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How did an Ivy League activist become a global fugitive? The New York Times bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil chronicles the heart-pounding tale of a self-taught operative his high-stakes attempt subvert the North Korean regime. “Propulsive... Hope's account is both deeply reported and novelistic.”—Ed Caesar, contributing staff writer for The New Yorker, author of The Moth and the MountainIn the early 2000s, Adrian Hong was a soft-spoken Yale undergraduate looking for his place in the world. After reading a harrowing account of life inside North Korea, he realized he had found a cause so pressing that he was ready to devote his life to it. What began as a trip down the safe and well-worn path of organizing soon morphed into something more dangerous. Hong journeyed to China, outwitting Chinese security services as he helped asylum-seeking North Koreans escape across the border. Meanwhile, Hong's secret organization, Cheollima Civil Defense (later renamed Free Joseon), began tracking the North Korean government's activities, and its volatile third-generation ruler, Kim Jong-un. Free Joseon targeted North Korean diplomats who might be persuaded to defect, while drawing up plans for a government-in-exile. After the shocking broad-daylight assassination in 2017 of Kim Jong-nam, the dictator's older brother, Hong, along with U.S. Marine veteran Christopher Ahn, helped ferry Kim Jong-nam's family to safety. Then Hong took the group a step further. He initiated a series of high-stakes direct actions, culminating in an armed raid at the North Korean embassy in Madrid—an act that would put Ahn behind bars and turn Hong into one of the world's most unlikely fugitives. In the tradition of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, The Rebel and the Kingdom is an exhilarating account of a man who turns his back on the status quo—to instead live boldly by his principles. Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Bradley Hope—who broke numerous details of Hong's operations in The Wall Street Journal—now reveals the full contours of this remarkable story of idealism and insanity, hubris and heroism, all set within the secret battle for the future of the world's most mysterious and unsettling nation.

From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters comes a revelatory look at the inner workings of the world's most powerful royal family, and how the struggle for succession produced Saudi Arabia's charismatic but ruthless Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS.​ 35-year-old Mohammed bin Salman's sudden rise stunned the world. Political and business leaders such as former UK prime minister Tony Blair and WME chairman Ari Emanuel flew out to meet with the crown prince and came away convinced that his desire to reform the kingdom was sincere. He spoke passionately about bringing women into the workforce and toning down Saudi Arabia's restrictive Islamic law. He lifted the ban on women driving and explored investments in Silicon Valley.But MBS began to betray an erratic interior beneath the polish laid on by scores of consultants and public relations experts like McKinsey & Company. The allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out, including that he ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While stamping out dissent by holding 300 people, including prominent members of the Saudi royal family, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel and elsewhere for months, he continued to exhibit his extreme wealth, including buying a $70 million chateau in Europe and one of the world's most expensive yachts. It seemed that he did not understand nor care about how the outside world would react to his displays of autocratic muscle—what mattered was the flex.Blood and Oil is a gripping work of investigative journalism about one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders. Hope and Scheck show how MBS'precipitous rise coincided with the fraying of the simple bargain that had been at the head of US-Saudi relations for more than 80 years: oil, for military protection. Caught in his net are well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians, all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince.The Middle East is already a volatile region. Add to the mix an ambitious prince with extraordinary powers, hunger for lucre, a tight relationship with the White House through President Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, and an apparent willingness to break anything—and anyone—that gets in the way of his vision, and the stakes of his rise are bracing. If his bid fails, Saudi Arabia has the potential to become an unstable failed state and a magnet for Islamic extremists. And if his bid to transform his country succeeds, even in part, it will have reverberations around the world.Longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

A FORTUNE MAGAZINE AND FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK The epic story of how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest financial heists in history. In 2015, rumours began circulating that billions of dollars had been stolen from a Malaysian investment fund. The mastermind of the heist was twenty-seven-year-old Jho Low, a serial fabulist from an upper-middle-class Malaysian family, who had carefully built his reputation as a member of the jet-setting elite by arranging and financing elaborate parties for Wall Street bankers, celebrities, and even royalty. With the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, Low stole billions of dollars, right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. He used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and bankroll Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. Billion Dollar Whale reveals how this silver-tongued con man, a ‘modern Gatsby', emerged from obscurity to pull off one of the most audacious financial heists the world has ever seen, and how the financial industry let him. It is a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.

Cómo un joven empresario logró estafar más de 5 mil millones de dólares justo debajo de las narices de la industria financiera mundial. Una investigación sin precedentes escrita por los galardonados periodistas de The Wall Street Journal, Tom Wright y Bradley Hope, sobre el fraude financiero más grande del siglo XXI. El polvo aún tenía que asentarse en la crisis financiera mundial en 2009 cuando un improbable graduado de Wharton puso en marcha un fraude de agallas y magnitud sin precedentes, uno que simbolizaría la próxima gran amenaza para el sistema financiero global. Los aspectos prácticos del plan eran sorprendentemente simples: Jho Low persuadió al primer ministro de Malasia para que creara un fondo de inversión que dirigiría desde las sombras; recaudó más de 10 mil millones de dólares de inversores globales con la ayuda de Goldman Sachs y otras instituciones, y durante la siguiente media década desviaron no menos de 5 mil millones de dólares. Dicho dinero fue utilizado para financiar elecciones, comprar propiedades de lujo en Londres, Nueva York y Los Ángeles; producir películas de Hollywood, incluida El lobo de Wall Street, y hacer fiestas llenas de champaña por todo el mundo. Su generosidad también le produjo amistades con actores de Hollywood, como Leonardo DiCaprio, modelos de Victoria's Secret, como Miranda Kerr, e incluso con un miembro del círculo íntimo del presidente Obama. Lo más asombroso fue que nadie pareció notarlo, ni los bancos globales, como Goldman y J. P. Morgan, que se hicieron de la vista gorda frente a las oscuras transferencias de cientos de millones de dólares; ni tampoco los auditores internacionales, banqueros centrales ni vigilantes del sistema financiero oficial.

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this'thrilling'(Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a'modern Gatsby'swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in'the heist of the century'(Axios). Now a #1 international bestseller, Billion Dollar Whale is'an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale'(Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history. In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude--one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund--right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the U.S. Department of Justice continued its investigation.Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.

Una intrépida guía que analiza una de las industrias más salvajes en el planeta: el comercio ilegal de drogas. Tom Wainwright, reportero de The Economist, enseña las lecciones más importantes de economía y management detrás del funcionamiento de un cártel de drogas. Un libro que encantará a los lectores de Freakonomics o McMafia.'Un libro de economía para la generación Breaking Bad'-The Times of London- ¿Cómo puede ser exitoso (y sobrevivir) el jefe de una organización criminal que se está iniciando en el multimillonario negocio de los estupefacientes? Aprendiendo de los mejores, por supuesto. Desde la creación del valor de marca hasta poner a punto el servicio al cliente, las personas encargadas de administrar los cárteles de drogas han estudiado atentamente las tácticas y estrategias de corporaciones como Walmart, McDonald's y Coca-Cola. ¿Y cómo pueden aprender los gobiernos a combatir este fenómeno? Si fueran conscientes de que los cárteles son compañías, los encargados de aplicar la ley podrían entender mejor su funcionamiento y dejarían de gastar millones de dólares en un esfuerzo inútil por ganar la'guerra'contra este negocio global y altamente especializado. El intrépido guía que conducirá al lector por los caminos de una de las industrias más salvajes en el planeta se llama Tom Wainwright. A través de los plantíos andinos de cocaína, las prisiones de Centroamérica, las tiendas de mota en Colorado o los sitios online de venta de drogas en la llamada Web Oscura (deep web), Wainwright brinda una mirada inédita y atrevida al comercio de drogas y sus 250 millones de consumidores. El elenco incluye a Bin Laden, el guía boliviano de la coca; al Viejo Lin, líder de una pandilla en El Salvador; a Starboy, el millonario roquero neozelandés productor de'pastillas para fiestas', así como a una amigable abuelita mexicana que cocina hot cakes de moras mientras planea un asesinato. Entre presidentes, policías y jóvenes matones, se explican asuntos importantes como el sofisticado simbolismo de los tatuajes, por qué los grupos delincuenciales deciden competir o coludirse, y las razones por las que los cárteles se preocupan de una manera sorprendente por la responsabilidad social corporativa. La crítica ha opinado:'Uno de los argumentos más concisos y convincentes que he leído a favor de una reforma legal sobre las drogas'-The New York Times-'Wainwright es uno de los periodistas con más suerte después de haber sobrevivido a su investigación'-The Washington Times-