After reading Smuggler a book about heroin smugglers, I’m now on the other end of the cat and mouse drama. I didn’t review it. There’s not much to be said of a dude who smuggles heroin.
Surprisingly, in 1977, the FBI doesn’t do much of financial crimes as well as undercover work, so two FBI agents find themselves improvising and pioneering methods in both. John (Jack) Brennan is a Southern legacy G-man who’s following in his father and grandfather’s footsteps. Jim J. Wedick, Jr. is a New York thrill-seeker who couldn’t stand the banality of being a Waffle House franchise owner. Brennan is a bit of an impulsive go-getter while Wedick is a meticulous planner, an odd couple of sorts, both chasing down a charismatic, sophisticated global con-artist, Phil Kitzer, Jr. with the help of an informant, Norman Howard. One of the things that surprised me about Smuggler and this book is just how much law enforcement relies on informants and perhaps surprisingly too, just how much informants rat out each other.
I think only media glamorizes and proliferates the notion of noble thieves with honor codes, that snitches get stitches, etc. Certainly, the mob and organized crime do go after snitches (especially in Mexico), the ones they know about, and there’s a reason the secret witness program exists, but I don’t think going after snitches is as pervasive as people may think. Of course, there’s a risk to snitching, but it also sounds like snitching is far more common than you are led to believe. I can also imagine that many criminals do hold out until they get into prison and spend a few months or years stewing in prison, and some may not adapt well to prison or get in trouble and then make the survival calculus of their chances of getting killed from snitching versus their chance of getting killed for inadvertently pissing off the wrong guy in prison. And if they’ve arrested a dozen of your colleagues, you can’t be certain who snitched until sentencing, and if all of them get lenient sentencing, now you have to pay someone perhaps ten grand a piece to kill each one of them after they get out. Is it worth it after your own legal fees and lost business revenue?
The author notes that J. Edgar Hoover was against undercover work, worrying that it may tempt and corrupt agents, which has proven to be true in many cases. If journalists, colonialists, and soldiers can go native, and they’re not even deeply imbedded with the ‘enemy,’ then it’s not a big leap for undercover law enforcement to go native when they actually join criminal organizations and undergo whatever hazing, bonding, and ritualizing goes on. After all, Adolf Hitler was sent to investigate the German Workers’ Party, and he wound up becoming its leader. You could also argue that undercover operatives encourage criminal behavior, especially larger, bigger scores for their own personal ambitions to get promoted for larger, bigger busts. At what point can you say the target was going to do it anyway with or without the influence of the undercover operative? In many cases, the undercover operative introduces funding, connections, and other logistical support the target would not have at their disposal otherwise. Just recently, a couple ‘Boogaloo Bois’ were arrested for conspiring to sell firearm suppressors to Hamas. Now you have to wonder, without the undercover operatives setting that supposed transaction up, how in hell would they ever have been able to set that up themselves with Hamas? You can also only imagine the countless similar setups for drug trafficking. A small-time trafficker only moving thousands of dollars of merchandise suddenly having an undercover operative set up a transaction worth millions.
Regardless, the author points out, under J. Edgar Hoover, “G-men had used illegal bugs, wiretaps, and breaking and entering… on citizens deemed to be political dissidents…”
* * *
Just reading about all of Phil’s devious plans is mind-boggling and tiresome. The author notes that Phil has amazing memory, and you would need it to keep track of all the concurrent scams and all the characters, the targets as well as the conspirators, or as the book calls them, promoters. Back then, there was no computer that Phil could have used to keep track of everything, and it was probably for the best as that computer would have been subpoenaed as evidence. Crossing state and national borders makes it all the more elaborate and confusing forcing states and nations to collaborate which is part of the plan knowing they don’t always collaborate so well.
The funny thing about reading this book is that I’ve read books on Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that helped cause the 2008 Financial Crisis. CDOs are basically mortgage debt that is divided into different tranches (levels) with solid debt on top and junk subprime debt on the bottom. For whatever asinine, illegal reasons, the ratings agencies would rate them safe, because they had solid debt on top and just ignore all the garbage at the bottom. They also involved basically parlay bets on interest rates and other market movements. While they were not explicitly outlawed, the regulatory agencies allowed them to exist with growing evidence that they could wreck the entire economy. In the end, nobody was investigated and sentenced, as this would probably expose and embarrass the collaboration at worst and incompetence at best of the regulatory agencies. Americans also decided that the banks were too big to fail and bailed them out instead of calling upon them to be nationalized. To this day, the banks can still gamble with money that is printed up out of nowhere, and should they fail, it is likely, they’ll just get bailed out like last time. The only difference is that they’re not being as overtly greedy and extravagant with the CDOs this time around.
* * *
After Part II at 180 pages, I got tired of reading this book. The cons start all sounding the same, just different targets, accomplices, and cities. The author should have shortened this. Being a con-artist is just like any other job, after a while, it seems to get mundane, tedious, and repetitive. Sure there are perks, and if you enjoy an endless stream of four-star hotels, hot women, fancy cars, and luxury crap everywhere, it may be the life for you, but what about the incessant anxiety of getting caught, not just by law enforcement but perhaps a mark who has violent tendencies? What about the incessant feeling of crap, of guilt, of impoverishing people who didn’t deserve it? Certainly, the high end cons target greedy, rich people, but in some cases, like the Kealoha couple, they were elderly and near bankruptcy. They were feeding off their remaining savings like vultures.
Unless you have absolutely no ability to keep a 40-hour job and accepting a modest income, the life of a con-artist seems like a horrible proposition where you’re really only attracting other leeches and shallow asses showing off your wealth. Certainly, there are many orthodox jobs which suck, where you have a boss who nags and bullies you, but nothing is stopping you from looking for another job or even starting your own business. The life of an entrepreneur is somewhat similar to a con-artist in that you’re your own boss, you make your own hours, sometimes you hit it really big, and sometimes you get wiped out (in the case of con-artists, you go to prison, blowing all your remaining wealth on expensive, often predatory lawyers). Why not just be an entrepreneur, unless you’ve already destroyed your credit and have a criminal record?
For whatever reason, grifters and financiers, in fact a lot of high-paying white-collar workers tend to push themselves too much. I’ll never understand why a lawyer billing $1000 an hour just doesn’t work 40 hours a week, why they work 80 to 100 hours a week, burning themselves out. Invariably, their careers are short-lived, and many just retire early. Why didn’t you just pace yourself? I guess the greed is too much, and if you don’t have a social life to begin with, why not put in 80 to 100 hours while you can? At the same time, they invariably fail to take care of themselves, eating garbage, never working out, and the stress causes even more health problems, along with the guilt, shame, lack of sleep, etc. Kitzer is a prime example of this is suffers ulcers.
In my opinion, you can just skip Part III and move to Part IV the ending. I think the FBI agents went native with Phil, pulled into his charismatic bullshit, perhaps a bit of a father complex going on. After he’s caught and gets out of prison, they continue to befriend him and help him stay straight. There seems to be no regret or misgivings over all the people he scammed and impoverished. He’s just out crazy buddy! I wouldn’t be surprised if Phil rubbed off more on these guys and the FBI dudes wound up alcoholics. It’s also amazing when you cooperate with the government, even being the guy who controls and organizes most everything, you get off easy. It’s like, it doesn’t matter that you’re a criminal, a scammer, a lowlife, so long as you help the government out, the government will help you out. And god forbid you refuse to cooperate, the government does everything within their powers to make you suffer, not only giving you the longest sentences but putting you in the worst prisons. It’s like the crime itself and victims don’t really matter as much as whether you’re going to help government out or not. Make government prosecutors look good, and you’re golden. Make them look bad, make them actually work hard to prove a case, and you’re up shit creek without a paddle.
thenonexistentbookclub 