Den of Thieves

Stewart, then at the Wall Street Journal, documents the insider trading investigations of the 1980s, following four figures: Ivan Boesky, the arbitrageur; Dennis Levine, the Drexel investment banker who traded on deal information through a Bahamian account; Martin Siegel, the Kidder Peabody takeover specialist who took cash payments from Boesky; and Michael Milken.

The mechanics are documented in detail. Levine traded on information about deals his firm was working on, using an offshore account, and was caught through a bank's tip about suspicious trading patterns. He implicated Boesky, who had been paying Siegel for advance information about takeovers. Boesky then cooperated against Milken, and Stewart documents the arrangement including Boesky's settlement and the notorious payment reconciling the two men's positions.

The prosecutorial material covers Rudolph Giuliani's use of racketeering charges against securities firms, which threatened asset forfeiture and forced settlements, and the tactics used to obtain cooperation. Stewart's framing is that the conduct was straightforward theft, and the book is unambiguous about it.

Milken's supporters have disputed the book's account extensively, arguing that Stewart accepted the prosecution's framing, that Milken's charges concerned technical violations rather than insider trading, and that specific factual claims are wrong. Stewart has defended the reporting. Readers should be aware that the account is contested by informed parties and that Milken received a presidential pardon in 2020. The mechanics of how the information moved and how the investigation proceeded are documented thoroughly.