The Blurb
In 1981 Andre Simons, the CFO for a Mexican telco, was kidnapped in Mexico City. He had found something and that was a problem. A ransom was paid. The kidnappers took the money, but still put a bullet in his chest and in his head. The heartbroken Simons family left to return to Switzerland.
Ten years on, Jim Simons was now 25 and was mentored by his father’s brother. Jim was working with his uncle in the legal department at the International Credit Bank of Liechtenstein.
Within just 7 remarkable days Jim Simons sees the world, the bank, and its customers, through a completely new lens. Simons has found things that were meant to be kept secret. A suspicious death of one of the banks’ wealthiest clients leads Simons to other clients that are suspected of involvement in grand corruption, massive fraud, and cartel size drug trafficking.
Simons begins to realise a family secret of its own may hold the key to piece together the financial links which reveal secrets that must be exposed, but powerful people won’t let that happen. As Simons gets closer to solving the puzzle, powerful internal and external forces are determined to stop him.
Will Simons put it all on the line, payback the guilty and at last get justice for his murdered father?
To own Payback by John Cusack, click HERE or search your local Amazon store.
For details of all the payments described in Payback summarised by Jim Simons see HERE.Payback Payments Summary
Message from Hans Peter Bauer
Banker Risk & Compliance Leader & Founder of the Wolfsberg Group
In “Payback“ John Cusack manages to bring together in one story the banking scandal around BCCI, the fall of the Robert Maxwell empire, as well as links to Mexican cartels, Irangate and the CIA, and all this from the perspective of a compliance officer. What makes this book such interesting reading for experts, but also the interested public, is that a lot of the narrative is based on facts (as evidenced in the extensive Maxwell appendix). It teaches you about the real challenges of compliance and the fight against financial crime. Even where the author refers to fiction, it becomes evident that his story is far from imagination but based on Cusack’s over 20 years of extensive professional real life experience. His description of a compliance officer’s challenges and conflicts is a reflection of what Cusack went through in his own career, and what he wants to share with colleagues to understand and learn from. An exceptional book with deep professional insight that should become a must read for all compliance officers and financial crime fighters to learn about the underlying threat and understand about their role and responsibilities. Similarly, regulators and law enforcement officers, as well as anybody interested in the fight against financial crime, should use this book as a professional insight into how financial crime operates and how banks try to address the challenge of playing their proper role, and why sometimes they may fail – despite all their efforts
Payback is the second book released in what is planned as a Jim Simons series set in 1991 and is the prequel to 9/17 released in December, 2025. it tells the story of Jim Simons early days. “Sanctioned” will be the third book released in January 2026 set in 2003. The remaining books planned for the series are “Crises” set in 2006, “Bratva” set in 2017 and “Virus” set in 2020.
For more on 9/17 see HERE.
These books. their contents and the characters are entirely fiction except where expressly stated, otherwise for example the use of a real persons name or actions in the story. They are inspired by true events and or informed by experiences of the Author and or of his professional colleagues who have shared and discussed plot lines and characters.
Any likeness of any character to anyone in the real world is purely unintentional as each is a unique made up character in their own right.
