The Sunday Times Insight

The DeLorean Tapes: The Evidence

ISBN: 0-00-217428-6

12 July 1982:

Jim Benedict: Hello.
Unidentified female: Hello, hello Jim. Here's Mr. DeLorean.
DeLorean: Hi.
Benedict: How are you? Jim Benedict.
DeLorean: How are you?
Benedict: Good.
DeLorean: John DeLorean. Yeah. I've been talking to Jim Hoffman. He suggested that I call you, uh, really in relation to two things. We were talking about a business transaction. . .

So begins, innocently enough, the extraordinary story of how John Zachary DeLorean became entrapped in a massive drugs conspiracy. Jim Benedict was not, as DeLorean thought, a banker - he was an undercover FBI agent. And this telephone call, like 78 others DeLorean made or received during the next four months, was secretly recorded by government agents. Published here for the first time, The DeLorean Tapes reveal how the FBI conducts a 'sting' and provide a fascinating insight into the man who promised the world a dream and was finally ruined by that dream.

Ivan Fallon, who provides an Introduction to the tapes, is Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times and co-author of DeLorean, the definitive account of the rise and fall of the controversial car-maker. Paul Eddy was editor of the renowned Insight team of The Sunday Times for five years and co-author of two of its best-selling books, Siege! and The Falklands War. Lionel Barber is industrial correspondent of The Sunday Times. John Barnes, a former Newsweek bureau chief, has been West Coast correspondent of The Sunday Times since 1978. Justine Picardie, Dorothy Wade and Sara Walden are members of the newspaper's new Features Unit.

ISBN 0 00 217428 6

On August 16, 1984, John Zachary DeLorean
was acquitted of a massive drugs conspiracy:
a Los Angeles jury decided that DeLorean
had been stalked, enticed and entrapped by
undercover government agents.
For almost four months, as DeLorean was
drawn deeper and deeper into conspiracy,
those agents secretly recorded every
incriminating word. The DeLorean Tapes,
published here for the first time, reveal how
the FBI conducts 'a sting' - and provide a
fascinating insight into the man who promised
the world a dream car, and who was finally
ruined by that dream.

COLLINS, 8 Grafton Street, London, W1

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This page last modified on Tuesday, April 08, 2008