Crime

The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872

How a Kentucky grifter and his partner pulled off one of the era’s most spectacular scams — until a dedicated man of science exposed their scheme

June 2004

Policing America’s Ports

19,000 cargo containers flowing into the US each day pose a needle-in-the-haystack challenge to security officials worried about hidden terrorist weapons

January 2004

Shadow Wolves

An all-Indian Customs unit possibly the world’s best trackers uses techniques to pursue smugglers along a remote stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border

January 2003

Review of ‘The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief’

October 1997

Cybercops Take a Byte Out of Computer Crime

A detective working the computer crime beat still needs street smarts, but there’s a lot of uncharted legal territory out there

April 30, 1997

If His Life Were a Short Story, Who’d Ever Believe It?

Being locked up for embezzlement freed him to write, launching William Sydney Porter on a brilliant but boozy career as O. Henry

January 1, 1997

Fifty Years Ago, the Trial of Nazi War Criminals Ended: The World Had Witnessed the Rule of Law Invoked to Punish Unspeakable Atrocities

In the war-shattered city of Nuremberg, in November 1945, an Allied tribunal convened to seek justice in the face of the Third Reich’s monstrous war crimes

October 1996

There Was Never a Harder Place Than ‘the Rock’

Used for 29 years to house the nation’s worst criminals, the penitentiary on Alcatraz earned its reputation as ‘Uncle Sam’s Devil’s Island’

September 1995