Meltdown

Greed, Scandal, and the Collapse of Credit Suisse

Duncan Mavin

The incredible story of a once-venerable Swiss bank that produced a litany of financial scandals and whose collapse reveals the amorality at the heart of the global banking system.

Credit Suisse was a 166-year-old bastion of global banking. But a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, much dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, Credit Suisse banked dictators and drug dealers, hid stolen Nazi gold, and helped corrupt bankers fleece the firm's own clients of billions of dollars. Its top executives oversaw a global operation that laundered money for autocrats; they hired spies to track one another through the cobbled streets of the Swiss financial capital; and they helped clients hide their money from the world’s tax authorities. This is the story of a tawdry total meltdown of one of the biggest, most influential, and most scandal-ridden banks on the planet.

Duncan Mavin is uniquely sourced to tell the story of Credit Suisse’s scandal-ridden demise, with dozens of inside-the-room contacts that spill exclusive details about the bank onto these pages. The bank’s collapse, in March of last year, was the biggest shock to the financial system since the Financial Crisis of 2008, and sparked a media frenzy. But only Duncan has had access to key sources within the bank’s executive suite—including former CEOs—and the inner circle that brings this critical, rollicking story to life.

Meltdown will appeal to the global audience of readers fascinated by the corruption that permeates international finance and who wish to understand the role of money and those who shuffle it around the world in manipulating the world order in their own interests. It is an international tale that takes us from Mozambique to Australia, from Hong Kong to New York, and inside the hushed, marble corridors of Zurich’s banking elite.

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Endorsements & Reviews

"A riveting autopsy of Credit Suisse's dramatic downfall, Mavin's Meltdown expertly dissects decades of scandal and hubris. This meticulously researched exposé reveals how one of banking's titans gradually, then suddenly, crumbled under the weight of its own misdeeds."
Bradley Hope, New York Times bestselling author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil

"Duncan Mavin’s engaging, authoritative indictment of Credit Suisse is a cavalcade of scandals, crises, and chronic management failures fueled by a pervasively rotten culture. Meltdown is a sensational page-turner, even if you sometimes feel like looking away in disgust from the illegality, amorality, depravity and greed that defined this pillar of global high finance for decades until its collapse.” Sean Silcoff, author of Losing the Signal

"Pulling no punches and naming names, Mavin lays out an almost comically scandalous story with dry humour, connecting the granular details of how it happened to the big picture - a decades-long saga of corporate folly. Swiss bank secrecy laws emerge as the villain, protecting over-rated, unaccountable executives from scrutiny of their actions until it was too late for anyone to save them from the consequences.” Andy Verity, BBC Economics correspondent and author of Rigged

"Through deep meticulous reporting and compelling storytelling, Mavin chronicles the gradual, quiet demise, and then shockingly sudden collapse, of what was once one of the world’s most trusted financial institutions. A gripping story of power, greed, and panic, and a humbling reminder of the enormous cost of capitalism going awry.”
Josie Cox, author of Women, Money and Power

“Offers a gripping and meticulously researched account of Credit Suisse's downfall. Mavin uses vivid storytelling and deep insider knowledge to unravel the long history of scandal, hubris, and mismanagement that ultimately led to the bank’s collapse. This financial thriller of a book offers a tantalizing glimpse into the rot at the heart of one of the world's most powerful banks.” Parmy Olson, bestselling author of We Are Anonymous and Supremacy

"We’re used by now to bankers behaving badly, yet Duncan Mavin takes it to another, shocking, anger-inducing level. Credit Suisse stood for propriety, but starting with the Holocaust and ending with the vast bank’s sudden collapse, he shows this to be a total fabrication.” Chris Blackhurst, bestselling author of Too Big to Jail and The World's Biggest Cash Machine

"This isn’t just a richly detailed story about the hubris, corruption and incompetence that doomed Credit Suisse, it’s a stark warning to all of us about what happens when we let bankers do what they like.” Oliver Bullough, bestselling author of Butler to the World