You Read It Here First

On June 14, federal prosecutors in Manhattan made headlines throughout the world. In the biggest crackdown on securities fraud in history, the FBI arrested 120 alleged stock swindlers--including 10 reputed members and associates of New York's five Mafia families. In a packed news conference, Barry W. Mawn, head of the FBI's New York office, told reporters that a secret probe "uncovered once again La Cosa Nostra's efforts to infiltrate the securities markets."

None of this should be a secret to readers of Business Week. In an award-winning cover story in the December 16, 1996 issue--"The Mob on Wall Street"--Business Week Senior Writer Gary Weiss revealed how organized crime had made shocking inroads into the securities markets. In that story and in many subsequent articles--including the December 15, 1997, cover story "Ripoff!"--Weiss laid out for the Street and for law-enforcement officials how small investors were being ripped off to the tune of billions of dollars a year.