SHEER CRAZY NERVE

PTA and carpool mom Tanya Smith tells her unbelievable story of how a middle-class black girl from the North Side of Minneapolis would, in the words of the FBI, turn into one of the single biggest threats to the entire United States banking system.

As a highly intelligent African American girl coming of age in the 70s-80s, Tanya went from talking phone companies to give out of celebrities’ personal numbers, to persuading utility companies to clear balances in order to help friends and their families. She rationalized that this wasn’t stealing, this was helping people; giving money that would barely be missed by super rich banks to people in need. By the time she was 18, became one of the nation’s most notorious white-collar criminals—confiscating some $40 million in cash and commodities through wire transfers that “hacked” into banks across the country. Thus began a cat and mouse game with the authorities would drive her to unthinkable limits, breaking the hearts of her parents, putting her life in jeopardy, costing her two children before finally sending her to Federal prison (where she escaped twice) with the longest sentence ever given for a white-collar crime.