Selling air : why now? --
Crash postmortem : how greed, hubris, and lack of supervision did investors in --
Why we do it : bubbles and fraud --
Securities fraud : its long and storied past --
The perils of greed : it's all for the easy money --
The elements of financial fraud : a case study with "Crazy Eddie" Antar --
"Other people's money" : the O.P.M. leasing fraud --
Smaller-company fraud : the "ISC" story --
Selling long and short : but mostly short --
Market manipulation : improper short selling and other abuses --
PIPEs : investing unfairly --
Promotion fraud : pump and dump --
Leaks, front-running, and insider trading : test yourself --
Fictitious volume : a pump-and-dump scam with intrigue --
Parachute into prison : U.S. v. Schrenker --
Affinity group fraud : scamming your own community --
Twentieth-century Ponzi schemes : larger and longer-lasting scams --
Hit charade: Lou Pearlman --
Hedge fund Ponzi fraud : hedge funds are for big boys --
Madoff and the world's largest Ponzi scheme : the mother of all Ponzi schemes --
How Madoff got away with it : who helped plot in the mother of all Ponzi schemes ; who can be made to pay? --
Madoff plea and its aftermath : governments go after Merkin, Kohn, and maybe others in the mother of all Ponzi schemes --
Mopping up after Madoff : lawyers feast on Madoff feeders in the mother of all Ponzi schemes --
Other recent Ponzi schemes : Madoff was a crook but he had no monopoly on recent Ponzi schemes --
Stanford Group : massive $7 billion, multinational fraud comes to light --
Ultimate chutzpah : the strange tale of Marc Dreier, Esq. --
Detecting fraudulent financial schemes : how much to regulate? how much to verify? --
Fraudulent offerings : a short look --
Auction-rate securities : a $330 billion fraud? --
$132 million tax-free exchange fraud : Section 1031 --
Not smart : the Smart Online trading scam --
Boiler rooms : where the heat rises --
Accounting frauds : with examples --
Stock option frauds : alchemy that benefits insiders --
Odd and unusual financial frauds : not your everyday fraud --
Afterword : what does the future hold?

The inside stories of some of the more infamous names associated with financial fraud, along with commentary about why we ignore the lessons of the past and fall prey to the promise of easy money