'Wear a Wire or Get Arrested': From Executive to Informant

By the age of 32, Mark Whitacre thought he had it all. He was a high-level executive and millionaire. After illegally helping his employer with one of the largest price fixing cases in U.S. history, Mark became an informant for the FBI.

Hear more of Mark’s story—including how he found Jesus Christ in federal prison—on this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories.

You can connect with us through email at gps@billygraham.org or at Billy Graham Radio on Facebook. 

Transcript

MUSIC STARTS

Mark Whitacre:
00:00:00 The most adversity that I’ve ever experienced in my life was wearing a wire and the FBI telling you, Mark, if they catch you, they’re going to kill you.

Jim Kirkland: Mark Whitacre is the whistleblower on the largest price-fixing scandal in U.S. history. 

Mark:
00:00:15 I had a choice to either wear a wire for the FBI or get arrested—and I sure didn’t want to be arrested at age 34. 

Jim: But he’ll tell you the true whistleblower was his wife, Ginger—a Christian and at the time, Mark was not. Hear more of his incredible story on this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories., it’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I’m Jim Kirkland.

Before he became a whistleblower, Mark Whitacre thought he had it all. By the time he was 32, he was a millionaire and a high-level executive … but it wasn’t enough. Billy Graham often shared how knowledge and wealth cannot satisfy a man’s soul.

Billy Graham:
00:01:02 Suppose you had all the knowledge and all the wealth and all the power in the whole world today and lost your soul—and many of you are doing just that. You’ve gained in your circle of world, but deep in your heart something is missing. You don’t know what it is.
Jim: You’ll hear Billy Graham identify what’s missing later in this episode. In the meantime, if you’ve got spiritual questions now or at any point, feel free to head on over to our website. That is FindPeaceWithGod.net. That’s FindPeaceWithGod.net. Now, if you’d prefer to talk or pray with someone, you can call the Billy Graham prayer line any time, day or night. The number is 855-255-7729. That’s 855-255-PRAY.

Intro: GPS: God. People. Stories.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: Mark Whitacre was born into a Christian home in Cincinnati. The year was 1957. He grew up going to church with his parents, so he learned about Jesus, but he never accepted Him as his Lord and Savior. Graduating from high school, Mark had other things on his mind.

Mark:
00:02:17 When I went to college at Ohio State University, full scholarship, only child out of four to go to college and have a bachelor’s and master’s from Ohio State University in the sciences, Ph.D. in biochemistry from an Ivy League university—Cornell University. Parents didn’t have to pay any tuition or living expenses for eight years. Those eight years of college, it erased everything I had faithwise. I think my parents planted a good seed, but I never met one Christian professor in eight years. Not one. 

Jim: In fact, he had a number of professors who said, If you believe in God, you cannot be a Ph.D. scientist at Cornell. Because these professors were educated—some of them in fact were even up for Nobel Prizes—Mark chose to believe them over his Christian parents, who hadn’t gone to college. The strong opinions of his professors deterred Mark from exploring God—and he even encouraged his young wife, Ginger, to follow suit when she said she wanted to attend a Bible study and go to church.

Mark:
00:03:19 And I said, “Ginger, I’m just a year or two away from finishing my Ph.D. in biochemistry and I’m telling you, I have some of the best scientists in the world I’m learning from. God doesn’t exist and you’re wasting your time,” and she did not go to the Bible study, did not go to the church. So I was even adversarial when faith came up because of what I heard for eight years through my education.

Jim: Mark and Ginger met at junior high school.

Mark:
00:03:46 So we grew up in the same town, went to our high school proms together, and we got married after we finished Ohio State University before I started at Cornell for my Ph.D. We got married right prior to that, to move to New York. And I can remember that she was working in the astrophysics department when I was getting my Ph.D. in biochemistry. I remember her coming across the street to our department to see me during lunch in biochemistry.
Jim: When Mark finished his Ph.D. at Cornell, the biotech industry was booming, and he had his pick of jobs to choose from. His first job after graduating was at Ralston Purina in St. Louis with a six-figure salary. 

Mark:
00:04:24 There’s not many people making over a hundred thousand in 1983. I started getting sucked up in that. It started meaning a lot to me, the materialism, and we had about a 3,000-square-foot home, which is our first home at age 25.

Jim: As he was quickly climbing up the corporate ladder at Ralston Purina, he was approached by the head of the world’s largest food additive company.

Mark:
00:04:49 So I was doing a joint venture with Archer Daniels Midland and ADM was the 56th-largest publicly traded company in America, $70 billion in revenue, 32,000 employees, and the CEO was 75 years old, and after a couple years working with him, he said, “Mark, why don’t you join us?”

Jim: At first, Mark refused. He couldn’t imagine leaving a job he loved. But then, ADM’s CEO gave him an offer he just couldn’t turn down.

Mark:
00:05:17 He said, “I’ll give you a base salary, the level of your entire compensation where you’re currently at, but I’ll give you a bonus potential that it’d be up to 3 million U.S. dollars a year, and I will give you your own jet. Our seven top executives get a jet, a Falcon 50, I’ll make you divisional president of the biotech division,”—which is what my background was—“corporate vice president of the whole company.”

Jim: Mark asked, “Where do I sign?” And then, he told Ginger the news.

Mark:
00:05:46 She said, You didn’t do it for the money, did you? And I said, Well, I mean it is a lot more compensation, about tenfold what I’m currently making, but it’s an opportunity of a lifetime. And being age 32, someday I could be the CEO of that company, the CEO 75 years old that’s hiring me. She said, As long as you thought it through, but don’t do it just for the money. Make sure it’s the right role, the right company, company that’s making a difference, have an impact. She talked like that, but I talked all about compensation.

Jim: In addition to his compensation package, Mark also got help from the CEO to buy the CEO’s sprawling estate. It included a 13,000-square-foot home, 15 acres of land, riding stables, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Mark:
00:06:34 And I bought his home that week. So I had a jet given to me my first week there. My third week I had a mansion. Ginger had not seen either one yet. 
Jim: Ginger hadn’t seen any of it because she had stayed behind in Germany where they’d been living, until their three young children finished out the school year. When she saw the house, she asked Mark, Why do we need something like this? And she had a similar response when he offered to buy her a Ferrari.

Ginger had begun to see life from a different perspective—an eternal perspective. A nurse had poured into Ginger while her mom was sick in the hospital for almost 10 months. During that time, Ginger had become a Christian.

Mark:
00:07:17 And so she was already real heavy into Jesus and God at this point, and I looked at it, Well, she’s busy doing what she’s doing. I could be busy earning more money, and so I said, As long as she’s happy, go do it, even though I didn’t believe any of it.

Jim: At the same time, though, Mark couldn’t comprehend his wife’s peace and contentment, no matter what the circumstances were.

Mark:
00:07:40 I get a Ferrari and two weeks later, I’m thinking, What’s next? I get a corporate jet, a Falcon 50, and a month later I’m thinking, There’s got to be a better plane than this, but Ginger is just so content and I wish I had what she had.

Jim: After Mark had been working at ADM for two years, the vice chairman came to his office and said he was in line to be ADM’s next president—but the new role came with a cost. 

Mark:
00:08:08 He said, “Mark, I’m going to share this. It’s pretty sensitive, but we’ve been meeting with our competitors for about 12 years and we work with them instead of competing with our competitors and we fix the prices and we’re all earning so much more money by working together instead of competing with each other.”

Jim: Mark immediately told him that’s not legal. ADM was breaking antitrust law, but the vice chairman pushed back.

Mark:
00:08:32 He said, “Mark, everybody does it. If you’re in the commodity business, this is the way business is done.” And I’m thinking, I’m 34, I’m nine years out of college, and they’ve had these roles 30, 40 years. They know a lot more than me. So I was listening, believing everything they said. 

Jim: Mark was told that when he became president of ADM, he’d go from earning $3 million a year to $10 million a year. That was all it took to draw him in—hook, line, and sinker.

Mark:
00:09:00 Then they started taking me to the price-fixing meetings, the international cartel meetings around the world, and they started training me to eventually, in a couple years’ time, to take that over and to lead the biggest international cartel of food additives in the world. We were earning an extra billion dollars a year—not a million, but a billion dollars a year. So out of our $70 billion in revenue, $4 billion in profit, $1 billion came from the price-fixing scheme.

Jim: The scheme was causing ADM’s stock to double almost every three years—and that made more money for the executives’ pockets.

Mark:
00:09:34 I’m thinking 20 years from now, I’m going to be a billionaire the way this is, the track that we’re on. It became an addiction at that point. I’ve never been a drug addict, but I’ve been an addict. I was addicted to greed. I mean it became my identity. 

Jim: Mark’s wife, Ginger, had known him since he was 14, and she knew he wasn’t telling her something. For the previous seven months, he had been quieter with her than usual and he had spent hours—in fact, all hours of the night—on the telephone. Finally, Ginger confronted him about it.

Mark:
00:10:05 I said, “I’m going to be the next COO and president of ADM. To get that position, I have to do some things that I’ve not talked to you about. I’m learning to lead this consortium”—I didn’t want to call it international cartel ’cause it sounds so illegal—I said, “This consortium where we get together with companies and we each earn a lot of money, hundreds of millions, sometimes a billion dollars a year extra. And she said, Is it legal?

Jim: Mark paused, and Ginger repeated her question. Mark admitted he’d been involved in illegal activity, but used the old excuse that everyone was doing it.

Mark:
00:10:44 ‘Look what I’m able to do for this family. We have millions of dollars in the bank. We have millions of dollars in the stock.’ And she said, Mark, I’d rather have a 2,000-square-foot house. I’d rather have two Fords in the driveway, and I’d rather have my husband back. She said, I’ve lost my husband these last couple years and so much different than the man I fell in love with in high school.

Jim: Ginger shared her concern that Mark wasn’t spending any time with their children—that he didn’t even know what grades they were in. She said she needed time to pray. 




Mark:
00:11:19 When she told me she was going to pray about it, I knew I was in trouble 
’cause there was nothing ever turned out good for me when she went and prayed about it because I was just in a such a different place than her.

Jim: A few hours later, Ginger told him that God had led her to a hard decision. 

Mark:
00:11:36 And she said, You’re only involved seven months. Something’s been going on 12 years. You have to turn yourself into the federal authorities and you have to do it today, and if you don’t do it today, I’m doing it for you, but we’re doing it today.

Jim: Mark argued with her. He was afraid of losing all his wealth and going to jail. But beyond that, he also told Ginger that some of the most powerful men in the world might come after him—and her and their children.

Mark:
00:12:05 She said, No, I prayed about that too. God will protect us, but we’re going to do it; we’re going to do it today, and if you go to prison, I’ll stay with you, but we’re going to do it. We’re going to do the right thing.

Jim: And they did. They met with the FBI four hours, explaining Mark’s role in the price-fixing scheme. 

Mark:
00:12:22 At the end of those four hours, I had a choice to either wear a wire for the FBI or get arrested—and I sure didn’t want to be arrested at age 34. And I agreed to wear a wire to go after the kingpins who were teaching me how to do it.

Jim: The next day, two FBI agents put microphones on Mark’s chest and used an athletic band to wrap a tape recorder around his back. He was given another tape recorder in a notebook and they placed one more in his briefcase. 

Mark:
00:12:50 The most adversity that I’ve ever experienced in my life was wearing a wire and the FBI telling you, Mark, if they catch you, they’re going to kill you.

Jim: The agents constantly reminded Mark of the danger he was in. Mark was an informant from 1992 to 1995—three years. During that time, he lost 60 pounds from the stress of what he was doing. 

Mark:
00:13:16 People at work thought I had cancer, that I should go see a doctor immediately, and I was absolutely falling apart and having a nervous breakdown.

Jim: During the day, the wire couldn’t ever come off, even if his mom called while Mark was at work or his co-worker wanted to discuss a personal problem. The agents heard everything, from six in the morning when they wired him up until the evening when they would debrief. 

Mark:
00:13:42 Sometimes I’d meet with the FBI at midnight. It was like having two jobs. I build the company during the day, ’cause I’m divisional president, and then I’d tear it down at night, working with the FBI telling about all the dirty deeds that was going on.

Jim: Originally, Mark was only supposed to wear the wire for six weeks. That changed when person after person bragged about their illegal activity during meetings. That bragging led to the opening of 11 different cases. But finally, after three years, the FBI had enough evidence. 

On June 27, 1995, 70 agents raided ADM … including Mark’s office. That was to make him look like a defendant and to help protect him. Although Mark had full immunity for wearing the wire, he wasn’t in the clear yet.

Mark:
00:14:32 The day that ADM learned I was working with the FBI, they called the FBI and said, He’s the white knight informant. He’s got $9 million I’m sure he didn’t tell you about.

Jim: Sure enough, Mark hadn’t told the FBI that he was going to receive $9 million as an under-the-table bonus in the price-fixing scheme. And that money wasn’t being reported to the IRS or Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Mark:
00:14:57 I’m thinking, Who’s going to hire someone after they wear a wire against their own company? It’s easier to get a job as a felon than someone that wore a wire against their own company. So I thought, I can’t tell the FBI about the $9 million. They’re going to require me give that up and that’s going to be my severance package. I’m going to need that. 

Jim: Because of his decision, the FBI could no longer give Mark full immunity. He had not paid taxes and he had committed fraud. But given all the work he did for the FBI, they were able to offer him a 6-month plea deal.

Mark:
00:15:30 By the time I was finished wearing a wire, I was 38. And my lawyer calls me in Chicago and said, Mark, these others are going to go to prison for several years. You got six months. It’s a deal of a lifetime. I highly recommend you take it. We got 48 hours to sign it. Mark, they’re doing you a big favor. Ginger looks at me and says, Mark, let’s put this behind us. What an opportunity. I’ll visit you every weekend; let’s get through it. And I looked at Ginger and I said, Ginger, it’s all your fault.

Jim: In his anger, Mark ripped up the plea agreement, fired his lawyer, and the next day hired a whole group of lawyers. They fought his case for three years, but he ended up being sentenced to 8½ years.

Mark:
00:16:11 I could not imagine going to prison 8½ years when I could have had six months. And I wrote a 17-page letter to Ginger and my three kids, and I tried to kill myself. I said, My life’s over, no hope, was helpless and hopeless. And I was hospitalized for a month and treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Jim: The judge gave Mark seven months to get more stabilized and to get his house in order.

Mark:
00:16:38 All I thought about is, Well, I need to find a way to kill myself before I go to prison. I was just so depressed and so suicidal even after I attempted suicide.

Jim: A month after Mark attempted to take his own life, a man came to visit. His name was Ian. He was chief financial officer of a biotech company but Mark didn’t know him and actually thought he was a reporter wanting to do an interview. 

Mark:
00:17:01 And he said, No, I’m CBMC, Christian Business Men’s Connection, and I want to tell you something, Mark: Prison’s going to be the beginning of your life and you’re going to find your true purpose in your life with the journey you’re ready to start. And I said, Ian, that’s the craziest thing I ever heard. I’m about to go to prison for 8½ years. This is not the beginning of my life. This is the end of my life.

Jim: For the next seven months, Ian spent six or seven hours a week with Mark, taking time away from his own career and five children to tell Mark about Jesus. 

Mark:
00:17:33 It started giving me hope. It made me where I wasn’t suicidal anymore. I wasn’t there yet; I didn’t surrender my life to Jesus yet, but I couldn’t erase that, some of the best scientists in the world saying there is no God. That was the only thing that was a hurdle.

Jim: During Mark’s second week in prison, a man came to visit him. His name was Chuck Colson. You may recall that name as part of the Watergate scandal with President Nixon in the 1970s. Chuck Colson served seven months in prison. He had become a Christian and started Prison Fellowship, the largest prison ministry in the world. 



Mark:
00:18:07 He read about me in The Washington Post and he saw where I got a Ph.D., at Cornell. He had seven years of college, a lawyer. He went to Brown University, Ivy League University. He assumed that I was told in the Ivy League there is no God ’cause he was told the same thing in his university years, and he said, Mark, you think there’s a Ph.D. scientist that believes in God?

Jim: Chuck started bringing Mark articles and books and more articles and more books about some of the best scientists in the world who believe in God. 

Mark:
00:18:38 The first article he showed me was Albert Einstein said, Only God could create the universe and only God could create the man. And then he showed me a book by Sir Isaac Newton that has wrote as much about Jesus he did about science. And I thought, Boy, never learned that at Cornell.

Jim: With plenty of free time in prison, Mark read dozens of books about faith, including one titled Surprised by Faith by Don Bierle (pr. BUYER-lee).

Mark:
00:19:02 In this book, Don Bierle, after 10 years of study, went from atheist to a Christian … and believed in God and believed Jesus is the Son of God. And I finished that book on June 4, 1998, my third month in prison, and I remember getting on my knees and said, God, how could I be so wrong? How can you be a Ph.D. scientist and not believe in God, after all the things that Chuck Colson had shared with me? And I said, God exists and Jesus is the Son of God.

Jim: Once Mark got up off the concrete floor, he said, There are ways God can use me in prison. As Chuck Colson continued to disciple Mark and help him grow in his newfound faith, Mark began leading a Bible study for inmates.

Mark:
00:19:50 I look back and I would say the 8½ years in prison were the most productive years of my life at $20 a month because I learned for the first time in my life how rewarding it was to help someone else besides myself. You hear the word “servant leadership,” but I sure never experienced it until I went to prison, until I became a believer and a follower of Jesus and it changed my life forever.

Jim: After Mark became a Christian, he walked out to the visitor room and told Ginger, “I have no one to blame but myself. I could’ve done the right thing and walked away and left the company.” He asked for her forgiveness—and for the forgiveness of their three kids. 

Mark:
00:20:34 I would say at that point, our marriage started reconciling because prior to that, all she heard when I was three years undercover and all she heard in the courts for six years, all she heard that it was all her fault. I took no responsibility myself until I became a follower of Jesus. And it started changing everything.

Jim: While Mark was in prison, Ginger came to visit him every weekend with the kids. And when Mark moved three different times to better prisons for good behavior, Ginger and their kids moved as well. They moved from Mississippi to South Carolina to Florida.

Mark began praying for God to provide for his family—and God answered in a stunning way. The companies that had been cheated by the price-fixing scandal helped support Ginger and her children while Mark was in prison. It was their way of thanking her for helping to stop the price fixing. 

Mark:
00:21:31 They put Ginger back in school to be a teacher. They helped pay her house, her car. They put my kids through college and took care of my family for 8½ years.

Jim: The day Mark was released from prison, God provided again. Mark was offered a job by four biotech companies that he had worked for while in prison. What he had done: he had spent 20, maybe 30, hours a week reviewing patents for them at no charge. He’d done the work simply to keep his mind active in the sciences. He thought he would never be qualified to work for them since he was a felon. 

At 48 years old, Mark started an entry-level position at a company with a Christian CEO. He received four promotions and eventually became the chief operating officer of the company. Today, he is still on their advisory board.

Mark:
00:22:21 God gave me a second chance, but this time His way. We were doing prayer groups and Bible studies. We saw no better place for faith than at work. And I learned this whole faith-at-work movement in that company at the Cyprus biotech and cancer research and doing clinical trials. 

Jim: Currently, Mark works at Coca-Cola Consolidated, a purpose-driven, faith-friendly company. He is the vice president of Culture and Care, and God has completely shifted Mark’s perspective on money and generosity.

Mark:
00:22:52 I look at it, Psalms 24:1, God owns it all. He owns the universe and everything in it, including us, our families, our bank accounts, our homes, our cars, our retirement accounts. So the jets don’t mean anything to me. The mansions don’t mean anything. I feel so blessed to have the home we have and cars that we have and we could have even a lot nicer, but we love being generous and supporting nonprofits that we really believe in. We want to be steered how God wants us to use His resources in our time, treasure, and talent.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: When Mark Whitacre lost all his earthly treasures, he gained the peace and contentment that only Jesus Christ can offer. You can discover more at our website, FindPeaceWithGod.net. That’s FindPeaceWithGod.net. Or, if you’d like to talk with someone, pray with someone, call the 24-hour Billy Graham prayer line. The number is 855-255-7729. That’s 855-255-PRAY.

MUSIC STARTS

Voice-over: You’re listening to GPS: God. People. Stories. A podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. 

Billy Graham:
00:24:16 Solomon was the richest man in the history of the world. His income was staggering. It’s all listed in the Bible. But one night he sat on the top of his house in Lebanon and he said, It’s nothing. All this pleasure, all these riches and everything, are nothing.

Voice-over: Billy Graham …

Billy Graham:
00:24:32 “What shall it profit a man,” Jesus said, “if he gains the whole world, and [loses] his ... soul?” Suppose you had all the knowledge and all the wealth and all the power in the whole world today and lost your soul—and many of you are doing just that. You’ve gained in your circle of world, but deep in your heart something is missing. You don’t know what it is. The thing that’s missing is that personal relationship with Christ.

Jim: Are you missing a personal relationship with God? You can start the relationship right here, right now, and begin experiencing peace, hope, and contentment. We can help you with that at FindPeaceWithGod.net. Once you’re there, click on “Begin a relationship with Jesus.” That’s find FindPeaceWithGod.net. 

Our guest on this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories. is Mark Whitacre. He was a whistleblower on one of the largest price-fixing schemes in U.S. history—a crime he was also personally involved in. 

Mark:
00:25:35 I made a train wreck of my life. I gave every reason in the world for Ginger and my children to run away as fast as they could. And God held it together. I look back and I thank God that it, even though it took prison for me to get there, I thank God for brokenness. ’Cause that’s what it took me—I had to get to the end of myself to get to know God.

Jim: We’re thankful for Mark Whitacre sharing his story with us. By the way, make sure you’re subscribed to GPS, so you don’t miss any episodes. Our next one will be coming out in just two weeks. Also, a favor to ask: Would you consider giving us a quick rating or review on your podcast app? That actually really helps more people to find out about the podcast and stories of how God has worked powerfully in people’s lives.

I’m Jim Kirkland. This is GPS: God. People. Stories., it’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—Always Good News.

CLOSING MUSIC

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