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Revision as of 11:00, 14 April 2006
Gary Weiss is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street and Wall Street Versus America: The Rampant Greed and Dishonesty That Imperil Your Investments. Both books are harshly critical examinations of Wall Street avarice.
Born to Steal, published in 2003, is the true story of a Mafia-linked stockbroker named Louis Pasciuto. The book described how Wall Street firms were infiltrated by organized crime figures during the 1990s. Often the brokers were little more than teenagers.
Between 1986 and 2004 Weiss wrote numerous investigative articles for Business Week magazine, including cover stories on stock fraud and Mafia infiltration of the stock market. He also wrote articles describing improper trading at the American Stock Exchange and Salomon Brothers.
His article "The Mob on Wall Street" was published in December 1996, preceding by almost four years major federal prosecutions of Wall Street Mafia figures. Weiss's Business Week stories were praised by then-FBI Director Louis Freeh, in a letter published by Business Week in December 2000. Freeh said "Gary Weiss has done our nation an invaluable service by reporting the manipulation of the stock market by elements of organized crime. By outlining specific stocks and stock brokerage firms that were controlled by organized crime, he opened the door for FBI investigations in Florida and in New York, and for that we owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude."
Wall Street Versus America, published in April 2006, is a wide-ranging, acerbic attack on the morality of Wall Street, its regulators and the financial press. The book uses humor and ridicule to drive home its points. The book is critical of hedge funds, mutual funds, and the Wall Street securities arbitration process, as well as the self-regulatory scheme by which Wall Street regulates itself. His book also provides an unflattering assessment of former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt.
The New York Post called Wall Street Versus America "one of the most controversial business books of 2006," and New York Times critic Janet Maslin said that "Weiss is as sharp as he is mean-spirited in his guided tour of America's investment process." Maslin said: "Even at points when his book would be helped by a glossary and a bucket of cold water, the gale force of its arguments come through."
Weiss is a founding member of Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance investigating the July 2004 murder of Paul Klebnikov, editor in chief of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine and other subjects.
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