Paper Trails: Fraudsters Caught by Their Own Documents

By Sky Adler

Fraudsters may rely on charisma, complexity, and audacity-but the very documents they create to mask their crimes ultimately bring them down. Paper Trails: Fraudsters Caught by Their Own Documents is a sweeping narrative of scandals that spans continents, industries, and decades, showing how the fine print, footnotes, invoices, memos, and order tickets became the most decisive witnesses in history's most notorious fraud cases.

From Enron's related-party disclosures to Theranos's sanctions letter, from Al Capone's ledgers to Wirecard's bank denials, every chapter tells the story of how fraud collapsed under the weight of its own paperwork. These are not tales of rumor or speculation but of documents-time-stamped, notarized, filed, and archived-that investigators, regulators, and journalists read line by line until the truth could no longer be denied.

More than a catalogue of corporate collapse, this book distills practical lessons on how to interrogate the written record: what phrasing to scrutinize, what omissions to note, and how to cross-reference across formats and jurisdictions. It is both an engrossing narrative of deception and a reminder of why the paper trail, in every era, remains the most durable witness.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1923593331
• ISBN13: 9781923593336
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"