Former Private Trust Manager Spills Beans On Happenings At Wall Street

By John Ostapkovich,

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Many of us have a good bit of our money tied up through Wall Street and current events may give us reason to wonder what's going on with those guys.

A former private trust manager is now spilling the beans.

The Trust, by Norb Vonnegut, a distant relative of Kurt Vonnegut, is a novel, but he bases it on something that almost happened.

A guy called his firm wanting to invest $50 million.

Some account executives were drooling but others said, we chase money, it doesn't chase us, and eventually the firm's lawyers found that the offer came from a drug cartel.

"What would happen if somebody like that tried to infiltrate their family finances, because they don't have these teams of lawyers like Morgan Stanley has. If a really bad guy tried to infiltrate your family finances, how would that stir things up?" asked Vonnegut.

Vonnegut says he worked the Wall Street soap opera for 20 years, long enough for a lifetime of stories.

He's also writing a non-fiction book with another former financeer who's still under house arrest.