This work takes you on a journey into the world of the global financial mafia. For six long years, the French judge, Eva Joly, investigated the financial scandal of the state-owned petrol giant, Elf Acquitane. Close to two billion pounds had been siphoned off to pay for luxurious lifestyles and bribes. To her great surprise, Eva Joly was systematically hindered in her quest: she received regular death threats, her private and public telephones were illegally tapped, her home and offices burgled several times. For her courage and steadfastness, Madame Joly paid a high price: four policemen had to guard her life around the clock for the six-year duration of the investigation. 'I had no idea of the extent of the corruption,' she says. 'I'd assumed that people in general respected the laws. But reality outstripped fiction. There was an ocean of fraud at the highest level. Every day I found something new.'