Global Pirates: Fraud in the Offshore Insurance Industry

In 1990, a congressional subcommittee warned of financial knaves and buccaneers in the insurance industry-unlicensed and largely unregulated companies that operate out of countries like Antigua and the Cayman Islands and sell hundreds of millions of dollars in worthless insurance policies to unsuspecting Americans every year. Increasingly, when a fire, car accident, or medical emergency strikes, policyholders suddenly find themselves victims of a global con game as phone calls are not returned and claim settlements fall to materialize, resulting in financial ruin if not physical harm. Global Pirates is a critical investigation of international insurance fraud. Robert Tillman portrays the often surreal world of the burgeoning offshore insurance industry; a world in which sophisticated white-collar criminals operate beyond the reach of government regulators to set up elaborately orchestrated scams that drain illegal profits out of the $3 trillion U.S. insurance market. He also describes how the new global economy allows these scam artists to take advantage of rapidly changing financial markets and the regulatory environments that surround them. Drawing on congressional hearings, co