At first glance the book "American Trap" ("Le Piège Américain" - the original French version) looks like a detective story, but in reality it is a very rare example of a work that describes the real-life experience of an individual who is the subject of an extraterritorial enforcement of US anti-corruption laws.

Its author, Frédéric Pierucci, formerly the head of the power boiler sales division of Alstom, a major international engineering company, was detained by U.S. authorities in 2013 on charges of bribing foreign public officials (FPIs) and, as a result, violating the U.S.Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ( FCPA). According to the case file, Alstom paid bribes to Indonesian officials to help the company win a contract to supply boilers as part of a probe into the company's activities in the region.

As a result of the proceedings, the company was forced to pay $772 million in fines (at the time the largest in the history of FCPA enforcement) and sell its power equipment division to competitor General Electric, and Pierucci was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.

In his book, Pierucci recounts his arrest, trial, and stay in a U.S. prison, and suggests that he used himself as an "economic hostage" and the corruption charges against Alstom as an "economic weapon" to create the necessary conditions for its takeover by U.S.-based General Electric.

Pierucci's arrest took place in April 2013 during one of his usual business trips: according to the author, when a flight attendant asked him to speak to her at the end of the flight, he thought she wanted to give him information about the postponement or cancellation of a meeting, as often happened during business trips. Instead, the flight attendant pointed to a group of people waiting for him outside the plane - several men in uniform and two in civilian clothes. Analyzing the events of that day, Pierucci reflects that if he had refused to get off the plane at that time, that is, to officially set foot on the plane, he would not have been able to leave the plane.

As Pierucci was taken to the FBI office, he wondered what he might have done to the U.S. authorities, recalling the ongoing proceedings against Alstom, including his involvement in the Tarahan project, but believing that the 2003-2005 bribery case, in which he played only a minor role, and the fact that the company's lawyers had already interviewed him and were satisfied with his actions under the circumstances, could not be the reason for such a harsh arrest.

During his conversation with the prosecutor, Pierucci was immediately offered a deal: he would be exonerated if he agreed to work as a "confidential informant" for the FBI at Alstom, apparently a method often used by U.S. law enforcement to "out" companies, but Pierucci did not agree to such terms. The next day, he was denied bail and transferred to Wyatt, a maximum-security prison in Rhode Island to which the most dangerous criminals in five states are sent

From that point began Frederick Pierucci's five-year history of "being trapped," a feeling he himself describes as follows:

"I've been turned into an animal.Dressed in an orange jumpsuit,with chains wrapped around my chest and handcuffs restraining my legs and arms.I can barely walk or breathe.I'm a bound animal.A creature caught in a trap."

Although Alstom provided Pierucci with a lawyer, his advice was of little help to the former top manager, including that the lawyer believed that the only right thing to do was to take the blame for the situation, hoping for a "gentleman's agreement" with the prosecutor for only six months in prison; the alternative was to go to trial to prove his innocence and risk up to 125 years in prison. More helpful to Pierucci was the advice of his cellmates, one of whom warned him not to go to prison in what was known as a "jail cell".

After much deliberation, following the arrest one after another of three other senior executives at Alstom, Pierucci agreed to plead guilty in July 2013, but was not given the opportunity to enter a binding plea, leaving the question of the length of his sentence open.

At the same time, Alstom notified Pierucci of his dismissal and, consequently, the withdrawal of the company's paid attorney, arguing that Pierucci's absence from work was interfering with the company's normal operations.

Pierucci had to spend about another year in a US prison, until in June 2014 he was released on bail, for the collection of which two of his friends had to sell their homes. Pierucci went home, but the final sentence was given to him only after 3 years: in September 2017 he flew back to the US, where the court determined the final sentence of 30 months in prison, including the period of detention in 2013-2014.

After serving his sentence, Frederic Pierucci founded the consulting agency IKARIAN, which now helps companies around the world to bring their internal policies and procedures into compliance with U.S. laws and regulations in order to maximize the risk of prosecution by U.S. law enforcement.

Pierucci was also actively involved in the development and implementation in France of a new approach to anti-corruption regulation of organizations, which was embodied in the adoption of the anti-corruption law known as Sapin II in 2016. One of the key objectives of the legislation was to better protect French companies from the application of extraterritorial regulations of foreign countries (primarily the FCPA). France has gradually moved away from the FCPA, which had no visible results.