carol: welcome to bloomberg businessweek. courtney: i am jason kidd -- jason: i am jason kelly. whatrope, contemplation on the continent will be like without angela merkel. and we go digital. we look at something happening all around the world, cash

getting stolen using the internet. ed robinson has more. this was a big break in the case that has been legendary in the digital world for years, since 2013. the whole network of banks in russia, other european countries, germany, the u.k., and taiwan had been mysteriously atm's andut cash from these mysterious characters have been collecting the cash and making off with it, so that authorities -- and all of these countries had been chasing the cyber thieves for a long time -- when they got a big break in july 2016 in taipei. one of the thieves dropped a bank card, and for the first time, the cops could get their hands on something physical that was a lead to the gang that had been running the cyber theft. jason: i want to take you back to something you mentioned, which is it deals almost

cinematic. it feels like the opening of a movie when you are reading this because unsuspecting people are walking up to get the money out of an atm on a saturday night and in front of them, they see people go up to a machine and as you say, it's literally spitting money out. and they are collecting it and taking off with it. how were they able to do that in the first place? ed: well, there was some real skill and almost art, as some of the police officers who tracked this down put it, in infiltrating bank networks. what the carbanak gang did that was different, was they use the tools of cyber espionage to penetrate banks. they sent emails, classic spearfishing that downloaded malware into the bank works, and then, it is almost like a ghost in the machine. the cyber thieves would take

control of pcs and a bank. they would take control of the cameras on the pcs, they would take control of screenshots, and they would also log all the keystrokes. so they really became the ghost in the machine and by doing that, they were able to eventually monitor and then control the flow of money. through a bank network. so at some point, it became a relatively simple matter of sending a command that said ok, at 2:00 a.m. at these atm's in taipei, taiwan, on july 2016, these atm's will all spin out 40 -- will spit out 40 banknotes all at once. and they would actually text the the to the money mules, guys who collect the money at the atm's. they would say here it comes. and the money would spit out. the mules wouldn't have to touch the machine. you would imagine the shock of everybody standing around the machine and saw that. it was like being in a casino at a slot machine.

carol: it was like when my daughter said when she was young, those machines spit out money. ed: literally what happened. carol: we are talking $1.2 billion. i think this was the biggest digital bank heist ever. what's interesting about the story -- such great reporting -- you got exclusive interviews. tell me about who you talked to. ed: my colleagues, we talked to all of the various police agencies that were involved in pursuing this case. and the thing that busted this open was cyber thieves and hackers, they all network and talk to each other. they actually hack each other, but they have this confederacy on the dark web. the cops have been separate for a long time. they finally said we've got to act like the hackers and we got to start networking and sharing data. so euro poll set up a data

clearinghouse in the netherlands and they became an air traffic control system for law enforcement around the world. so we talked to police detectives in spain, who eventually arrested the alleged mastermind in spain. and we also talked to the taiwanese police, as well, and kind of stitched together how they networked to fight the hacker network. jason: you use a term of art, it seems, in this piece called advanced persistent threat, which i found intriguing and as you say, the good guys seemed to use a little bit of espionage jiu-jitsu here and turned it on the bad guys a little bit. how did they infiltrate, as you say? ed: what you refer to, there's loads of jargon and cybersecurity. that comes out of cyber espionage. that's a kind of cyber attack in which the goal is not to steal

something or money i should say, but rather to monitor, do digital reconnaissance to perhaps take some data. what's different about this case is it was turned to steal money. on the flipside, what law enforcement did was through this clearinghouse that it mentioned, they set up a malware lab and all of the malware cops around the world were finding and thought may be linked to this case, they would send it to the lab, and you have these tech guys in this office filled with computers, and they would dissect the code in the malware and look for commonalities with other pieces of code found around the world, and they could distribute their findings to police officers. they sent some of the malware to these guys in spain, the lead detectives in spain on this. when they got that, that gave them the lead that eventually led to the arrest of the alleged mastermind. jason: you just heard about a

big digital heist, a centerpiece of the heist issue. last week, we heard about the brexit short. this week, the cover is a little different in the u.s. than asia. >> for domestic and asia, we decided to do something about the heist special. there's a lot of great stories, but none of them worked for the cover so we went more general. we heist the cover. carol: you had some fun. that's exactly what you see. you see the the european cover off to the side. chris: you can see the two of them split off. carol: that's a lot of fun. jason: how did you come up with it? chris: we came up with the stolen cover first. it was actually joel's idea. once we had an idea the european cover would be the other image, it worked really nicely. carol: it's really bold and brave because there's not a lot on that cover. a lot of white space. chris: i think that's what made it work. we kept tweaking and adding things. you kind of like, the more you

leave this undisturbed space, the better it got. jason: the little burglars crawling around is cute. chris: it's a nice easter egg. you see that again and again. jason: next, goldman sachs gets into subprime lending. carol: wall street billionaires out of harvard. jason: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

carol: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. i'm carol massar. jason: i'm jason kelly. you can also find us online at businessweek.com. carol: and on our mobile app. in the finance section, we take a look at goldman sachs new online banking. it's called markets. it is surprising some analysts. jason: it's surprising because of the loans they are making. goldman is a famous name on wall street, not so familiar to consumers. but markets is providing lots of loans to people with not so

great credit. carol: we are talking about subprime. we have got more from reporters. >> goldman has been getting into getting into direct to consumer banking. they named it marcus after their founder to give it a little more of a softer image. they have savings accounts, which are paying 1.8% right now, a lot more than others even though it's not that much. then the product i wrote about are unsecured loans. and goldman has been sending out tons and tons, millions of pieces of direct mail to regular people saying, hey, do you have a lot of credit card debt? we can help you refinance it with loans from marcus at a lower rate. the business has gotten to a pretty decent scale. they've lent out a couple of billion dollars and i thought it would be interesting to take a look at what kind of people are taking these loans. jason: and this is a business

that people would not necessarily associate goldman sachs with. especially for people who live in new york and no people on people on wall street, they associate goldman with sort of white shoe, very austere, high-end wealth. not this sort of business. zeke: right, if you have a couple million dollars, they probably will not manage your money for you. if you are a small hedge fund, they won't be your prime broker. you think of them doing deals with warren buffett, advising the biggest investors in the world. this was a big departure. carol: is this after the financial crisis, trying to the -- of course, the mass-market blaming wall street for what happened -- is it their way of approaching the broader public? zeke: that was probably a challenge on their mind. if you look at harris polls,

there is a survey of what the public thinks about big companies. the last few years, goldman has scored very low, just above bp or volkswagen. so they might have thought we face challenges going direct to consumer, but it was an opportunity because in the wake of the financial crisis, they had started taking deposits and built up a lot, and they saw other companies were starting to lend money out to consumers through all these new startups, like lending club is doing it. they thought maybe this would be a way to profitably put these deposits to work. carol: let's get into that. what i love is you talk about some of the people goldman through marcus is lending to. talk about those situations because some sound sketchy. zeke: i was a little surprised. the only way to look at who their customers are i could think of was to look at who has filed for bankruptcy and owes

them money. obviously, those are not the customers where the loan worked out. i found people more indebted than i expected, people working regular jobs like at a cell phone store, or construction, or a teacher, and they would have five or even 10 credit cards, sometimes loans from other startups like lending club, and a loan from marcus. now goldman has presented the product as being for prime customers, people with high credit scores. i was able to talk to people who i wouldn't have thought of as being particularly good credit risks. jason: and they were demonstrably subprime. zeke: goldman has disclosed that about 10% or 20% of the portfolio is people with subprime credit scores. what i thought was interesting was that, to some of these

people, i spoke with some of them and they said, i had a lot of loans. i was surprised i was able to get this extra one. it did help me cut my payments but in the end, something that happened was bad, or i couldn't handle my bills and i had to file for bankruptcy. jason: staying in the finance section, one of the biggest stories in the world of big money has been harvard's endowment and its poor performance. carol: it is huge, but that's not stopping wall street elite from making it a fundraising powerhouse. jason: billionaires showing up with lots of money. here's janet lauren. janet: a couple of numbers to keep in mind. $9 billion is what harvard raised in its most recent campaign, a quite a lot of money. carol: a multiyear campaign. janet: absolutely. also keep in mind the long-term returns. 4.4% over the last decade, now, compare that with the average of what the other ivy league schools did, which was 5.9%. not really up to snuff.

jason: by one account, you said they essentially left lanes of -- billions of dollars on the table. by not performing as well as they could have. janet: they left about $6 billion on the table had they performed to the average. had they performed at the best, which was columbia at 7.3%, they would have had even more. the good news is they hired colombia's endowment manager to run the show. carol: having said this, harvard is the be-all and end-all of the largest endowments. janet: $37.1 billion. that's a lot of money. carol: it is tremendous. even though it's been underperforming its peers over the years, it's still attracting really big gifts. that is what you dig into. janet: no question. keep in mind, for people who went to harvard, it was a chance -- was a transformative experience and it catapulted them into the stratosphere they occupy now.

people are devoted and they realized harvard give them that chance and they want to return it. carol: you say people, but talk to us about these people. a lot of people went to government, they have hedge funds. who is giving the big gifts? janet: the big gift was $400 million from john paulson of a hedge fund. ken griffin, $150 million and is gift helped mostly financial aid. when you add those up, it is a lot of money and it certainly helped with underperforming returns. jason: and this is all largely owing to drew faust, who is about to step down as the president of harvard. what was her gift in terms of raising so much money? janet: well, she had a lot of people to ask, and a lot of people who done well went to harvard. even if you are looking for low hanging fruit, not everyone is a billionaire, but there were a lot of people over the years and people who have multigenerational affiliations

with harvard, they want to get ive back. carol: what's interesting is that it goes to a few good men and women who gave some really large gifts. overall, what we're seeing, is less alumni are giving to the universities. harvard has the edge. just a few people and if you break its make a big difference. janet: we had a statistic that of all the gifts that came in last year, one dozen gifts made up a third of all the gifts. jason: wow. janet: put that into perspective. jason: why are people giving less to their alma mater? janet: good question. maybe they think they don't need it. they say other organizations that need their help more than a wealthy university. jason: that was the criticism leveled by none other than malcolm gladwell at john paulson's gift, specifically. essentially, you can help the

poor and feed the poor, yet you are giving to a superrich university. janet: absolutely. and to be fair, they had the same criticism when stanford got a major gift. carol: you do cite one person who used to give big amounts of money and kind of became disenchanted by the amount of money being paid to the folks to manage the endowment at harvard. janet: yes, that was a huge issue more than a decade ago. harvard has to disclose how much it pays the highly compensated, the people making the most money, and i think people found that distasteful that they were giving quite large bonuses to people, but then again, they had made spectacular returns. if you go to the marketplace and work in the private sector, that's how it works. say you contrast that with a yale model, yale has managers outside and they pay a percentage of gains and those

don't come up on public records. like they did at harvard because harvard used to have 230 employees who worked for the harvard management company. carol: up next, a popular wage hits the nanny state, sweden. jason: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

jason: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. i'm jason kelly. carol: i'm carol massar. you can also listen to us on the radio. on sirius xm channel 119 and am 1130 in new york, fm in 960 washington, d.c., and in the bay area. a.m. jason: and in asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. in the economics section, we go to sweden where highs taxation led to surpluses. carol: but they are under pressure because of welfare

needs from hundreds and thousands of refugees coming into sweden. jason: more from us. >> they are facing a lot of challenges because they have taken in so many refugees relative to their population, over 600,000 for a population of 10 million people. at the same time, there are other factors. people are living longer and the birth rate is very high. and so, this social network that we all know about, right? everybody thinks about sweden and these amazing services. it's really being strained. it's creating a lot of weird and interesting and troubling problems like what we write about. carol: step back, i think that's a really good point. this is the place where you play an incredible amount of taxes. but you get great medical care, education, you get all of these services. jason: everything we all talk about. you sort of put your, rest your

chin on your hands and say, to live in sweden and be taken care of. but that has come at a cost and is being questioned. the fabric of society being questioned. dimitra: indeed. it's percolating a little bit and now there's some concerns as we move forward politically, you're going to see populism rising up because people are saying, hold on a second, we were paying these crazy right of -- great to have taxes. jason: up to 60%. dimitra: that's the high point and it applies to some people. we were guaranteed these benefits. now we are in a more remote, rural region of the country, and so one of the anecdotes we start the story off with is the maternity ward in the hospital, and basically they had to close it down. then they said to expectant mothers, anybody planning a family in the area, they have two options. there are two other maternity

wards but they are over 130 kilometers away each, which is about a two-hour drive. think about that if you are in labor. and they have trained midwives to start doing courses and how to deal with giving birth and a -- birth in a car, if you have to pull over to the side of the road and the baby is going to be delivered in your car. jason: my college roommate delivered his baby in his car in rural vermont. dimitra: there you go. not a lot of hospitals. there's been a lot of protests over this one. there's been a contingent of people in this small city who actually have taken over the maternity ward because this happened in january, 2017. in terms of the ward being closed, and over the past year and a half, various ways this has played out with respect to sit-in at the hospital, which

requires some more money being devoted not enough for the government to say they will reopen the hospital. it's been challenging. jason: it's a stark example. it's the perfect anecdote. you do ascribe swedish life to everything being taken care of, and there's nothing that says not being taking care of like delivering your own baby in the car. dimitra: exactly. that's why we see the high birth rates in sweden because of the services and the support that we've talked about. the maternity leave you get, the support that you get from various other sort of -- carol: within a year of paid parental leave. dimitra: and i just think it's really fascinating. a lot of people are focused on the refugee piece of this. what's important to note is while that is a big part of it, it's all these other factors, as well. this aging population and birthrate that has gotten to a point where it has put a strain. carol: that's going on, but you do have more immigrants who need to be taken care of.

that's a cost to society and the government. there's also another anecdote in the story that talks about rising crime and there is not enough law enforcement to oversee that. dimitra: indeed. they do back that up. i don't think we are seeing crime. carol: it is a story. dimitra: and i don't think it's extremely violent crime, as i recall. carol: but it is different from what the country has known for a long time. dimitra: exactly, it is different. that trickles out and that's what's changing the sentiment of some portions of the populations. and they are looking around and saying, we have this safety net. you are taking services away. maybe some are more focused on the refugee piece than the domestic pieces already in place. challenging it, so we will be keeping a close eye on what's happening and how things will develop. jason: up next, what's at stake for germany and angela merkel as

nationalism sweeps across europe? carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ 2, down. back up.

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jason: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. i am jason kelly. carol: i'm carol massar. still ahead in this week's issue, the value of missing art. jason: we also go to the case of the stolen bourbon. carol: we start in germany and the threats facing angela merkel. jason: populism and nationalism sweeping across the continental. -- across the continent. what are the implications for angela merkel? carol: what are the implications more broadly for the european

union? >> merkel is on the back foot at the moment and essentially over her liberal policy. but specifically on migration. now, merkel has a coalition government and one of the three parties in the coalition, her bavarian sister party, is kicking up against her policy. bavaria is on the front line of the migrants who traveled north from the mediterranean sea up through europe and into the richer countries, mainly germany and sweden. and they say she's essentially opening the border to too many people, and they want to send these people back. carol: this is a fascinating story because we are seeing this globally, this wave of nativism, people pushing back and not allowing immigrants in. you talk about the important role of germany, especially when it comes to the european

unification. this is a bigger deal. we've been worried about italy. but as i think your story says, maybe the black swan is germany. alan: germany is the biggest economy in europe, the most populous country. under chancellor merkel, it's been politically the driver of europe for the past decade or more. and so if germany starts taking unilateral action rejecting migrants at its borders, first of all it would push people back into other european countries, but secondly, it would threaten to unravel the whole system of asylum that exists in europe at the moment. that system is broken, yes, and leaders are trying to forge some kind of compromise. but if the biggest country starts pushing people back when it's been taking asylum-seekers, it could cause absolute chaos in europe.

jason: one of the things you point out is, aside from the migration issue that has become so associated with merkel, her role economically and politically within europe over the past 12 or so years, has been critical of, not just in germany, but the entire union, what is her importance and what is her legacy economically at this point? alan: well, merkel gets a very mixed press across the continent. she will arguably be forever remembered in the southern european countries, notably greece, but italy, and parts of spain, as the champion of austerity policies during the debt crisis that spread from greece in 2009 all throughout -- for years, essentially, until about 2016, 2015 rather.

then, germany was at the forefront of demanding budget consolidation rather than just agreeing to give these countries money. and that's primarily because germany is the biggest economy, as i said, and the biggest donor for bailouts to these euro area countries. that made people extremely angry and arguably, rightfully so. but at the same time, the rural -- the euro area, certainly if you agree with her policies, you see it's starting to recover and that could be part of merkel's legacy. but at the same time, she was also pushing for alliances with france throughout this whole time to try to make a european solution that would drive the whole continent forward.

carol: let me jump in. i mentioned italy earlier. we were all worried about italy, but italy may be a help to germany in the immigrant crisis. we have a lot of immigrants crossing the mediterranean coming into italy. maybe germany and italy work together in pushing back on immigration. because if germany moves away from the european union and in any way, italy is left to fight the battle on its own. alan: that's undoubtedly true and a lot of people in germany would like to leave italy to fight the battle on its own. but again, merkel is pushing for a european solution, rather than individual countries taking national solutions, essentially short-term solutions because you can't keep pushing people back in smaller countries on a continent like europe. you can't keep doing that long-term. and so, there are big

differences with the new populist government in italy, but you are right in saying they do share a desire to find a common european solution to this problem. carol: we are here with the editor in chief of bloomberg businessweek, joel webber, and we just heard about this story of the risk facing angela merkel, with some saying she could be the black swan of the european union. joel: it's one we are fixated on because it is like, can she maintain this delicate grasp of power? with that grasp of power, all of europe is in the balance. which way will it swing? jason: merkel has been in the headlines around the world. you think of that iconic image of her standing over donald trump at the g7 meeting. a lot of global implications for what happens in germany. joel: massively global. i think this is the most politically global story we are all watching right now. sure, there is trump, but the

delicate balance merkel is playing between russia, china, the rest of europe, the u.k., it is sort of like everything is on a string right now watching to find out if she can preserve this balance of power she has or if something gives away. and then what happens with germany after that? we know the history of germany and the delicate balance it plays, not only with europe, but with itself. carol: very important story for europe but really important globally. joel: you think about the fabric of how the world has been constructed in this globalist moment. it seems to be receding. here's one of the last people with the hands on that wheel. jason: a lot more to come in the next weeks as trump heads to europe for the nato meeting and the meeting with putin. joel: that is what we want to talk about it now. it's a great curtain raiser for what is going to transpire in the next weeks and months of europe. jason: a failed coup in venezuela and the biggest threat

to nicholas madura in his weeks in office. carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

jason: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. i'm jason kelly. carol: i carol massar. amyou can find us online at businessweek.com. jason: and on the mobile app. carol: this is a story that hasn't been told until now. bloomberg news covering a military coup in venezuela.

jason: it was awarded. this was an attempt to get -- it was thwarted. this was an attempt to get nicolas maduro captured and on trial. carol: we have more. >> this happened last month in may. the goal of a group of military officers in venezuela was to stop the reelection of president nicolas maduro, which occurred on the 20th of may. they believed he was a n illegitimate ruler that the election was going to be fraudulent, and they had been planning it for more than a year. the idea was to get him, put him on trial, and start over with a new democratic system. this was a group of, it's a little unclear how many, there might have been several hundred, but the number of people who were arrested was just over 30. jason: and arrested before they could execute the plan. ethan: that's right. the plan was either they arrested a participant who spilled the beans, or the second theory of the participants we spoke with was that one of the

people was a cuban infiltrator, effectively, because cuba has a lot of influence in the military. jason: a double agent. ethan: a double agent. exactly right. that's the idea. carol: how many countries outside new about it? do we have any idea? -- knew about it? do we have any idea? ethan: i don't know how many new knew about it but both colombian and american u.s. officials were aware of it. i think the people who were carrying out the coup were hoping they would get money and support from those two countries. they kind of got a nod and a wink and no money or real support. jason: you've been following this story in many ways for a long time. put this in context for us. where is venezuela right now, especially given where it was not too long ago? ethan: venezuela was, in the 1970's, probably the 20th

richest country in the world. it has more oil than saudi arabia, the largest known reserves in the world. it has never been a deeply democratic society, but it was relatively so. and then in 1999, hugo chavez was elected on a very leftist populist platform and became more and more authoritarian. it kind of passed ok because oil was skyrocketing in price, anti-cap people happy, but then he got sick and died and he designated nicolas maduro to be his successor. he was reelected, maduro, in 2013, and has been president for five years. the country has descended into a horror show of broken institutions and actual hunger, not just things not going well. hunger and people are pouring out of the country by the millions, actually.

the place is in deep disrepair. onol: and maduro has relied what? his own honduran security to hold onto his power? ethan: that's right. because chavez came to power with the military, and he was the successor, the military has been an important backer of the movement and maduro. the idea is there is growing disillusionment in the military. carol: it sounds like military is backing him and military that's not. ethan: that's correct. our assessment is that more are backing him thnaan not. carol: especially now. ethan: he's carrying out purges internally, but this thing does tell us he was more in jeopardy than we had known. one of the things people involved take pride in is that it involved all four branches of the military, army, navy, air force, and national guard. jason: this was not the first operation you discovered.

ethan: that's true. ethan: that's true. there were smaller ones. there was an attempt with a process thatitical they tried to stop, which would the electedway from parliament, but they pulled the plug because they realized there was an independent smaller rebellion going on that caused them to pull back. carol: tell us about the people you got to talk to. i know everyone is being very careful. ethan: most of that i can't say much about. i can say that one of the key interviews for us was a participant, someone who was a and whotor of the plot, escaped arrest and is on the lam now, and we were in touch with both by secure phone and by text messaging. carol: out of venezuela? ethan: yes, he's not in venezuela. jason: at the core of everything we do is on the bloomberg is the number terminal.

the faileds, with coup in venezuela, a great scoop by our colleagues. underneath it are a lot of economic data points, oil being one of them. taylor: no better way to show that than through a chart. let me break you down what we are looking at. the economy has been tied to oil so much. 95% of foreign currency earnings they get through oil sales. in the yellow line, i've charted the venezuelan crude exports. as you can see, dropping down to less than 1.2 million barrels. in blue, i charted crude production, also climbing down. as oil production has fallen and , the economy has fallen with it. jason: this is ultimately why we care so much about the venezuela story. it's the largest exporter of crude oil and that ripples through the entire global economy. carol: up next, we attempt to find the sticky fingers that

stole bourbon. jason: the missing masterpieces and missing family mementos. carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

carol: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. i'm carol massar. jason: i'm jason kelly. you can also listen to us on the radio. on sirius xm channel when 19, am york, 106.1 in boston, and am 960 in the bay area. carol: and in london and asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. we have a big question to ask. what happened to all that bourbon? jason: apparently 200 bottles went missing. carol: yes, there were arrests made, but the case is still unsolved. jason: we have the story. >> you may have seen the headlines, there was the great

papy vanwinkle bourbon heist, or so we thought in 2013. jason: and let's get that on the table, it's a now legendary and pretty famous bourbon. >> it is definitely considered very high-end bourbon. it's very well-known. most places can't even get pappy van winkle, it's so hard to find. that's why the theft of 200 bottles made headlines. it was valued at $26,000. if you were to go into a bar that carried it, there are 23-year-old vintages getting $100 per pour. not per bottle. it was considered a very premium bourbon and thus, might be the target for theft. jason: news of this alleged theft rocked the world of bourbon drinkers everywhere across the united states from

bars in brooklyn to front porches down south. bret: that's exactly what happens. what's amazing, this happened in 2013, a year and a half goes by. no news, no movement. in 2015, local authorities in frankfort, kentucky, they get an anonymous tip. local authorities look into this and they trace it to a guy named toby hunsinger, who starts poking around at his premises and see huge barrels of bourbon in his backyard. immediately you think, i think we found the guy. and they looked on his phone and he has got pictures of bottles of pappy van winkle on his truck seat. more complicated than this. essentially what he says happen -- carol: he got arrested? bret: he's arrested and facing 15 years in jail. jason: for the stolen pappy? bret: that's where it gets

complicated. he says in his backyard it was wild turkey, not pappy. not that it makes it ok to have five barrels. turkey, thoseh familiar with their booze, is nothing along the lines of that in terms of value. bret: he said a friend dropped it off. he happened to work at the buffalo trace distillery, at the warehouse, where they kept bourbon they could not sell, stuff that did not meet standards. unless you had a refined palate, you wouldn't know it hadn't met standards. he does admit he was able to sell the stuff off. his argument is he told his superior this stuff is clogging up the warehouse. if you want me to get rid of it, i will. the superior says go ahead, take it. so he takes it. basically, what winds up happening is, they are unable to really ever pin these 200

bottles on the guy, but they do get him for bootlegging and death in an organized crime ring. he's facing 15 years. carol: is he the mastermind of an organized crime ring? bret: he says no. he says i'm not innocent of everything. he was taking bourbon and selling it off, and his friends were sometimes bringing him pappy and he was acting as a middleman. honestly, to say this man is the mastermind of a criminal enterprise is a stretch. jason: heists put me in the mindset of big museum thefts. masterpieces making headlines. carol: but most of the lost art is not worth so much. >> we looked at the over 7000 artworks intolen the fbi database, which is pretty confidence in for the united states and has international entries, as well. we narrowed it down to the 3000

artworks and cultural objects that have dimensions and dates. we charted it out to see what was stolen and what it was made out of and where it was from the o kind of determine various patterns. the short answer is, nothing is like the thomas crown affair, unfortunately. carol: not like monet and picasso. james: god, no. there are few spectacular examples of people learning from movies about how to steal art. at oxford, someone used smoked canisters to shield their face. exciting stuff. a couple of years before that, someone cut through a hole in a los angeles gallery to get into the space to roll up a bunch of murals. exactly. but we can literally named those -- named those on one hand.

everything else is, a family portrait goes missing during a move. or someone breaks in and steals some things and takes a painting off the wall in the process because they're hoping it actually might be worth something. one of the most prominent examples is someone taking a renoir off-the-wall and not knowing that's what it was when they broke into this houston area home and took a bunch of jewels and as an afterthought. ,ason: they just grabbed it tucked it under their arm and went off with it. bret: the other thing, it's incredibly easy to steal art. you can take them off the wall of most museums. it's difficult to sell this art. people imagine there is this vast criminal underworld that people will pay millions for a painting they can admire in

their basement. the fact is, it's not that easy. if it were, everyone who was an art dealer would be rich. let me tell you, there are a lot of people who would love to sell you a painting for a million dollars. jason: why is it so hard? is it because art dealers know that this happens? what prevents that from happening? bret: the short answer is that there is a small market of people who are willing to spend a million dollars for a painting. there's a much smaller market, basically doesn't exist, of people willing to spend millions of dollars on a painting they will never be able to resell again. there are some instances of paintings and art being used as collateral within the italian mafia, actually. but those are really from the 1960's, so half a century ago, and we don't have many other examples of it. carol: bloomberg businessweek is available on newsstands now. jason: and on the mobile app.

your must-read this week? carol: the story on sweden, they pay a lot of taxes and get a lot services, from health care to education, and you think, the wave of populism not hitting them. it is because of immigration. jason: such a nice story. and it pairs nicely with what is happening in germany with angela merkel. carol: your must read? jason: bourbon. the stolen bourbon. $100 a pour. there was a big scandal around it being lifted, but maybe it wasn't lifted. amazing. more bloomberg television starts right now. ♪

david: you wanted to go into technology banking. robert: like all things, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. david: were there a lot of african-americans in the technology area at that time? robert: very few. [laughter] robert: very few. david: what propelled you to say i am going to give this all up and start my own company? robert: very few software companies were actually efficiently run. we took the kernels of best practices. david: you became very involved in philanthropy. robert: philanthropic endeavors were a part of my family and my family dynamic. one thing we have to do is ensure our society is a just society. >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way. alright. ♪