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The Informant: A True Story

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The Informant: A True Story

By: Kurt Eichenwald  

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Description:
From an award-winning New York Times investigative reporter comes an outrageous story of greed, corruption, and conspiracy—which left the FBI and Justice Department counting on the cooperation of one man . . .

It was one of the FBI's biggest secrets: a senior executive with America's most politically powerful corporation, Archer Daniels Midland, had become a confidential government witness, secretly recording a vast criminal conspiracy spanning five continents. Mark Whitacre, the promising golden boy of ADM, had put his career and family at risk to wear a wire and deceive his friends and colleagues. Using Whitacre and a small team of agents to tap into the secrets at ADM, the FBI discovered the company's scheme to steal millions of dollars from its own customers.

But as the FBI and federal prosecutors closed in on ADM, using stakeouts, wiretaps, and secret recordings of illegal meetings around the world, they suddenly found that everything was not all that it appeared. At the same time Whitacre was cooperating with the Feds while playing the role of loyal company man, he had his own
agenda he kept hidden from everyone around him—his wife, his lawyer, even the FBI agents who had come to trust him with the case they had put their careers on the line for. Whitacre became sucked into his own world of James Bond antics, imperiling the criminal case and creating a web of deceit that left the FBI and prosecutors uncertain where the lies stopped and the truth began.

In this gripping account unfolds one of the most captivating and bizarre tales in the history of the FBI and corporate America. Meticulously researched and richly told by New York Times senior writer Kurt Eichenwald, The Informant re-creates the drama of the story, beginning with the secret recordings, stakeouts, and interviews with suspects and witnesses to the power struggles within ADM and its board—including the high-profile chairman Dwayne Andreas, F. Ross Johnson, and Brian Mulroney—to the big-gun Washington lawyers hired by ADM and on up through the ranks of the Justice Department to FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno.

A page-turning real-life thriller that features deadpan FBI agents, crooked executives, idealistic lawyers, and shady witnesses with an addiction to intrigue, The Informant tells an important and compelling story of power and betrayal in America

Description:
"The FBI was ready to take down America's most politically powerful corporation. But there was one thing they didn't count on."

So reads the cover of this high-powered true crime story, an accurate teaser to a bizarre financial scandal with more plot twists than a John Grisham novel. In 1992 the FBI stumbled upon Mark Whitacre, a top executive at the Archer Daniels Midland corporation who was willing to act as a government witness to a vast international price-fixing conspiracy. ADM, which advertises itself as "The Supermarket to the World," processes grains and other farm staples into oils, flours, and fibers for products that fill America's shelves, from Jell-O pudding to StarKist tuna. The company's chairman and chief executive, Dwayne Andreas, was so influential that he introduced Ronald Reagan to Mikhail Gorbachev, and it was his maneuvering that ensured that high fructose corn syrup would replace sugar in most foods (ever wondered why Coke and Pepsi don't taste quite like they used to?). There were two mottoes at ADM: "The competitors are our friends, and the customers are our enemies" and "We know when we're lying." And lie they did. With the help of Whitacre, the FBI made hundreds of tapes and videos of ADM executives making price-fixing deals with their corrivals from Japan, Korea, and Canada, all while drinking coffee and laughing about their crimes. The tapes should have cinched the case, but there was one problem: Their star witness was manipulative, deceitful, and unstable. Nothing was as it seemed, and the investigation into one of the most astounding white-collar crime cases in history had only just begun.

Kurt Eichenwald, an investigative reporter, covered the story for The New York Times and interviewed more than 100 participants in the case. He methodically records the six-year investigation, leaving no plot twist or tape transcript unexplored. While his primary focus is on deconstructing the disturbed Whitacre and revealing the malleability of truth, the portrait of ADM (and even the Justice Department) is damning enough to make anyone a cynic. --Lesley Reed

Publisher: Broadway

Release Date: 2001-07-03

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Got Greed? - In short, this is a terrific book - a complex and absorbing read that has all the adrenaline and page-turning mojo of John Grisham's or Joseph Finder's best, while at the same time exposing graft, greed, corruption and bureaucratic bungling that, were this not a true story, would be discarded as being too unbelievable. It is also an exceptional character study, well drawn, sensitive, and convincing - one of those rare books that will have you telling friends and family "You've got to read this book."

Mark Whitaker, the "informant", was a young, high flying, near genius senior executive - a division president in global food processing mega-giant ADM. Whitaker reports an attempt at corporate espionage and extortion from a Japanese competitor, and ADM brings in the FBI to track it down. Soon the case moves from extortion to price fixing, and Whitaker as turned informant, an unprecedented boon for the Feds to have someone on the inside with this much clout and credibility. But as a convoluted story unfolds to the FBI Special Agents working the case, inconsistencies and developments of increasing incredulousness start stacking up, Whitaker's motivations come under scrutiny. Clearly there is more to this guy than he is telling, and a hidden agenda - perhaps multiple hidden agendas - which always seem to be just inches out of the FBI's grasp. The intensity ratchets up as the stories of ADP and Whitaker and the boldness and stupidity of their respective scams escalate, reaching a climax as mind-boggling as the journey there.

Author Kurt Eichenwalt, a reporter for the New York Times, does a remarkable job taking an extremely complex case, arcane anti-trust law, and Mr. Wizard-class science, and making it readable, understandable, and most important, entertaining. And give him credit for keeping politics and political commentary to a minimum - yet whether you're Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, expect to shocked - if not sickened - at the decidedly unhealthy bond between big business and the politicians whose hands are in their pockets. Sure, you'd be naive not to know corruption at the highest levels is far too common, but the blatant audacity depicted here is beyond frustrating - and all too relevant today as more and more corn-based ethanol finds its way into our gas tanks.

"The Informant" should be required reading for every Business and Law School, but is at the same time deserves broad appeal on the strength of the characters, the painstaking research and detail which adds depth and credibility without adding tedium, and a plot with more twists than a whole season of "The Twilight Zone." There's something for everyone here, and is perhaps the best non-fiction business book of all time, this one should definitely be on your "must read" list.


Customer Review: 5 out of 5
unbelievable ! - This book is just uncredible. Obviously things are happening beyond our expectations, but facts related here are really over the hedge ! Second half of the book is breathtaking.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
I thought this book was excellent! - I enjoyed this book very much. I am from Decatur, IL and it was fun reading about places and people that I was familiar with. Can't wait til the movie comes out!

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
If this was fiction - it'd be faulted for being implausible! - International conspiracy, never-ending twists and turns, high-tech spy gadgets, cladestine meetings, wild plotting and scheming and larger than life characters - make this an "I can't stand to put it down" book.

Eichenwald has done a masterful job of taking a real and complex series of events and persornalities and bringing them into a fast-paced business thriller that's as good as any Joseph Finder corporate thriller, and even better because it really occurred.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
great book - Vov or not - This is the second of Eichenwald's books I've read, and it is engrossing, involving and manages to take in the complexities of price-fixing in an easy to understand manner.

Regarding Lamet Vov's review - if you read the book you'll see why the Lamet Vov is so negative about the book. Clearly Whitacre is a complex, conflicted protagonist, and pointing out these human traits goes against Mr. Vov's (who appears in the book) single minded desire to raise Whitacre to a heroic level and to oust the Andreases.

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