Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks

Koch is an avid wine collector and one of the chief figures in Keefe’s first essay on the controversy around counterfeit wine. Koch and his family are also well known for their contributions to American industry and politics: His brothers are now most famous for their donations to “conservative political candidates and causes” (2). Koch lives in a large mansion home to various collections, including old weapons and art, along with his wine cellar. Keefe is careful to point out that Koch’s ego is bound up in what he owns. When he suspects he has been defrauded in his wine purchases, Koch says, “I’ve bought so much art, so many guns, so many other things, that if somebody’s out to cheat me, I want the son of a bitch to pay for it” (4). The same wealth that allows Koch to be an avid collector allows him to investigate the fraud: He can pay for a dedicated and diligent investigator, who ultimately discovers Rodenstock’s forgery.

Koch lives in a world where notoriety and ownership carry social value, since wealth is something he already has in abundance. When Keefe wonders what the value is in buying wines that will never be consumed, Koch points out that all of his collections are impractical: “I’m never going to shoot Custer’s rifle" (12). Koch occupies a rarefied universe where ownership has more meaning than utility; as he himself acknowledges, eventually the notoriety of his fake wines recoups their loss of status as Jefferson's wines. In a series of essays where Keefe frequently ponders the nature of crime, victims, and profit, Koch comes across as largely unscathed by his adventure, unlike less fortunate figures Keefe profiles.

Keefe introduces Rodenstock by intentionally obfuscating his identity as a con artist: Keefe describes Rodenstock’s incredible collection of ancient wines, his “stylish Rodenstock eyeglasses and shirts with stiff white collars” always worn for his lavish wine events (5), and his technical passion for wine—such as the claim that he prefers 18th-century vintages because they have “more flavors, more caramel, more singularity, more power, more class” (5). 

Later, the reader learns that this was a deliberate exercise in character construction: Rodenstock is not German or the son of a wealthy family, but rather a former railway official and likely a uniquely talented wine forger, as many wine experts praise his vintages and even stand by earlier assessments of their quality, if not authenticity. Rodenstock manages to convince many in the wine world that he discovered lost tsarist vintages, and to craft the needed notoriety for the Jefferson bottles. He insists that his passion for wine is greater than that of any Monticello historian who questions the provenance of the Jefferson bottles. He insists Koch is fabricating an elaborate conspiracy against him, or focuses on irrelevant details, like Koch exaggerating his behavior at their one in-person meeting. Rodenstock’s other great talent, then, is for fiction.

Astrid Holleeder is a Dutch writer and attorney, whose international notoriety stems from her decision to turn from her brother’s defense lawyer to chief witness against him. Astrid and Wim’s bond was formed by their childhood traumas, as both endured abuse from their father who had alcoholism. After Wim was arrested for the kidnapping of the Heineken beer mogul, Freddy, Astrid found the only career path open to her was criminal defense law, as her family was now synonymous with criminality. She became Wim’s lawyer, recognizing that the family’s relative silence about Wim and the ransom money that made his fortune have made them all “accomplices” (32). Astrid understands her family dynamics well after years of therapy, but cannot break her emotional ties to Wim even after betraying him.

Keefe focuses on what makes Astrid a compelling, if troubling, subject for study and analysis. He focuses on her “arresting eyes that are swimming pool blue” (24), and that she speaks with the “babbling brook urgency of a shut-in who is starved for conversation” (29). Astrid may have made her own choices, but she is also trapped by them: Even Wim going to jail will not mean she can cease to live in hiding, as he will try to punish her for her betrayal even from prison. Astrid relies on narrative to save her life: She hopes her book income will allow her to escape the Netherlands, and in the interim she tells Keefe her story as another form of self-defense.

Astrid’s brother, Wim is a notorious figure in the Netherlands for his role in the Heineken kidnapping and subsequent business empire, both legal and illegal. Wim’s disgust and disdain for his father led him to pursue a life of violence, unlike Astrid’s early desires to escape. Wim lives a life of contradiction in other ways: He relies on his family’s loyalty and creates a culture of secrecy, while strategically murdering any members of the Dutch underworld who could challenge him. Astrid comes to believe that his targets included Cor Van Hout who was not only his best friend, but also his sister’s partner and the father of his nieces and nephews.

Like Astrid, Wim has an eye for narrative and spectacle. In the 2000s, he became a kind of folk hero in the Netherlands, even making television appearances and publishing articles about his life of luxury and notoriety. Keefe posits that this campaign is successful because Wim is white and Dutch, at a time when the wider public was prone to xenophobia. Wim’s outbursts in court underscore that the emotional connection Astrid feels is not one-sided, though his is grounded in anger rather than grief. 

Ken Dornstein’s life was changed forever in December of 1989 when he learned that his beloved older brother, David, had been killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. He dedicates much of his adult life to memorializing his brother—who harbored his own literary ambitions—and uncovering the mystery of who orchestrated the bombing. Dornstein, like other family members of those killed, is not satisfied with the initial trial's two convictions and the Libyan government’s partial admission of guilt and responsibility. He wants a more precise narrative of who the bombers were, as part of his quest for closure.

Even the most sympathetic of Dornstein’s friends and family members acknowledge that his quest for the truth borders on obsession. His wife recalls his need to “continue" Dave, to which Keefe asks, “can such a project ever really end?” (78). Dornstein travels to Libya after the fall of Qaddafi’s government and personally interviews anyone he can find who might provide the information he seeks. He is vindicated, ultimately pursuing leads that reveal the name of the bomb-maker and his current location. Dornstein stresses, however, that his goals are not punitive, but story-driven: He wants to be able to inform the perpetrators that he and his family were changed by this violence. His is the ultimate tale of familial devotion, though Keefe reports that by 2022 Dornstein has, at last, begun to tell other stories.

A prominent neurologist who previously held posts at the University of Michigan, Gilman had a strong interest in teaching and mentoring, perhaps due to his distance from his own children and the loss of one son to suicide. The generations of doctors he supported remember him fondly. Gilman added a new dimension to his career in the early 2000s, with fateful consequences. He began doing consulting work for financial services clients, eventually meeting a young trader named Matthew Martoma, who worked at Steven Cohen’s SAC. He advised Martoma on a promising new Alzheimer’s drug, eventually leaking to him confidential information from the clinical trials. To Keefe, Gilman emphasizes the importance of emotion, not profit-seeking, to their relationship: It “seemed to Gilman that Martoma shared his passion for Alzheimer’s research” (88).

Martoma used this information to his company’s benefit, as SAC sold all the relevant stock in time to yield major profits. Gilman later testified against Martoma, to avoid jail time after academic disgrace. Gilman stressed, both on the witness stand and in interviews with Keefe, that Martoma’s charm and personal interest in him were key contributors to his eventual misconduct. Gilman even claimed that the loss of his son left him susceptible to Martoma’s deception. His role in the narrative, then, is to stress that emotional bonds can be key to the slide into criminality.

A first-generation son of deeply ambitious and driven Indian immigrant parents, Martoma grew up in Florida. Keefe describes Martoma’s life, initially, solely in terms of his academic pedigree and achievements: He worked for the NIH, attended Harvard Law School without completing a degree, and then went into business after earning a Stanford MBA.

Martoma’s choice to use insider information to allow SAC to profit from the clinical trial failure of an Alzheimer's drug was not a one-time lapse, as a government investigation into his background revealed more layers of deception. Martoma did not withdraw from law school voluntarily, but was instead expelled for submitting fake transcripts for summer clerkship applications. He insisted that the false documents were merely a ruse to placate his parents. The FBI attempted to persuade him to cooperate, threatening to expose his history at Harvard, but he refused and instead chose to go to prison for insider trading.

Martoma’s wife, Rosemary, maintains he is innocent. Keefe sees her faith in him, and that of his entire family, as key to his character: Martoma may have chosen imprisonment “for the sake of preserving their illusion that he was an honorable man” (111).

Cohen is a stock trader and investment fund manager who states that his interest in the world of finance dates back to childhood. His career at his hedge fund, SAC, has led to a massive net worth in the billions, a history of skirting financial regulations, and numerous federal investigations. Cohen’s chief tactic is the cultivation of what he calls “edge” (85)—information obtained by any means possible that would allow his company to make more advantageous trades. Cohen, like some of the other characters Keefe profiles, is comfortable with a culture of secrecy: “anytime a written exchange approached potentially incriminating territory, Cohen insisted on oral communication” (97). SAC has paid federal fines for misconduct, but its company culture has not changed.

Keefe portrays Cohen as a man largely indifferent to moral and legal norms. Cohen claims to be unfamiliar with the laws against insider trading, and escapes from the scandal around Martoma with little damage to his reputation. Cohen, then, is one of Keefe’s key examples of a person entirely comfortable with the porous boundaries between legality and illegality, and one who uses them to his own benefit.

Amy Bishop was once a struggling academic denied tenure at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, who became a notorious mass shooter after she murdered several of her colleagues at a faculty meeting in spring 2010. Due to her age, gender, and background, Bishop’s case attracted immediate media attention, including scrutiny of her family’s past. In 1986, Amy shot her brother Seth in her hometown of Braintree, Massachusetts. His death was originally ruled an accident, but her conviction for the mass shooting led to a renewed investigation, as some officers believed her mother’s friendship with the chief of police explained her release.

Keefe portrays Bishop as a sarcastic eccentric often unwilling to consider the consequences of her actions. She claims to have no memory of the Huntsville shooting—a frequent response when she is asked about unpleasant events. For decades, Keefe suggests, she has benefited from the unstinting loyalty of her parents, who chose to accept a narrative of Seth’s death that preserved her future. They reject the theory, based on witness testimony, that Amy may have been trying to shoot her father and only hit Seth by mistake. Amy Bishop’s life is partly a story of tragedy, mass death, and mental illness, but it is, above all, a narrative of unstinting familial devotion.

A notorious leader of a drug cartel based in Sinaloa, Mexico, Guzmán achieved fame not only for his wealth, but his notorious capacity to evade capture. His skills in this area, largely based on his corruption of Mexican authorities, led US officials to declare “that there’s no word in Spanish for surround” (150). Guzmán attained the status of a folk hero, in part because the failing local governments in impoverished parts of Mexico have allowed drug cartels to effectively replace public services, funding infrastructure and local businesses with laundered funds. This, along with the cartel’s ability to cultivate informants, helped sustain Guzmán’s popularity and ability to avoid arrest. By 2014, however, Mexico’s new president had given license to its Marines, or SEMAR, to renew the capture efforts.

Like other criminals Keefe investigates, Guzmán avoided written communication to the greatest extent possible, which forced the Marines to focus on his inner circle. They soon discovered that Guzmán had many safe houses and even a network of tunnels to preserve his security. Keefe implies, but cannot prove, that they succeeded in locating his final hiding place only through the use of torture. Nevertheless, his folk hero status that endures—people continue to speculate that he will escape prison, or was never actually arrested. Guzmán obviously depended on the profitability of crime, but his story demonstrates how criminals can exploit the power of narratives through self-mythologizing.

A British citizen and former Special Forces operative, Burnett came to the United States on a whim and soon cultivated contacts in the entertainment industry, becoming obsessed with the emerging medium of reality television, which he had a significant role in developing. His favorite book, Lord of the Flies, inspired him to create Survivor, the show where contestants compete for dominance on an isolated tropical island. Burnett has his own rags-to-riches story, insisting that he came to America with nothing and that his television empire was born from struggle and doubt. His creation of The Apprentice had fateful consequences, as it burnished Donald Trump’s image from a laughable tabloid figure into a polished tycoon worthy of high office. Keefe notes that while previous Apprentice contestants have critiqued Trump’s fitness for office, Burnett has remained silent, even amid persistent rumors that footage from the show would reveal Trump’s use of racist epithets.

Burnett’s sense of the dramatic, which enabled him to play a large role in Trump’s rise to prominence and power, is among Keefe’s more cogent examples that narratives have real power to effect change. Burnett is more preoccupied with drama than consequences: His first wife was unable to convince him to speak out against Trump, and some suggest that his nationality prevents him from being invested in US politics. Keefe, however, is less sanguine, noting that Trump now has a “captive audience of the world” (204) thanks to Burnett.

The 45th president of the United States, Trump first attained national notoriety as a New York City real estate developer. He enters Keefe’s narrative because his relationship with Mark Burnett and star status on The Apprentice are key to appraising the impact of Burnett’s legacy and the role of reality television in American culture. The new genre rests on its own narrative conventions, and Trump’s success in it, Keefe argues, has lasting consequences. In 2005, when The Apprentice premiered, Trump’s personal fortunes were at a low point. The show enhanced his profile and improved his image. Some of Keefe’s interview subjects claim, with hindsight, that the show should obviously have been watched as a “joke” (186), given Trump’s lack of business acumen and polish. Keefe, however, suggests that the show is difficult to read that way in light of Trump’s later continuing commitment to its aesthetics of on-screen leadership, including “descending the gold covered escalator” (195) that launched his presidential bid. Trump is thus the ultimate proof of the power of wealth, and of stories about success, to sway a mass audience.

A former employee of Swiss bank HSBC, Falciani achieved global notoriety in 2008 and 2009 when he deliberately stole data from the company, violating both incredibly strict security protocols and Switzerland’s notorious banking privacy laws. His data revealed the names and account numbers of citizens who had used Swiss confidentiality law to conceal their assets from their home governments and avoid tax obligations. The Swiss government has long sought his extradition and prosecution for breaking its privacy laws. Other European countries, however, have benefited from Falciani’s data, and have declined to comply with extradition orders since he has violated no laws in their nations.

Falciani claims that his goals are merely transparency, an end to corruption, and a world where those with money face accountability. Keefe, however, points out Falciani’s tendency for embellishment and drama, including his insistence that he is part of a small conspiratorial group called “The Network” (213) and has been involved in intelligence operations. Falciani’s former partner, Georgina Mikhael, has claimed that he attempted to sell the data to other financial institutions, rather than being an unimpeachable crusader only interested in helping governments. In conversations with Keefe, Falciani insists that his chief goal, to expose the lack of accountability in Swiss banking culture, has been accomplished. Keefe’s own investigations into the world of Swiss finance and global tax havens underline that the corruption Falciani sought to expose is very real, even if his ego and sense of self-importance make him more distasteful than heroic at some moments.

A Syrian national, al-Kassar made his fortune in the arms and drug trade and began a lavish life of luxury in Spain in the 1980s, becoming known as the “Prince of Marbella” (234). Al-Kassar’s clients included dictators and nationalist groups, and he has been implicated in weapons sales used in terrorist attacks, including the hijacking of an Italian cruise ship. Though he tended to back Arab causes, al-Kassar prioritized wealth and his personal security over any ideology. He escaped accountability by ensuring that he never actually entered the countries where his weapons are sold, making him only an indirect intermediary. Most governments depend on such surreptitious arms deals, as they allow them to advance clandestine operations with plausible deniability. Multiple former intelligence officials suggest al-Kassar was also an active asset, underlining that the line between legitimate governance and underworlds of criminality is often blurry. In 2008, al-Kassar was arrested in a US-led sting operation; he was charged with and convicted of terrorism and conspiracy. He maintains his innocence, and some of Keefe’s interview subjects admit that he might have been more useful at a liberty than in prison.

A defense attorney specializing in death penalty cases, Clarke specializes in mitigating the death sentences of notorious and undeniably guilty individuals. These have included the Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski) and Susan Smith, who murdered her two young children. Clarke has never lost a case. As she is entirely opposed to capital punishment, Clarke and has left defense teams where clients decided execution is the fate they deserved. Clarke’s strategy relies on constructing a “comprehensive biography of the client” to explain how past tragedy—what Clarke calls “unbelievable trauma” (267-68)—led to crimes and more tragedy later in a client’s life. Clarke has always been interested in justice, but friends of hers suggest that her passionate dedication came after she lost her younger brother Mark to AIDS and her family was angry to discover that Republican legislator Jesse Helms, a family friend, had no compassion for their loss and blamed Mark for his own death.

In defending Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Clarke attempted to construct a narrative of a gentle, kind young man who was led astray by his radicalized older brother. The case was particularly difficult not merely for the suffering involved, but because Tsarnaev displayed little remorse or emotion during his trial. Secrecy rules around federal terrorism charges prevented the jury from seeing Tsarnaev’s apology to his victims. Moreover, the jury was entirely made up of death-penalty supporters, a legal requirement known as “death qualification” (278). Clarke’s story is, in some ways, what happens when a narrative is unconvincing to its audience: Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death, her first loss in a capital punishment case.

Tsarnaev was one of the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. While other members of his family struggled to adjust to life in the United States after emigrating from Chechnya, Tsarnaev was popular and did well in school. Keefe notes that many of his friends were unfamiliar with his religious background and he mostly behaved like a typical college student. In contrast, his older brother Tamerlan had immersed himself in a radical and violent version of Islam.

At his trial, Keefe, who is present, noted that Tsarnaev “wasn’t easy to manage” (264) and showed little response to hearing the horrors he had unleashed in the lives of his victims. Though Keefe evinces some skepticism about the prosecution’s view of Tsarnaev as a committed terrorist and the government’s tactics in his trial, the larger problem he presents is that Tsarnaev does not, in the end, come across as a victim of the cruelty of others. He may not have been the chief architect of the bombing, but he occupies too central a place to convince a jury that Judy Clarke’s interpretation of his behavior as a browbeaten younger brother in thrall to his older sibling is compelling.

Steinmetz is a billionaire who made his fortune in diamonds, often in mining deals in Africa. Though Israeli in origin, he owns property all over the world and travels frequently. Steinmetz sees himself as a savvy businessman and risk-taker, willing to operate in environments that frighten off the less committed. This is how he characterizes his decision to buy the Simandou iron mines, despite their lack of transportation and extraction infrastructure. Others, including anti-corruption experts, see Steinmetz very differently. In interviews with Keefe, they stress that he represents the type of businessman who “secured the rights to natural resources they may not actually have the expertise to develop” (292).

To get the Simandou concession, Steinmetz cultivated connections with the notoriously corrupt Guinean government of General Lansana Conté. He takes the succeeding administration’s investigation into his tactics personally, spuriously blaming George Soros for supporting Alpha Condé out of anti-Israeli bias. In his meeting with Keefe, Steinmetz insists that Condé is being paid for attacking BSGR, but he refuses to answer questions about FBI investigations and the possibility he paid to have documents destroyed. Keefe undercuts Steinmetz’s sense of victimhood by calling attention to his lavish lifestyle: “I descended the hill while Steinmetz headed back to his yacht for dinner” (312). Steinmetz is, perhaps, Keefe’s prime example of image becoming self-deception and of the power of wealth to shield one from accountability.

A reformer president of Guinea elected in 2012, Condé was educated in France and spent much of his life in that country, or as a political prisoner in Guinea. Condé’s reform agenda focused on the Guinean mining industry, as ridding this sector of the Guinean economy of corruption would improve state capacity and finances. He quickly made an enemy of Beny Steinmetz and BSGR by investigating the contracts around the Simandou concession and its vast iron resources. Owing to Guinea’s understaffed and underdeveloped bureaucracy, Condé relied primarily on foreign experts and support from backers like George Soros, which allowed Steinmetz to cast Condé’s reform agenda as a conspiracy aimed at discrediting him personally.

Condé, in Keefe’s account, is not an unimpeachable figure. He is averse to parliamentary elections and power-sharing, suggesting his commitment to democracy was more limited as president than it was during his exile. Condé is left, at the end of Keefe’s narrative, in “bewilderment” (313) that the Simandou mine has still not yielded its full potential—dashing the hope it represents to Guinea’s impoverished population. Condé, perhaps more than any other figure, represents the difficulty of combating corruption, even with the help of dedicated backers.