On Friday November 22, 1963, the U.S. stock market dipped because of The Salad Oil Scandal- a masterful swindle in which the unassuming Tino De Angelis, was revealed having used millions of tons of vegetable oil as collateral to secure huge loans- but brokerage houses learned many of his oil tanks either contained water- or were empty. Panic ensued on the trading floor- until lunchtime- when JFK's assassination prevented a stock market crash. "Oil Slick" introduced the Michelangelo of con artists, the portly Anthony "Tino" De Angelis, in a Wall Street caper that was only forestalled by The Crime Of The Century. How and why did uneducated Tino (nearly) pull off the greatest white collar crime in history?

SYNOPSIS:

Oil Slick is about a swindle, news of which broke on Nov. 19, 1963, and had JFK not been assassinated three days later, would have caused a U.S. stock market crash (and ruined American Express, among other companies). Tino De Angelis, then 48, in an effort to corner the salad oil futures market, scammed brokerage houses and banks out of $175 million (about $ 2 billion in 2020 money). He owed one firm $46.5 million, so a judge set his bail at $46.5 million, the highest in U.S. history. Tino had no lavish belongings or assets, no car or home in his name, paid his staff $20,000 a year in 1963, and had previously conned programs such as the government’s Food For Peace program, which was headed by Senator Walter Mondale. He was the Michaelangelo of swindlers. In "Oil Slick" we meet Tino's highly paid, loyal staffers, his well kept "social hostess", and the lenders, brokers and investors who profited from ignoring the telltale signs of his big con.