Best Fraud and Scandal Books and Audiobooks: Theranos, Madoff, OneCoin and More

Fraud makes an unusual kind of true crime. There is no mystery about who did it, and often no violence at all. What holds your attention is the gap between what was promised and what was real, and the way intelligent people, institutions and sometimes whole industries looked away from it.

That structure suits audio well. These are stories driven by documents, conversations and decisions, which means you can follow them while cooking or driving, and the strongest ones keep a clear thread from first lie to last. This guide covers four books and audiobooks on some of the best-known frauds and scandals of the last twenty years, each paired with a podcast on the site where one genuinely matches.

Theranos

Bad Blood — John Carreyrou

Carreyrou is the Wall Street Journal reporter who exposed Theranos, the blood-testing company founded by Elizabeth Holmes. Bad Blood is his account of the fraud and of the efforts to stop his reporting. It is the original source for much of what has since been written and filmed about the company, and it reads quickly because the reporting was built to be followed in order.

Holmes was convicted of fraud in 2022. We cover the case on our Theranos case page, and the background in our guide to the best white collar crime podcasts.

Pair it with The Dropout, an eight-episode series of roughly 30 to 45 minutes each, rated a Must listen with a binge factor of 8. The podcast is the quicker introduction and the book is where the detail lives. If you enjoy it, podcasts like The Dropout lists similar shows.

Madoff

No One Would Listen — Harry Markopolos

Markopolos is the financial investigator who spent years warning regulators that Bernard Madoff's returns could not be genuine. His book is the whistleblower's story of that effort. It is a distinctive angle on a familiar scandal: not how the fraud worked, but how many people were told and did not act.

It is written from his perspective, with the confidence of someone who was proved right, and it is worth reading with that in mind. We have confirmed an audiobook edition on Amazon UK, which is linked below. Pair it with Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, a Netflix documentary series that we list as good if US true crime interests you, or with the podcast Fraudulent, whose two hosts cover major fraud cases from Theranos to Bernie Madoff.

OneCoin

The Missing Cryptoqueen — Jamie Bartlett

Bartlett, a BBC journalist, tracks Dr Ruja Ignatova, who persuaded millions of people to invest in the cryptocurrency OneCoin before vanishing in 2017. It is a story about greed and credulity, and also about how a fraud can spread through a community that recruits its own victims.

His book follows the same investigation as his podcast but with more of the people who lost money. Pair it with The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast, a Must listen for us with a binge factor of 9, across 25 episodes of around 25 to 35 minutes. For the case itself, see OneCoin and Ruja Ignatova, and for more British investigations, our guide to the best BBC true crime podcasts.

The Weinstein reporting

Catch and Kill — Ronan Farrow

Farrow's book is his reporting on Harvey Weinstein and the efforts to suppress the story. It is more of a scandal than a financial fraud, and it belongs here because it shares the central question of the genre: how did so many people in a position to know stay silent, and what did silence cost?

We cover it with some care. Legal proceedings relating to Weinstein have continued since the book was published, and a book can only describe what was known when it was written. Read it as reporting, not as a record of final outcomes.

Pair it with Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, which presents Farrow's raw tapes from the investigation, including what NBC refused to broadcast, and which we rate a Must listen with a binge factor of 8.

Where to go next

Two related titles are worth knowing about, even though we have not linked them.

Perversion of Justice by Julie K. Brown is the Miami Herald reporter's account of the investigation that reopened the Jeffrey Epstein case, and it is a good example of what sustained local reporting can achieve. For a podcast on the same subject, we list The Mysterious Mr. Epstein, rated as good if US true crime interests you.

For the human side of the scam economy, Scam Factory, a Wondery investigation into people tricked into working at scam call centres in Myanmar, is the series we would recommend. We rate it good if you want the human trafficking side of the scam industry, not just the fraud itself, with a binge factor of 8. For more, see our best fraud and scam podcasts and the fraud and scams category.

What to listen for in a fraud story

Fraud stories share patterns, and noticing them makes you a better listener, and in some cases a harder target. The stories above differ in detail, but a few features recur.

• Claims you cannot test. The product, the returns or the technology is described in terms an outsider cannot verify, and doubt is treated as a lack of vision.
• Secrecy dressed as confidentiality. Investors, employees or customers are asked to trust without seeing.
• Pressure on the people who ask questions. Whistleblowers, journalists and sceptics are discredited or pursued, which is a theme in both Bad Blood and Catch and Kill.
• Recruitment through trust. In the OneCoin story, the fraud spread through people persuading their friends and relatives to join.

None of these proves wrongdoing on its own, and the books are careful to describe what was established, not what was suspected. But they are the kind of detail the best fraud journalism puts in front of you, and that is a large part of why these stories are worth the time.

How these stories work on audio

Three things make fraud stories especially good for listening.

There is a clear chain of events. Most are built around a sequence: a promise, a growth phase, a warning, a collapse. That structure is easy to hold in your head without a page in front of you.

The cast is manageable. A handful of people carry most of each story, which suits a format where you cannot flip back to check who is who.

The harm is real, and the best books say so. Financial crime can seem victimless if it is told as a puzzle. The better books and podcasts here keep the people who lost money, jobs or trust in the picture, and that is the quality we look for when recommending them.

If you would like to start

If you are new to this corner of the genre, the quickest way in is a short podcast. The Dropout and The Missing Cryptoqueen are both serialised and easy to finish in a week, and each gives you a reason to pick up the book. For the audiobook side more broadly, see our best true crime audiobooks on Audible, and for the full shows list, our best true crime podcasts page.