The untold story of the
world’s biggest con.

Why haven’t I heard about this before?

The international press doesn’t base any reporters in Iceland.

Is it interesting?

You bet: not everything that happened in 2008 has already been told. And this tale has it all: insatiable greed, flamboyant crime, scheming politicians, dishpan-clanging housewives, and a Nordic noir backdrop. You don’t know this story yet, but you will.

So how do you know about this?

Born near Boston, author Jared Bibler relocated to Iceland in 2004 only to find himself in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis a handful of years later. Personally cleaned out and seeking to uncover the truth about a collapse that brought the pastoral country to its knees, he became the lead investigator into some of the largest crimes in the world. This work helped Iceland to famously become the only country to briefly imprison some bank executives. But the real story behind that headline is more complex, and more sinister.

Why now?

A decade after the investigations, and with most of the criminal cases now through the courts, the story can be told at last and in full. The crisis, barely understood inside or outside of Iceland even today, is a cautionary tale for the world; an inside look at the high crimes that inevitably follow unbridled Wild West capitalism. In the US, with themes of economic fairness once more coming to the forefront as part of the 2020 election season, and with the next global financial meltdown just around the corner, this untold tale is as timely as ever.

Who should read it?

This is a saga that leaves professionals in business and finance, along with the rest of us, shaking in our shoes. If you are a fan of the classics, books like Liar’s Poker, Barbarians at the Gate, The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Bad Blood, you will love Iceland’s Secret.

“For someone who thought he knew something about the Icelandic crisis, this book came as a real surprise. The degree of devastation, the brazenness of the criminality and the clear connections to the wider world all serve as a wake-up call. Iceland’s Secret sounds the alarm while also making for highly entertaining reading.” 

— Haig Simonian, former correspondent to The Financial Times

“Do you think this could ever happen here?”

— one SEC staffer’s whisper to another, Washington, DC, 2017

What’s inside?

This insider look at the post-2008 investigations describes how Jared came to live and work in Iceland and lets the reader travel along with him as he discovers the global magnitude of the fraud. 

Why should I care about Iceland?

Iceland is a small nation, with only around 350,000 people today. But it's still a country, with all of the trappings of larger places. It would be a grievous mistake to write off the Icelandic financial crisis as not more broadly relevant: Iceland is the world writ small, and hence a perfect laboratory by which to view the forces at work in larger nations. This crisis, hardly understood either inside or outside the country even today, is a cautionary tale for the world. The popular press holds up Iceland as a success story, but this naïve view of things is a sugar coating: empty calories designed to make a worried public feel as though all is OK. Despite the devastating events of 2008, the dragon of deeply corrupt financial markets has still not been slain, in Iceland or anywhere else. Iceland in 2006-2008 is a preview of coming attractions for the world’s big markets. Today we find ourselves back in the equivalent of the 1930s, thinking the Great War is over and done with, and yet an economic World War II looms on the horizon. We are sitting on a time bomb.