PRAISE FOR BRADLEY C BIRKENFELD “Bradley Birkenfeld—a name you will never forget.” —New Haven Register “The most significant financial whistle-blower of all time.” —CNBC “Simply put, Birkenfeld must be considered among the biggest whistle-blowers of all time.” —Tax Notes “If a single person can be credited with drawing popular attention to the offshore world, it may be Bradley Birkenfeld.” —Financial Times “In 2007, the veil of secrecy was shattered by a whistle-blower named Bradley Birkenfeld.” —The Washington Post “UBS whistle-blower Bradley Birkenfeld deserves a statue on Wall Street, not a prison sentence.” —New York Daily News “I will say that without Mr Birkenfeld walking in the door of the Department of Justice in the summer of 2007, I doubt as of today this massive fraud scheme would have ever been discovered by the United States government.” —Department of Justice Prosecutor “So does Mr Birkenfeld deserve the award of $104 million … ? Every penny!” —Internal Revenue Service Agent WWW.LUCIFERSBANKER.COM This is a work of nonfiction While the stories in this book are true, some names and identifying details have been changed Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press Austin, Texas www.gbgpress.com Copyright ©2016 Bradley C Birkenfeld All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder Distributed by Greenleaf Book Group For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Greenleaf Book Group at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100 Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group and Sheila Parr Cover design by Bradley C Birkenfeld and Greenleaf Book Group Cataloging-in-Publication data is available Print ISBN: 978-1-62634-371-9 eBook ISBN: 978-1-62634-372-6 Part of the Tree Neutral® program, which offsets the number of trees consumed in the production and printing of this book by taking proactive steps, such as planting trees in direct proportion to the number of trees used: www.treeneutral.com Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 16 17 18 19 20 21 10 First Edition For my brother Doug, who has been with me from the first day I started on this roller-coaster ride A loyal friend and brilliant lawyer, he witnessed the corruption, understood what was going on, and advised me along the way “An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.” —EDMUND BURKE, IRISH PHILOSOPHER CONTENTS PROLOGUE: Fall Guy CHAPTER I: Making the Cut CHAPTER II: Boston Massacre CHAPTER III: Cracking the Code CHAPTER IV: Sports Cars and Models and Yachts, Oh My! CHAPTER V: Burned in Bern CHAPTER VI: Counterpunch CHAPTER VII: Tarantula CHAPTER VIII: The Mexico Setup CHAPTER IX: Tightrope CHAPTER X: Hunted CHAPTER XI: The Twilight Zone CHAPTER XII: Blowup CHAPTER XIII: Scapegoat CHAPTER XIV: Camp Cupcake CHAPTER XV: Rich Man, Poor Man ACKNOWLEDGMENTS APPENDIX PHOTOGRAPHS READING GROUP GUIDE AUTHOR Q&A ABOUT THE AUTHOR PROLOGUE FALL GUY “I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt civilization.” —OTTO VON BISMARCK, GERMAN CHANCELLOR January 8, 2010 Minersville, Pennsylvania ALL ROADS THAT LEAD to federal prisons are long There are no exits, no shortcuts to quicken the journey and dull the pain of anticipation All such roads are built upon decisions, with hairpin turns and lost highways That final leg might involve a quick mile’s ride from a courthouse, or a six-hour trip aboard a fume-choked prison bus, but it’s always the payoff of a life gone crazy, and it always ends the same way For me, the road to Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution seemed fucking endless on that freezing Friday morning It was only an hour’s drive from my hotel in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to the prison in some backwater town, but it felt like a year Inside the Lexus I could see my breath, and outside the snow fell in wind-whipped veils, making the blacktop slick and risky I’d wanted to take the wheel myself, one last spin before they locked me up, but I’d been slapped with a curfew, branded with an ankle monitor, and didn’t have a car anymore So my older brother Doug, who’s almost six-foot-four like me, drove through the storm I made a few last phone calls to friends from the car, but mostly we sat there in tight-lipped silence, heading for an appointment that neither of us wanted to keep I knew this was going to be hard on Doug, maybe even more than on me He was damn proud of me for what I’d done, blowing the top off the biggest banking and tax fraud conspiracy in history, and he was furious with the Department of Justice Doug thought I deserved the Medal of Freedom instead of a pair of leg irons I tried telling him it would be all right “Hey, dude, chill out,” I said as I looked at his white-knuckled fingers gripping the wheel “I can three years in the slammer standing on my head.” But Doug wasn’t buying it He was outraged, bitter, and vengeful And since there’s no point in pretending otherwise, I was too I gave up on my phony bravado as the car entered a long curve through a forest of snow-slathered pines The wheels suddenly lost traction and the car started to drift, but Doug handled the skid like a Formula One driver and he didn’t slow down He was hunched over the wheel, staring through the ... companies, with Olenicoff as the ultimate beneficiary Soon after that I had $200 million of his US real estate profits sitting in several UBS Swiss numbered accounts The only thing identifying... recruited for a coveted job at the Union Bank of Switzerland, UBS, the biggest and the best bank in the world And once there, as the only American on an elite team of Swiss private bankers, I d... furious with the Department of Justice Doug thought I deserved the Medal of Freedom instead of a pair of leg irons I tried telling him it would be all right “Hey, dude, chill out,” I said as I