Iceland’s Secret
The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Con
By Jared Bibler
Jacket text
Born in Massachusetts, Jared Bibler relocated to Iceland in 2004 only to find himself in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis a handful of years later.
Personally wiped out and seeking to uncover the truth about a collapse that brought the pastoral country to its knees, he became the lead investigator into some of the largest financial crimes in the world. This work helped Iceland to famously become the only country to jail its bank CEOs in the wake of the 2008 crisis.
But the real story behind that headline is far more complex — and sinister.
A decade after the investigations, the story can be told at last and in full. The crisis, barely understood inside or outside of Iceland even today, is a cautionary tale for the world: an inside look at the high crimes that inevitably follow Wild West capitalism.
With the next global financial meltdown just around the corner, this untold tale is as timely as ever.
Read an exclusive Q&A with the author Jared BiblerAbout the author
Jared Bibler is a graduate of MIT, where he studied engineering. He is also a CFA charterholder with nearly 20 years of broad experience in the global financial markets. Jared started his career in Boston and New York, where he worked as a consultant to a Wall Street giant.
Following that, he moved to Iceland where he supported the Icelandic pension funds’ foreign investments. Unhappy with this environment, he resigned from his job at a leading Icelandic bank days before the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis. He was subsequently hired to head a special investigation team at the Icelandic markets regulator. Jared and his team referred more than 30 criminal cases to the Special Prosecutor of Iceland, including the largest stock market manipulation cases to be prosecuted globally.
Reviews
“A unique perspective on events.”
“Unlike most business books, it’s very accessible to the lay reader and even incorporates a sense of intrigue and action that makes it a top recommendation.”
“Like The Big Short, but bigger.”
“To understand how the world really works, you need to understand Iceland’s Secret.”
“Magnificent, horrifying”
“Perhaps the most important book I have read this year.”
“I found myself unable to put it down.”
Axiom Award-winner – Silver Medal, International Business
“Few people are better-equipped to chronicle this extraordinary saga than Bibler. … His book is a blend of candid personal memoir and a Nordic noir that reveals his jaw-dropping discoveries as a regulator. … Iceland’s Secret is a fantastic read. An eye-opener and a cautionary tale, it is evidence of the brazen and protracted frauds that can occur if bankers are given a free pass by a country’s journalists, regulators, politicians and government.”
“[Iceland’s Secret] goes beyond a mere portrayal of a specific crime and its far-reaching ramifications and becomes a moral tale about the depths of human greed … an admirably rigorous account of a complex event of great contemporary importance.”
Media coverage
From Trace Podcast:
Jared Bibler joins the podcast to discuss his lively book about the complete meltdown of Iceland’s banking sector and, as a result, its economy. It was a brazen scheme equal in size to three Enrons and, although it happened in 2008, it remains a timely cautionary tale for the banking sector and regulators today.
From World Finance:
When Jared Bibler visited Iceland for the first time in 2002, he couldn’t imagine that one day he would become an Icelander himself. A native of Massachusetts in the US, he was working for an Icelandic bank when in the autumn of 2008 the country’s financial sector hit an iceberg. His stint as investigator at… Read more »
From Perlego:
he book is built around my personal story; I worked in one of those banks and saw some bad things. I couldn’t sleep at night, but I had no idea how much bigger it was. I quit my job on 3 October 2008, then all 3 banks collapsed the following week. I was hired 6… Read more »
From Axiom Business Book Awards:
Iceland’s Secret is the winner of silver medal in International Business / Globalization category) at the Axiom 2022 Business Book Awards.
From Library of Mistakes:
In this first episode of the Library of Mistakes podcast series, Russell Napier explores the 2008 financial collapse of Iceland with Jared Bibler, author of Iceland’s Secret – The Untold Story Of The World’s Biggest Con. After moving from the US financial world to Iceland in search of a quieter life, Jared found himself working… Read more »
From Financial Times:
Now, in his recent book, Iceland’s Secret: The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Con, he says the country’s approach has neither cleaned out the Augean stables of Icelandic finance nor slain “the dragon of deeply corrupt financial markets”.
From The Bookwatch:
Unlike most business books, it’s very accessible to the lay reader and even incorporates a sense of intrigue and action that makes it a top recommendation for general-interest collections, as well.
From The Kuderna Podcast:
Jared Bibler is the author of the new book, ICELAND’s SECRET: The Untold Story of The World’s Biggest Con. Bibler is a graduate of MIT, who began his career as a software engineer. He eventually made his way to Wall Street as a consultant before moving to Iceland to support the Icelandic pension funds’ foreign… Read more »
From Yahoo Finance:
As recounted in thrilling detail in the new book “Iceland’s Secret,” the Icelandic banking scandal was a beast all its own, a whole-cloth fraud that originated a full decade before the financial crisis. When the tide went out, though, it revealed an entire country had been swimming naked. The book’s author, Jared Bibler, had a… Read more »
| Published: | 05/10/2021 |
|---|---|
| Edition: | 1st |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Formats: | hardback - ISBN 9780857198990 ebook - ISBN 9780857199003 audio - ISBN 0000000000055 |
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