both graduated from Chicago high schools in 1898, a year Jobb calls “a pivotal one for the United States, marking its transformation from young nation to global superpower.” The two men began legal careers in the same firm, and despite their different paths, Jobb notes that “both would prove . . . willing to do what had to be done to get ahead.” That Crowe ends up pursuing and prosecuting Leo would be inevitable in fiction; here, it’s just another of the story’s dense ironies. More than backdrop, Chicago’s corrupt political scene and gangland violence spur Crowe’s intense focus on indictments and prosecution. His ambitions need a win.
After peaking in true-crime magazines and criminology textbooks of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, Koretz’s fame waned. While Ponzi’s name lives on in such venues as the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the Oxford English Dictionary, Koretz didn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry until just after this book was published. This lively and sweeping account seems to have already given a master con artist his due, putting him in the “pantheon of pyramid-building swindlers.”
July 13, 2021
You know Kara likes stories of heists and swindles, con artists and the like, yes? Oh yes. For some reason this got lost when I moved and only resurfaced recently, so I’m finally getting to read Empire of Deception, all about Chicago swindler Leo Koretz. According to Dean Jobb, Koretz is impressive enough that we should be talking about Koretz schemes instead of Ponzi schemes, and after reading this book, it’s not difficult to see why. In a decade of glam, glitter, and corruption, Koretz managed to take a lot of money (mostly from rich people, yay) and failed to pay it back before going out spectacularly, although he wasn’t particularly good at being on the run.
Jobb tells the story in three acts: Act 1 is Koretz’s life up to and including the Panamanian development pyramid scheme that resulted in him going on the run; Act 2 is Koretz’s life as a fugitive while the Chicago police investigate; Act 3 is the capture, trial, and sentencing of Koretz. But this isn’t just Koretz’s story. Jobb also tells us about Robert Crowe, at the time Cook County’s state attorney, who pursues and prosecutes Koretz with political ambitions on the line. In this way, Jobb makes Empire of Deception about more than one man’s criminal enterprise: it is a story about 1920s Chicago, about the interwar interregnum and Prohibition, about what happens when you want to believe you can get rich because the American dream burns so brightly from every shop window and every street corner.
Here we are, literally a century later, and wow do things like a lot different…. Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. The trial of Elizabeth Holmes, who bilked investors out of money for a vaporous product with her Theranos medical technology, starts next month. John Carreyou’s Bad Blood feels very similar to Empire of Deception: in both cases, you have an intelligent person who starts off legitimately wanting to make money and then realizes that it’s a lot easier if you just keep asking people to invest in your idea and then not actually do anything.
Jobb and Carreyou both delve into the psychology of the con artist here. Jobb makes the interesting assertion that, towards the end, Koretz was beginning to believe his own scheme—he was so good at convincing people they were investing in property and oil development in Panama that he was beginning to believe it himself! This might sound incredible to some people, but I believe it because psychologists have consistently demonstrated the power of groupthink to cause us to believe in something we know is untrue. In the same way, Carreyou explores how Holmes almost certainly believed her own hype: she believed that one day Theranos would revolutionize the world, because enough people had given her money that she couldn’t not fail. In succumbing to their own schemes, these swindlers had a difficult time disentangling themselves when the scheme began to collapse. Hence why Koretz barely managed to try to return some of the money before fleeing Chicago for Nova Scotia.
Equally fascinating as the psychology of the swindler is the psychology of the mark. Here’s the thing: as I was reading about how Koretz sold people on his scheme by telling them not to invest, I started wanting to invest. Like, the more Jobb was telling me how charismatic he was, the more I was told that Koretz was bad news, I was into it. And I’m 100 years distant from the guy, and I know that it’s a scam, yet I still wanted to buy in. That is the power of manipulating our fragile human psyches: even when you know how the con artists do it, you’re still vulnerable because the evolutionary levers that they pull are still there. You can watch for it and guard against it, but you can never eliminate your vulnerabilities entirely, because to do so would basically make you a psychopath. This is so fascinating to me as someone who, for a time in her young adulthood, was very interested in rationalism versus humanism. Now any time someone claims to be “rational” I quickly back away, because yes, we can all strive to be better at decision-making, but at the end of the day my lizard brain only lets me stray so far from my cognitive biases.
Koretz’s time as a fugitive in Nova Scotia was also wild. He bought a hunting lodge, made it over, hired a staff, posed as a high-flying writer and literary critic … man, the stuff you could get away with in 1920s Atlantic Canada. Those were the days! Jobb tells the story in a compelling, narrative way. At times this threw me—he would describe such details that I’m like, “Uh, how do you know this his glasses were fogging up?” and I dislike when my non-fiction becomes too embellished that way. However, Jobb’s afterword insists that all such details were gleaned from various contemporary newspaper reports. In that case, I guess all I can do is appreciate the incredible amount of research and time that went into piecing together Koretz’s story in such detail.
Narration style aside, Empire of Deception is a great example of the non-fiction I love to sink into on a hot summer weekend. It’s full of context and analysis about the time period in which it’s set, and it explores why events happened the way they did. For example, you really get a sense of how much Koretz’s family, particularly his wife and kid, suffered as a result of his crimes—not only did their social standing fall, but they were under suspicion even after returning the money and gems he gave them. I don’t read a ton of true crime—like I said, it’s heists and scams for me—but when I do, I like focusing not just on the human elements in the crime itself but the way society at the time of the crime allowed it to happen and made the fallout even worse.
Empire of Deception is worth a read if, like me, you are fascinated by con artists and the people who give them money. Leo Koretz is a name to know.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
Jobb tells the story in three acts: Act 1 is Koretz’s life up to and including the Panamanian development pyramid scheme that resulted in him going on the run; Act 2 is Koretz’s life as a fugitive while the Chicago police investigate; Act 3 is the capture, trial, and sentencing of Koretz. But this isn’t just Koretz’s story. Jobb also tells us about Robert Crowe, at the time Cook County’s state attorney, who pursues and prosecutes Koretz with political ambitions on the line. In this way, Jobb makes Empire of Deception about more than one man’s criminal enterprise: it is a story about 1920s Chicago, about the interwar interregnum and Prohibition, about what happens when you want to believe you can get rich because the American dream burns so brightly from every shop window and every street corner.
Here we are, literally a century later, and wow do things like a lot different…. Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. The trial of Elizabeth Holmes, who bilked investors out of money for a vaporous product with her Theranos medical technology, starts next month. John Carreyou’s Bad Blood feels very similar to Empire of Deception: in both cases, you have an intelligent person who starts off legitimately wanting to make money and then realizes that it’s a lot easier if you just keep asking people to invest in your idea and then not actually do anything.
Jobb and Carreyou both delve into the psychology of the con artist here. Jobb makes the interesting assertion that, towards the end, Koretz was beginning to believe his own scheme—he was so good at convincing people they were investing in property and oil development in Panama that he was beginning to believe it himself! This might sound incredible to some people, but I believe it because psychologists have consistently demonstrated the power of groupthink to cause us to believe in something we know is untrue. In the same way, Carreyou explores how Holmes almost certainly believed her own hype: she believed that one day Theranos would revolutionize the world, because enough people had given her money that she couldn’t not fail. In succumbing to their own schemes, these swindlers had a difficult time disentangling themselves when the scheme began to collapse. Hence why Koretz barely managed to try to return some of the money before fleeing Chicago for Nova Scotia.
Equally fascinating as the psychology of the swindler is the psychology of the mark. Here’s the thing: as I was reading about how Koretz sold people on his scheme by telling them not to invest, I started wanting to invest. Like, the more Jobb was telling me how charismatic he was, the more I was told that Koretz was bad news, I was into it. And I’m 100 years distant from the guy, and I know that it’s a scam, yet I still wanted to buy in. That is the power of manipulating our fragile human psyches: even when you know how the con artists do it, you’re still vulnerable because the evolutionary levers that they pull are still there. You can watch for it and guard against it, but you can never eliminate your vulnerabilities entirely, because to do so would basically make you a psychopath. This is so fascinating to me as someone who, for a time in her young adulthood, was very interested in rationalism versus humanism. Now any time someone claims to be “rational” I quickly back away, because yes, we can all strive to be better at decision-making, but at the end of the day my lizard brain only lets me stray so far from my cognitive biases.
Koretz’s time as a fugitive in Nova Scotia was also wild. He bought a hunting lodge, made it over, hired a staff, posed as a high-flying writer and literary critic … man, the stuff you could get away with in 1920s Atlantic Canada. Those were the days! Jobb tells the story in a compelling, narrative way. At times this threw me—he would describe such details that I’m like, “Uh, how do you know this his glasses were fogging up?” and I dislike when my non-fiction becomes too embellished that way. However, Jobb’s afterword insists that all such details were gleaned from various contemporary newspaper reports. In that case, I guess all I can do is appreciate the incredible amount of research and time that went into piecing together Koretz’s story in such detail.
Narration style aside, Empire of Deception is a great example of the non-fiction I love to sink into on a hot summer weekend. It’s full of context and analysis about the time period in which it’s set, and it explores why events happened the way they did. For example, you really get a sense of how much Koretz’s family, particularly his wife and kid, suffered as a result of his crimes—not only did their social standing fall, but they were under suspicion even after returning the money and gems he gave them. I don’t read a ton of true crime—like I said, it’s heists and scams for me—but when I do, I like focusing not just on the human elements in the crime itself but the way society at the time of the crime allowed it to happen and made the fallout even worse.
Empire of Deception is worth a read if, like me, you are fascinated by con artists and the people who give them money. Leo Koretz is a name to know.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
June 5, 2017
I found EMPIRE OF DECEPTION so incredibly fascinating I really couldn’t put it down (I did have to because of work, stupid work). Jobb wrote it in such a captivating way that it sucked me right in and held me with this almost ridiculous story of a non-Ponzi Ponzi who made Ponzi look like a Girl Scout.
Creating his scheme years before Ponzi ever did, and continuing years after he was caught, Leo Koretz effectively wrote the book on corruption and deception. Not only did he scheme people through not one but at least three different investment dupes he ducked out of dodge and went into hiding for a year under an assumed identity and continued to live lavishly on the money he’d stolen. Never mind he was already living a double life before he was caught. With an infinite number of dirt bag levels to his character these are the things reality TV should be made of. All the ridiculousness of this man’s life didn’t need embellishment. It was insane enough as it was.
Jobb did excellent work in researching the details of Koretz’s life (and the lives of those around him and directly and indirectly affected by him) and brought them to life on the page. I might as well have been reading a newspaper and the events could have been current, it was so lifelike. The thing about Koretz, and I think Jobb captured this perfectly, was that outwardly he wasn’t a sleaze. He was a relatable, genial man who endeared people to him with a great personality. And he used that. He used reverse psychology in order to get people to trust him more. People didn’t believe him to be a shady character and he never presented himself as such. I found myself almost buying into him as an upstanding person because he didn’t outwardly do bad things. He wasn’t a gangster, he didn’t appear to be a philanderer, he appeared to have a completely legitimate business. On top of that he was nothing who crawled his own way to something by the road of hard work and determination, and again, was legal about it. He just didn’t have much by the way of scruples.
This book was so lively and focused not only on Koretz as a person but on the time he lived in. The 20s were alive in EMPIRE OF DECEPTION and in a decade where excess was everything Koretz was at the top of it. This wasn’t just a rehash of past events told for the sake of education. This was a story, a tale to tell, and Jobb told it with stunning accuracy and a flare for the fantastic that didn’t hamper the story but supplemented the fantastic elements perfectly.
If you want to read about a piece of history that’s been largely forgotten, left in the shadow of another shyster who left a much smaller mark in the greater world of scandal, you’ll love EMPIRE OF DECEPTION. It’s a learning session and a drama all wrapped into one. From nailing the setting of the time perfectly to staying out of the story as the author and letting the facts speak for themselves to a voice that will just drag you in and won’t let go, you won’t want to put it down. I’m generally interested in this time period anyway but even I surprised myself with how much I liked this book. It was just phenomenal all around.
5
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Creating his scheme years before Ponzi ever did, and continuing years after he was caught, Leo Koretz effectively wrote the book on corruption and deception. Not only did he scheme people through not one but at least three different investment dupes he ducked out of dodge and went into hiding for a year under an assumed identity and continued to live lavishly on the money he’d stolen. Never mind he was already living a double life before he was caught. With an infinite number of dirt bag levels to his character these are the things reality TV should be made of. All the ridiculousness of this man’s life didn’t need embellishment. It was insane enough as it was.
Jobb did excellent work in researching the details of Koretz’s life (and the lives of those around him and directly and indirectly affected by him) and brought them to life on the page. I might as well have been reading a newspaper and the events could have been current, it was so lifelike. The thing about Koretz, and I think Jobb captured this perfectly, was that outwardly he wasn’t a sleaze. He was a relatable, genial man who endeared people to him with a great personality. And he used that. He used reverse psychology in order to get people to trust him more. People didn’t believe him to be a shady character and he never presented himself as such. I found myself almost buying into him as an upstanding person because he didn’t outwardly do bad things. He wasn’t a gangster, he didn’t appear to be a philanderer, he appeared to have a completely legitimate business. On top of that he was nothing who crawled his own way to something by the road of hard work and determination, and again, was legal about it. He just didn’t have much by the way of scruples.
This book was so lively and focused not only on Koretz as a person but on the time he lived in. The 20s were alive in EMPIRE OF DECEPTION and in a decade where excess was everything Koretz was at the top of it. This wasn’t just a rehash of past events told for the sake of education. This was a story, a tale to tell, and Jobb told it with stunning accuracy and a flare for the fantastic that didn’t hamper the story but supplemented the fantastic elements perfectly.
If you want to read about a piece of history that’s been largely forgotten, left in the shadow of another shyster who left a much smaller mark in the greater world of scandal, you’ll love EMPIRE OF DECEPTION. It’s a learning session and a drama all wrapped into one. From nailing the setting of the time perfectly to staying out of the story as the author and letting the facts speak for themselves to a voice that will just drag you in and won’t let go, you won’t want to put it down. I’m generally interested in this time period anyway but even I surprised myself with how much I liked this book. It was just phenomenal all around.
5
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
May 25, 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Author Karen Abbott states it's " A rollicking tale that is one part 'The Sting', one part 'The Great Gatsby', and one part 'The Devil in the White City', and that is an accurate description of this tale.
Though the book reads like a fictional novel, it is about the true story of a man named Leo Koretz. He was a man who swindled millions of dollars from family, friends, and business associates in Chicago in the 1920's, about 80 years before Bernie Madoff did it. As a young man, Leo worked hard and put himself through school at night to earn his law degree. Shortly after that he started selling fake mortgage's, including creating fake certificates. As "investors" started to thin out, he realized that he needed an infusion of cash to continue to pay the "dividends". That's when he started to sell mortgages to rice farms in Arkansas. He was very persuasive, and the flow of money started to increase. He was able to pay his dividends and line his pockets.
Then came the big scam...Bayano. He lured people who knew him, trusted him, and loved him to "invest" millions of dollars in a fake timberland market in Panama. When the money started to slow down and Leo was desperate to not have his scheme exposed, he said that oil was found on the property. As time passed and more money came in, Leo continued to build up he scheme. He would send telegrams such as one that stated "24 Bayano Oil Wells were producing 10,000 barrels oil per day". When people would ask to buy shares in Bayano, he would say no. Eventually he would sell them and the people who bought the shares felt as if Leo was doing them a favor.
As time passed, investors wanted to inspect their holdings. That is where it all came apart. Leo knew it would, and even told one of the investors who was going to Panama to look over everything that he would be surprised when he got there. During the week or so that it took for the ship carrying these men to Panama to arrive, Leo was getting things squared away, and once that was done, he left Chicago.
As the people who entrusted Leo with their money realized that they had been swindled, Leo was hiding. The media had a field day, and searched out the victims to tell the story. Headlines in big bold lettering announced to the world what Leo had done. While many people have heard of Ponzi schemes, Leo outdid Charles Ponzi on such a scale that a 1920's paper stated "Ponzi had nothing on Leo Koretz." In the end, Leo was found and brought back to Chicago to answer for his crimes. That part of the story is just as interesting, and it seems to enforce the adage the "truth is stranger than fiction".
The author Dean Jobb did a very good job at researching this book. The characters come across as real, and you can see how this master swindler was able to take advantages of others. This is a story about an incredibly detailed con job that happened in Chicago during the roaring 20's, that was orchestrated by a charismatic lawyer, and was surrounded in the background by lavish parties, gangsters, speakeasies, and corrupted public officials. Readers who enjoy history, who liked "The Sting" and/or "The Great Gatsby", and those that love reading about true crime will enjoy this book. It is written in such a style that even people who normally prefer fiction over true stories will probably like this book too.
Though the book reads like a fictional novel, it is about the true story of a man named Leo Koretz. He was a man who swindled millions of dollars from family, friends, and business associates in Chicago in the 1920's, about 80 years before Bernie Madoff did it. As a young man, Leo worked hard and put himself through school at night to earn his law degree. Shortly after that he started selling fake mortgage's, including creating fake certificates. As "investors" started to thin out, he realized that he needed an infusion of cash to continue to pay the "dividends". That's when he started to sell mortgages to rice farms in Arkansas. He was very persuasive, and the flow of money started to increase. He was able to pay his dividends and line his pockets.
Then came the big scam...Bayano. He lured people who knew him, trusted him, and loved him to "invest" millions of dollars in a fake timberland market in Panama. When the money started to slow down and Leo was desperate to not have his scheme exposed, he said that oil was found on the property. As time passed and more money came in, Leo continued to build up he scheme. He would send telegrams such as one that stated "24 Bayano Oil Wells were producing 10,000 barrels oil per day". When people would ask to buy shares in Bayano, he would say no. Eventually he would sell them and the people who bought the shares felt as if Leo was doing them a favor.
As time passed, investors wanted to inspect their holdings. That is where it all came apart. Leo knew it would, and even told one of the investors who was going to Panama to look over everything that he would be surprised when he got there. During the week or so that it took for the ship carrying these men to Panama to arrive, Leo was getting things squared away, and once that was done, he left Chicago.
As the people who entrusted Leo with their money realized that they had been swindled, Leo was hiding. The media had a field day, and searched out the victims to tell the story. Headlines in big bold lettering announced to the world what Leo had done. While many people have heard of Ponzi schemes, Leo outdid Charles Ponzi on such a scale that a 1920's paper stated "Ponzi had nothing on Leo Koretz." In the end, Leo was found and brought back to Chicago to answer for his crimes. That part of the story is just as interesting, and it seems to enforce the adage the "truth is stranger than fiction".
The author Dean Jobb did a very good job at researching this book. The characters come across as real, and you can see how this master swindler was able to take advantages of others. This is a story about an incredibly detailed con job that happened in Chicago during the roaring 20's, that was orchestrated by a charismatic lawyer, and was surrounded in the background by lavish parties, gangsters, speakeasies, and corrupted public officials. Readers who enjoy history, who liked "The Sting" and/or "The Great Gatsby", and those that love reading about true crime will enjoy this book. It is written in such a style that even people who normally prefer fiction over true stories will probably like this book too.
July 19, 2022
3.5 stars
Having read and really liked Dean Jobb's book The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer I decide to get this book, also by him. I liked the thorough research that he did and also his writing style. However, I did not care as much for the material he covered in this book. I enjoyed the first book I read speaking to the Victorian Era much more.
This book told of the Potzi scheme that Attorney Leo Koretz pulled off in the early 1920's. He had Chicago in his pocket. Koretz got in on the very beginning of the Panama Canal and sold nonexistent oil and timber land to hundreds of people. Koretz was the biggest con man of his time. Money and investor wise it was much bigger than Madoff ever could have imagined.
Having started off selling fake mortgages, Koretz ballooned to selling shares in nonexistent rice farms in Arkansas, then to timber holdings and oil in Panama. No one was safe - he preyed on friends and family. Of the over $2.1 million he took in on the Panama deal he only paid out $233,000 in dividends - keeping the rest for himself. All in all approximately $140 million in today's money changed hands and when his arrest and bankruptcy went through people got about 16 cents on the dollar returned to them.
Interesting book and great research, if not a bit dryer than the Murderous Dr. Cream book.
Having read and really liked Dean Jobb's book The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer I decide to get this book, also by him. I liked the thorough research that he did and also his writing style. However, I did not care as much for the material he covered in this book. I enjoyed the first book I read speaking to the Victorian Era much more.
This book told of the Potzi scheme that Attorney Leo Koretz pulled off in the early 1920's. He had Chicago in his pocket. Koretz got in on the very beginning of the Panama Canal and sold nonexistent oil and timber land to hundreds of people. Koretz was the biggest con man of his time. Money and investor wise it was much bigger than Madoff ever could have imagined.
Having started off selling fake mortgages, Koretz ballooned to selling shares in nonexistent rice farms in Arkansas, then to timber holdings and oil in Panama. No one was safe - he preyed on friends and family. Of the over $2.1 million he took in on the Panama deal he only paid out $233,000 in dividends - keeping the rest for himself. All in all approximately $140 million in today's money changed hands and when his arrest and bankruptcy went through people got about 16 cents on the dollar returned to them.
Interesting book and great research, if not a bit dryer than the Murderous Dr. Cream book.
June 24, 2021
When I read this book five years ago I gave it 4 stars. But now, having reread it, I definitely think it deserves all 5. Empire of Deception is a well-written page turner that proves the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction. The schemes of Ponzi and Bernie Madoff were nothing compared to those of Leo Koretz whose story Dean Jobb has vividly brought to life. Travel back with him to 1920's Chicago and enjoy the bumpy ride!
August 29, 2020
I wasn't familiar with author Dean Jobb until he followed me on Twitter and started occasionally liking my tweets promoting my own true-crime book. I was so grateful that an established author was supporting a first-time author that I ordered one of his books. And I'm glad I did. "Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation" tells the largely forgotten story of Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of his day. I grew up in the Chicago area but, incredibly, never had heard of Koretz, who for nearly two decades sold wealthy Chicagoans phony stock certificates for unproductive rice farms in Arkansas and non-existent timber and oil industries in Panama. In a textbook Ponzi scheme, Koretz used cash from new investors to pay high dividends to earlier investors. Until his con started to unravel in dramatic fashion. The book is extensively researched and richly detailed. It's cleverly structured like a play with "The Players" introduced in the front matter and the story divided into Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. Koretz's swindle may have unraveled, but Jobb's book never does.
January 15, 2020
I recently received Dean Jobb's Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation for free through Goodreads First Reads. I was looking forward to this true story of Chicago, and corruption in the 1920's!
This book surprised me in every way, and it was an excellent read. I loved the author's very detailed descriptions of every nuance of Chicago in the 20's. I enjoyed the comparison of an obscure con man, and the law. This book appealed to my love of the 1920's, Chicago, crime, and architecture.
This book surprised me in every way, and it was an excellent read. I loved the author's very detailed descriptions of every nuance of Chicago in the 20's. I enjoyed the comparison of an obscure con man, and the law. This book appealed to my love of the 1920's, Chicago, crime, and architecture.
August 5, 2015
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. Thanks Algonquin and Goodreads!
I found the book "Empire of Deception" an amazing read. Author, Dean Jobb, painted a telling portrait of the life of swindler Leo koretz in the roaring 1920's of Chicago, a time of prohibition, the mob and political corruption. A well researched narrative and captivating storyline about a man comparable to the likes of Ponzi and Madoff. Recommend it to anyone who likes a great true story.
I found the book "Empire of Deception" an amazing read. Author, Dean Jobb, painted a telling portrait of the life of swindler Leo koretz in the roaring 1920's of Chicago, a time of prohibition, the mob and political corruption. A well researched narrative and captivating storyline about a man comparable to the likes of Ponzi and Madoff. Recommend it to anyone who likes a great true story.
July 24, 2016
Engaging and well-researched. Reads like a narrative, but is high interest non fiction. Great story of the man who out-Ponzied Charles Ponzi.
April 26, 2020
Though I have only lived in the Greater Chicago area for a little over a decade, I have been fascinated with the city since my junior high school years. Now, one would suspect that this was because of the success of Desilu Studios’ successful The Untouchables television series during my childhood, but it was actually because of the architecture of the city depicted in my social studies and history textbooks (which happened to have been published by a Chicago publisher and used images from both historic and modern Chicago to illustrate certain points). Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, and Frank Norris’ The Pit further inflamed the fascination. Coming to Chicago on business added to my fascination and, today, I am privileged to teach in downtown Chicago at a historic university.
I love historical fiction set in Chicago (Max A. Collins’ Nathan Heller novels come to mind in addition to more by Dreiser), as well as more modern depictions (Michael Harvey’s Michael Kelly series, Andrew Greeley’s Blackie Ryan series, Sara Peretsky’s V. I. Warshawsky series, and, on a more fanciful note, Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series) of the city. As a result, I have started to read non-fiction books concerned with Chicago history (The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko (as well as biography of Royko and an anthology of his columns), among others). As a result, I found a fascinating book on a 1920’s era scandal of which I was painfully nascent. Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated a Nation. Amazingly enough, as author Dean Jobb elucidates, more people know of Charles Ponzi and his short-lived “Ponzi scheme” than are aware of Chicago’s Leo Koretz and his prodigious “Bayano Swindle.”
Empire of Deception is fascinating for its illumination of human nature, its recounting of improbable (but factual) miscalculations and assumptions, its cautionary narrative, and its occasional glimpses of 1920’s Chicago life and industry (as well as the same in New York and Canada). The story begins with a testimonial dinner in honor of Koretz hosted by, ironically, the very people who were being duped within his scheme. By the time of the dinner, Koretz had already escalated the scheme to include a massive (but nonexistent) oil empire which he claimed, “While searching for legal precedents in a habeas corpus case the thought suddenly came to him that at the present rate of consumption the oil supply of the world would be exhausted in the year 2017.” (p. 12)
Some interesting facts about early Chicago presented in the book are best recounted in the short observations made by Jobb in the course of the narrative. Railroads have obviously been a major part of the city’s history, but did you know: “Thirty-four railroads served the city, and it was said there was more track in the Chicago area than in all of the United Kingdom and northern Europe.” (p. 8)? I didn’t know that, “…by the turn of the century, one of every twenty Chicagoans was Jewish.” (p. 20). I knew nothing of the brutal murder of a young child named Janet Wilkinson in 1919 nor that, “There were demands for a citywide roundup of perverts and pedophiles—“morons,” in the euphemism of the time—to prevent more outrages against Chicago’s children. The prosecuting attorney, James O’Brien, who had sent enough murderers to the gallows to earn the nickname Ropes, vowed to seek the death penalty even if the defense pleaded insanity. The press egged him on.” (p. 63).
Although I had seen two films based on Ben Hecht’s and Charles MacArthur’s The Front Page, I don’t think I had ever read about the origin of the term, “sob sisters,” before reading this book. “Sob sisters—female reporters who could commiserate with widows, wronged wives, and spurned mistresses and loosen tongues in the process—were prized in Chicago newsrooms.” (p. 122). And finally, much to the chagrin of “law and order” Republicans of the present day, consider this account of the political activity of North Side Gang leader, Dion O’Banion, such that: “O’Banion had helped to deliver two crucial North Side wards to Republican candidates, including Crowe, in the November 1924 elections. Not long before his death, he had led his thugs on an Election Day tour of polling stations, buying drinks for the converted and threatening those inclined to vote for the Democrats. ‘We’re going to have a Republican victory celebration tonight,’ he declared in one saloon. ‘Anybody who votes Democratic ain’t going to be there,’ he added menacingly, ‘or anywhere else.’” (p. 211).
Jobb even sprinkles in interesting facts about living in the U.S. at the time. For example, on the same page, he shares about the spread of entertainment and transportation technology. “Americans spent $136 million on radio sets, parts, and accessories in 1923, doubling sales in a year. ’There is radio music in the air, every night, everywhere,’ noted a San Francisco newspaper inspired to rhyme.” As well, as: “…by 1915 there were 2.5 million cars and trucks on America’s roads. The number quadrupled to more than 10 million in 1921.” (p. 74). And I don’t think I ever read such a stark contrast between the world before and after Prohibition as when Jobb notes: “There were fifteen thousand drinking establishments in New York before Prohibition, it was said, and more than twice as many after liquor was outlawed.” (p. 158).
I even learned of the rather bizarre inception of the term, “con-man.” “THE TERM CONFIDENCE MAN was first used in 1849, when an enterprising New Yorker named William Thompson walked up to strangers on the street with a proposition: did they have the “confidence” in him, he asked, to entrust him with their watches overnight? Those who complied lost their timepieces and some of their faith in their fellow man. Eight years later, the term was in such common usage that Herman Melville published a novel about riverboat swindlers under the title The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade.: (p. 79).
I was also amazed to discover that, while there is significant discussion about whether income tax was due on the ill-gotten gains provided to the “investors” – including Koretz’ wife – that, “The underlying legal question—was stolen money taxable as income?—would not be resolved until 1927. That year the US Supreme Court ruled that money earned from bootlegging and other criminal activities must be reported and taxed, giving federal agents the green light to prosecute and imprison Al Capone for tax evasion in 1931.” (p. 263).
But, most of all, this was an account of a lawyer, Leo Koretz, who discovered how sloppily the paperwork around mortgages were being handled in that era and decided to start selling mortgages which were not authentic and paying his “investors” with interest coming from an influx of new investors. When he realized that his (well, let’s call it what everyone would call it today) Ponzi scheme was becoming harder and harder to balance, he crafted a scheme around Arkansas farmland that it was believed could be converted to rice farming. Some e of the scheme involved real mortgages, but most of the supposed rice farms were not owned by Koretz or his investors. Nonetheless, this allowed Leo to juggle matters in the air until he conceived of his big score.
The Panama Canal Zone (as it became known) was close to the Bayano River. The nearby lands were rich in timber, but the river basin itself was an alligator and snake-infested breeding ground for tropical disease and death. But Koretz was not only able to sell it as an investment in timber exports, but eventually for the non-existent oil reserves which were supposed to be on the property. It is amazing how he was able to convince the successful businessmen of Chicago that they were cashing royalties off non-existent oil exports when there was no evidence whatsoever of this oil empire outside of what Leo showed them (having manufactured the evidence) himself.
There are numerous implications in, not only, Leo’s management of the scheme but in the details concerning his getaway, the longevity of his life as a “fugitive,” and the incredible detail that allowed him to be caught. I won’t spoil any of that with any revelations here nor will I talk about the potential deception in his death. All I can say is that Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated a Nation was both entertaining and enlightening for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end.
I love historical fiction set in Chicago (Max A. Collins’ Nathan Heller novels come to mind in addition to more by Dreiser), as well as more modern depictions (Michael Harvey’s Michael Kelly series, Andrew Greeley’s Blackie Ryan series, Sara Peretsky’s V. I. Warshawsky series, and, on a more fanciful note, Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series) of the city. As a result, I have started to read non-fiction books concerned with Chicago history (The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko (as well as biography of Royko and an anthology of his columns), among others). As a result, I found a fascinating book on a 1920’s era scandal of which I was painfully nascent. Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated a Nation. Amazingly enough, as author Dean Jobb elucidates, more people know of Charles Ponzi and his short-lived “Ponzi scheme” than are aware of Chicago’s Leo Koretz and his prodigious “Bayano Swindle.”
Empire of Deception is fascinating for its illumination of human nature, its recounting of improbable (but factual) miscalculations and assumptions, its cautionary narrative, and its occasional glimpses of 1920’s Chicago life and industry (as well as the same in New York and Canada). The story begins with a testimonial dinner in honor of Koretz hosted by, ironically, the very people who were being duped within his scheme. By the time of the dinner, Koretz had already escalated the scheme to include a massive (but nonexistent) oil empire which he claimed, “While searching for legal precedents in a habeas corpus case the thought suddenly came to him that at the present rate of consumption the oil supply of the world would be exhausted in the year 2017.” (p. 12)
Some interesting facts about early Chicago presented in the book are best recounted in the short observations made by Jobb in the course of the narrative. Railroads have obviously been a major part of the city’s history, but did you know: “Thirty-four railroads served the city, and it was said there was more track in the Chicago area than in all of the United Kingdom and northern Europe.” (p. 8)? I didn’t know that, “…by the turn of the century, one of every twenty Chicagoans was Jewish.” (p. 20). I knew nothing of the brutal murder of a young child named Janet Wilkinson in 1919 nor that, “There were demands for a citywide roundup of perverts and pedophiles—“morons,” in the euphemism of the time—to prevent more outrages against Chicago’s children. The prosecuting attorney, James O’Brien, who had sent enough murderers to the gallows to earn the nickname Ropes, vowed to seek the death penalty even if the defense pleaded insanity. The press egged him on.” (p. 63).
Although I had seen two films based on Ben Hecht’s and Charles MacArthur’s The Front Page, I don’t think I had ever read about the origin of the term, “sob sisters,” before reading this book. “Sob sisters—female reporters who could commiserate with widows, wronged wives, and spurned mistresses and loosen tongues in the process—were prized in Chicago newsrooms.” (p. 122). And finally, much to the chagrin of “law and order” Republicans of the present day, consider this account of the political activity of North Side Gang leader, Dion O’Banion, such that: “O’Banion had helped to deliver two crucial North Side wards to Republican candidates, including Crowe, in the November 1924 elections. Not long before his death, he had led his thugs on an Election Day tour of polling stations, buying drinks for the converted and threatening those inclined to vote for the Democrats. ‘We’re going to have a Republican victory celebration tonight,’ he declared in one saloon. ‘Anybody who votes Democratic ain’t going to be there,’ he added menacingly, ‘or anywhere else.’” (p. 211).
Jobb even sprinkles in interesting facts about living in the U.S. at the time. For example, on the same page, he shares about the spread of entertainment and transportation technology. “Americans spent $136 million on radio sets, parts, and accessories in 1923, doubling sales in a year. ’There is radio music in the air, every night, everywhere,’ noted a San Francisco newspaper inspired to rhyme.” As well, as: “…by 1915 there were 2.5 million cars and trucks on America’s roads. The number quadrupled to more than 10 million in 1921.” (p. 74). And I don’t think I ever read such a stark contrast between the world before and after Prohibition as when Jobb notes: “There were fifteen thousand drinking establishments in New York before Prohibition, it was said, and more than twice as many after liquor was outlawed.” (p. 158).
I even learned of the rather bizarre inception of the term, “con-man.” “THE TERM CONFIDENCE MAN was first used in 1849, when an enterprising New Yorker named William Thompson walked up to strangers on the street with a proposition: did they have the “confidence” in him, he asked, to entrust him with their watches overnight? Those who complied lost their timepieces and some of their faith in their fellow man. Eight years later, the term was in such common usage that Herman Melville published a novel about riverboat swindlers under the title The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade.: (p. 79).
I was also amazed to discover that, while there is significant discussion about whether income tax was due on the ill-gotten gains provided to the “investors” – including Koretz’ wife – that, “The underlying legal question—was stolen money taxable as income?—would not be resolved until 1927. That year the US Supreme Court ruled that money earned from bootlegging and other criminal activities must be reported and taxed, giving federal agents the green light to prosecute and imprison Al Capone for tax evasion in 1931.” (p. 263).
But, most of all, this was an account of a lawyer, Leo Koretz, who discovered how sloppily the paperwork around mortgages were being handled in that era and decided to start selling mortgages which were not authentic and paying his “investors” with interest coming from an influx of new investors. When he realized that his (well, let’s call it what everyone would call it today) Ponzi scheme was becoming harder and harder to balance, he crafted a scheme around Arkansas farmland that it was believed could be converted to rice farming. Some e of the scheme involved real mortgages, but most of the supposed rice farms were not owned by Koretz or his investors. Nonetheless, this allowed Leo to juggle matters in the air until he conceived of his big score.
The Panama Canal Zone (as it became known) was close to the Bayano River. The nearby lands were rich in timber, but the river basin itself was an alligator and snake-infested breeding ground for tropical disease and death. But Koretz was not only able to sell it as an investment in timber exports, but eventually for the non-existent oil reserves which were supposed to be on the property. It is amazing how he was able to convince the successful businessmen of Chicago that they were cashing royalties off non-existent oil exports when there was no evidence whatsoever of this oil empire outside of what Leo showed them (having manufactured the evidence) himself.
There are numerous implications in, not only, Leo’s management of the scheme but in the details concerning his getaway, the longevity of his life as a “fugitive,” and the incredible detail that allowed him to be caught. I won’t spoil any of that with any revelations here nor will I talk about the potential deception in his death. All I can say is that Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated a Nation was both entertaining and enlightening for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end.
March 2, 2021
This is one of those great “lost” stories and it’s got a good hook.
Leo Koretz’s scheme predates Charles Ponzi’s and lasted longer afterwards. To the tune, Koretz’s investors felt they could confidently joke about Ponzi’s scheme.
Now, buried deep in History, Koretz was headline news in the early 1920s, having convinced many wealthy Chicagoans to invest money with him.
Though worldwide communication was not nearly as good then, anyone with a little inkling to research, might be skeptical of the idea of oil bubbling out of the ground in the dense jungle of Panama.
Of course, Koretz wasn’t a good con man because he asked everyone to invest. He was a good con man, because he made it hard for people to “invest” with him.
Spoilers ahead. It’s a fascinating story. Like Madoff, you wonder how people got hooked and you also wonder what Koretz could have accomplished if he just played ‘straight’.
The real twist is Koretz sees the end is coming. In what surely must have been the most disappointing vacation ever, Leo sends his investors to Panama to see their assets (which of course, are nonexistent), which gives him the jump on everyone to get himself out of town.
Leo escaped to Canada and remade himself. That persona lasted about a year before Leo was found out (if you don’t plan to read this book, check out the Wikipedia article on Koretz to see how this all went down).
Jobb seems to be interested into tying everything in his story to the pertinent facts. Since this is a sensational story (which was covered in the 50s Pulps), he wants to make sure everything is accurate. In doing so, the book is more stilted than works by similar authors like Erik Larson and Gary Krist. That said, the premise will hook you and you won’t be able to put it down.
Leo Koretz’s scheme predates Charles Ponzi’s and lasted longer afterwards. To the tune, Koretz’s investors felt they could confidently joke about Ponzi’s scheme.
Now, buried deep in History, Koretz was headline news in the early 1920s, having convinced many wealthy Chicagoans to invest money with him.
Though worldwide communication was not nearly as good then, anyone with a little inkling to research, might be skeptical of the idea of oil bubbling out of the ground in the dense jungle of Panama.
Of course, Koretz wasn’t a good con man because he asked everyone to invest. He was a good con man, because he made it hard for people to “invest” with him.
Spoilers ahead. It’s a fascinating story. Like Madoff, you wonder how people got hooked and you also wonder what Koretz could have accomplished if he just played ‘straight’.
The real twist is Koretz sees the end is coming. In what surely must have been the most disappointing vacation ever, Leo sends his investors to Panama to see their assets (which of course, are nonexistent), which gives him the jump on everyone to get himself out of town.
Leo escaped to Canada and remade himself. That persona lasted about a year before Leo was found out (if you don’t plan to read this book, check out the Wikipedia article on Koretz to see how this all went down).
Jobb seems to be interested into tying everything in his story to the pertinent facts. Since this is a sensational story (which was covered in the 50s Pulps), he wants to make sure everything is accurate. In doing so, the book is more stilted than works by similar authors like Erik Larson and Gary Krist. That said, the premise will hook you and you won’t be able to put it down.
April 15, 2020
Remember Charles Ponzi whose name is synonymous with, and now describes pyramid schemes? Bernie Madoff became infamous a hundred years later for a similar deception. This book covers the exploits of Leo Koretz (1879–1925) who I had never heard of.
Leo, on the outside, was an American lawyer and stockbroker. In reality, he ran an elaborate scheme in Chicago, called the "Bayano oil fraud". Leo attracted an estimated $30 million (about $400 million today) from dozens of investors. The scheme involved fraudulent claims of oil interests in Panama. It actually predated Ponzi’s illegal moves.
Koretz was so trusted and admired that after Ponzi's fraud was exposed in 1920, his investors nicknamed him "Our Ponzi," never suspecting they were being duped as well. As it turned out, Leo out-ponzied Ponzi. This is a rollicking tale that involves a resort in Nova Scotia, the author Zane Gray, Al Capone, Leopold and Loeb, Abercrombie & Fitch, and more. The book is incredibly entertaining and will prompt readers to wonder why certain talented and driven individuals do not make their money on the up and up.
Leo, on the outside, was an American lawyer and stockbroker. In reality, he ran an elaborate scheme in Chicago, called the "Bayano oil fraud". Leo attracted an estimated $30 million (about $400 million today) from dozens of investors. The scheme involved fraudulent claims of oil interests in Panama. It actually predated Ponzi’s illegal moves.
Koretz was so trusted and admired that after Ponzi's fraud was exposed in 1920, his investors nicknamed him "Our Ponzi," never suspecting they were being duped as well. As it turned out, Leo out-ponzied Ponzi. This is a rollicking tale that involves a resort in Nova Scotia, the author Zane Gray, Al Capone, Leopold and Loeb, Abercrombie & Fitch, and more. The book is incredibly entertaining and will prompt readers to wonder why certain talented and driven individuals do not make their money on the up and up.
April 16, 2018
The story of one of the greatest turn of the twentieth century scams, the longest, earliest and 'most successful' pyramid 'Ponzi' scheme ran by Leo Koretz in Chicago, started and continued even before and after Ponzi ran and was exposed for his much less ambitious scheme. Truth is indeed more fascinating than fiction and in early 20th century Chicago, it seemed all was possible. With oil speculation rife, the promise of easy fortune was everywhere and Leo Koretz was just the guy to realise the potential and build an 'empire of deception' by defrauding those around him including his own family and close friends. The story is quick-paced and brings to life the atmosphere of the times and the incredible power of deception and reinvention of an extraordinary character, now very much forgotten character in the history of mass fraud.
August 22, 2015
This book features a larger-than-life character that is wonderfully rendered by Jobb. In lesser hands, this swindler might have been a caricature, but here he is a living, breathing, sometimes despicable human. Nicely researched, well paced. Chicago is as much a character as any of the players and its nice to see. Comparisons to Erik Larson are inevitable but I think that is mostly the setting. While Larson hit a home run with "Devil in the White City," he has since overworked his two-story counterpoint style to death. Jobb, on the other hand, finds a fresh take here. A genuinely fun read (and an aspect of crime I have little experience with - its nice that murder is not the central theme here).
September 2, 2015
I have never read (actually listened to the audio book) a book and shook my head so often. Definitely a story of deception and thievery. The fact that it really happened makes it even more incredible. I kept saying "You can't make up this stuff" or "truth is stranger than fiction."
February 4, 2015
Grabbed the ARC from this at ALA Midwinter. An intriguing story ably presented.
June 6, 2019
Empire of Deception tells the astonishing true story of Leo Koretz, possibly the most audacious con artist of the 1920s.
Bored with practising law in Chicago, Koretz set up something called the Bayano River Syndicate then set out to find investors. He claimed the Syndicate owned vast swaths of valuable timberland and oil wells in the Central American nation of Panama. Investors could receive astonishing annual returns up to 60 percent.
It was all a lie. Koretz did not control any land in Panama and all he was doing was recirculating money—taking cash from new investors and giving it to old investors without actually investing in anything tangible. This type of fraud is known as a “Ponzi scheme” after Boston fraudster Charles Ponzi, who operated in roughly the same time period.
A quick search on Google maps would have undone all of Koretz’s scheming but alas, the Internet was not around in the 1920s.
After his scam was finally exposed, Koretz took his ill-gotten millions and moved to rural Nova Scotia, where he hosted lavish parties and threw his money around.
His eventual downfall and bizarre death have to be read to be believed.
Author Jobb has done a great job profiling a largely forgotten scam-artist who managed to charm and dazzle wealthy people who should have known better.
A recommended read for anyone intrigued by cons and con artists.
-Nate Hendley, author of “The Big Con: Great Hoaxes, Frauds, Grifts and Swindles in American History”
Bored with practising law in Chicago, Koretz set up something called the Bayano River Syndicate then set out to find investors. He claimed the Syndicate owned vast swaths of valuable timberland and oil wells in the Central American nation of Panama. Investors could receive astonishing annual returns up to 60 percent.
It was all a lie. Koretz did not control any land in Panama and all he was doing was recirculating money—taking cash from new investors and giving it to old investors without actually investing in anything tangible. This type of fraud is known as a “Ponzi scheme” after Boston fraudster Charles Ponzi, who operated in roughly the same time period.
A quick search on Google maps would have undone all of Koretz’s scheming but alas, the Internet was not around in the 1920s.
After his scam was finally exposed, Koretz took his ill-gotten millions and moved to rural Nova Scotia, where he hosted lavish parties and threw his money around.
His eventual downfall and bizarre death have to be read to be believed.
Author Jobb has done a great job profiling a largely forgotten scam-artist who managed to charm and dazzle wealthy people who should have known better.
A recommended read for anyone intrigued by cons and con artists.
-Nate Hendley, author of “The Big Con: Great Hoaxes, Frauds, Grifts and Swindles in American History”
February 6, 2019
Fascinating account of a mostly forgotten con man from 1920s Chicago. In the acknowledgements, the author thanks an editor at Algonquin who "recognized the parallels between Leo's story and the rise and fall of his nemesis, Cook County State's Attorney Robert Crowe." Ironically, this rather forced "parallel" is the weakest part of the book in my opinion. I suspect it was an attempt to make the work seem more Erik Larsen-like.
January 29, 2021
Before Charles Ponzi (Yep! THAT Ponzi), there was Leopold Koretz. I started listening to this book by accident on Scribd, and I decided to keep listening. I found it very intriguing. Regardless of his crimes, I must say that Leopold Koretz was quite an interesting person. But regardless of how much of an interesting person he was, I couldn’t help but feel strong sorrow for those who he robbed through his scheme, most especially, his own family members.
June 9, 2019
Well written, I just kept turning the page.... Still thinking about how Bernie Madoff is so close to an exact copy, and how the subject of the book had his scam in place long before Mr. Ponzi. Quite glad I read!
May 22, 2020
Couldn't put it down -- true 1920's crime with plenty of context and interesting details about historical figures and the real people behind the companies we recognize today (without even realizing they reflect the start-up careers of real people: Oscar Meyer, Dr. Scholl, and Abercrombie & Fitch, for example. It was like a real-life version of The Great Gatsby.
April 10, 2019
Interesting storytelling and an eye opening look on a part of hidden history
January 4, 2020
I love this stuff! This guy out Madoffed Madoff. Well written and enjoyable for vacation.
August 16, 2020
The story of a Ponzi scheme made interesting in 1920's Chicago. We almost want the culprit to get away with it the author makes him so human. Interesting read, short, easy.
April 21, 2019
Great Book!
June 15, 2017
3.5 stars for this one. Very interesting story of a guy who pulled off (for a while) an amazing Ponzi scheme in Chicago in the 1920's. True story and it reminded me of a scaled down Erik Larson book. The story was very good and well researched. I would have liked maybe more "color" about the times...there was some, for sure, but it is such a fascinating period that there could have been more. Overall, a great read though.
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