Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks

Keefe’s subjects, due to the nature of their lives, work, and eventual notoriety, often seek to conceal their activities from outsiders or criminal investigators. Astrid Holleeder recalls learning to speak in veiled references once Wim was out of prison and building his criminal empire: “‘I got you some dried pineapple’ meant, ‘come over we have a problem’” (31). Swiss banks, though they are legitimate financial institutions, use “furtive face to face meetings” (211) and even refrain from documenting the existence of accounts they hold; their data leaker Falciani likewise relies on deception, even in his personal life, disguising an affair partner as a government contact to “conceal the relationship from his wife” (219). Like Swiss bankers, Steven Cohen of SAC also prefers face-to-face meetings, making sure conversations remain “deliberately opaque” (106) and thus unable to implicate him in insider trading. Chapo Guzmán’s talents for concealment are even more literal: He built an elaborate network of tunnels across the US-Mexico border to facilitate drug transport and similar networks between his safe houses, making his capture difficult.

In these seemingly disparate narratives, codes and concealment offer ways for criminals to evade punishment or capture.