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DIRTY GOLD

Name: DIRTY GOLD
Author: Jay Weaver
ISBN: 978-1-5417-6290-9

THE RISE AND FALL OF AN INTERNATIONAL SMUGGLING RING

by Jay Weaver & Nicholas Nehamas & Jim Wyss & Kyra Gurney ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 2, 2021

An authoritative consideration of “dirty” gold’s grip on the environment and role in rampant geopolitical corruption.

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A deep dive into a landmark U.S. prosecution of players in the transnational illicit gold trade.

The co-authors, all journalists who have worked at the Miami Herald, closely examine the grim, little-understood world of artisanal (small-scale) gold mining, rife with malfeasance, corruption, and ecological devastation, stretching from developing nations like Chile and Peru to Miami, where precious-metal conglomerates like Elemetal sought to dominate the gold market, particularly after the 2008 recession. The narrative follows a broad cast of businessmen, smugglers, and brokers, all of whom realized that shipping illicit Chilean gold through neighboring countries would enable ready sales to firms (Elemetal and others) using forged origin documents. The authors focus on the “three amigos,” macho, self-taught traders employed by Elemetal’s subsidiary, NTR Metals, who were eager to bend the rules and who tracked their smuggling and money laundering on phone apps, which later incriminated them. This misbegotten white-collar–crime story unfolds against a well-rendered historical background of how such activities have fractured the fragile environments and societies of developing nations in Latin America, where remote regions have been overrun by chaotic, destructive artisanal mining. “For Peruvian criminals,” write the authors, “gold had become far more lucrative than cocaine.” Eventually, however, the FBI and federal prosecutors built an in-depth prosecution of the scheme, endeavoring to “lay out a vivid portrait of illegal mining, gold smuggling, and money laundering across two continents, one that captured the widespread environmental damage to the Amazon rain forest and the powerful role of drug traffickers.” The authors write with a journalistic yet culturally attuned voice, but the narrative is sometimes repetitive in its frequent juxtaposition of the brutal conditions in the mine-ravaged rainforests with the wealth and colorful backstories of the key players as well as the determination and diligence of the various law enforcement agencies involved.

An authoritative consideration of “dirty” gold’s grip on the environment and role in rampant geopolitical corruption.

Pub Date: March 2, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-5417-6290-9

Page Count: 384

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

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A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

Pub Date: May 27, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014

Categories:

BUSINESS | PSYCHOLOGY

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IN COLD BLOOD

by Truman Capote ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 7, 1965

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"There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that." This is Perry Edward Smith, talking about himself. "Deal me out, baby...I'm a normal." This is Richard Eugene Hickock, talking about himself. They're as sick a pair as Leopold and Loeb and together they killed a mother, a father, a pretty 17-year-old and her brother, none of whom they'd seen before, in cold blood. A couple of days before they had bought a 100 foot rope to garrote them—enough for ten people if necessary. This small pogrom took place in Holcomb, Kansas, a lonesome town on a flat, limitless landscape: a depot, a store, a cafe, two filling stations, 270 inhabitants. The natives refer to it as "out there." It occurred in 1959 and Capote has spent five years, almost all of the time which has since elapsed, in following up this crime which made no sense, had no motive, left few clues—just a footprint and a remembered conversation. Capote's alternating dossier Shifts from the victims, the Clutter family, to the boy who had loved Nancy Clutter, and her best friend, to the neighbors, and to the recently paroled perpetrators: Perry, with a stunted child's legs and a changeling's face, and Dick, who had one squinting eye but a "smile that works." They had been cellmates at the Kansas State Penitentiary where another prisoner had told them about the Clutters—he'd hired out once on Mr. Clutter's farm and thought that Mr. Clutter was perhaps rich. And this is the lead which finally broke the case after Perry and Dick had drifted down to Mexico, back to the midwest, been seen in Kansas City, and were finally picked up in Las Vegas. The last, even more terrible chapters, deal with their confessions, the law man who wanted to see them hanged, back to back, the trial begun in 1960, the post-ponements of the execution, and finally the walk to "The Corner" and Perry's soft-spoken words—"It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize." It's a magnificent job—this American tragedy—with the incomparable Capote touches throughout. There may never have been a perfect crime, but if there ever has been a perfect reconstruction of one, surely this must be it.