The Great Salad Oil Swindle (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books

Penguin Books

Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

, 1965) is a book by Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

reporter Norman C. Miller

Norman C. Miller

Norman Charles Miller was an American journalist who worked for the Wall Street Journal.-Biography:Miller was born in Pittsburgh and attended Pennsylvania State University, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1956. Miller won a Pulitzer Prize for Journalism in 1964 for his coverage of the...

 about Tino De Angelis

Tino De Angelis

Anthony "Tino" De Angelis is a Bayonne, New Jersey based commodities trader who bought and sold vegetable oil futures around the world. In 1962 he started to corner the market for soybean oil, used in salad dressing. In the aftermath, investors learned that he had bilked them out of about $175...

, a New York-based commodities trader who bought and sold vegetable oil futures contract

Futures contract

In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract between two parties to exchange a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed today with delivery occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date. The contracts are traded on a futures exchange...

s around the world. In 1962, De Angelis started a huge scam, attempting to corner the market for soybean oil

Soybean oil

Soybean oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the soybean . It is one of the most widely consumed cooking oils. As a drying oil, processed soybean oil is also used as a base for printing inks and oil paints...

, used in salad dressing. In the aftermath of the salad oil scandal

Salad oil scandal

The Salad Oil Scandal, also referred to as the "Soybean Scandal", was a major corporate scandal in 1963 that ultimately caused over $150 million in losses to corporations including American Express, Bank of America and Bank Leumi, as well as many international trading companies...

, investors in 51 banks learned that he had bilked them out of about $175 million in total ($1.2 billion in year 2000 dollars). Miller won a Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

in 1964 for his reporting on the De Angelis story.