Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World

by Tom Burgis

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year • An Economist Book of the Year

“A must-read for anyone wanting to better understand what has already happened here in America and what lies ahead if Trump is reelected in November…. A magisterial account of the money and violence behind the world’s most powerful dictatorships.” –Washington Post

In this shocking, meticulously reported work of narrative nonfiction, an award-winning investigative journalist exposes “capitalism’s monster”—global kleptocracy—and reveals how it is corrupting the world around us.

They are everywhere, the thieves and their people. Masters of secrecy. Until now we have detected their presence only by what they leave behind. A body in a burned-out Audi. Workers riddled with bullets in the Kazakh Desert. A rigged election in Zimbabwe. A British banker silenced and humiliated for trying to expose the truth about the City of London.

They have amassed more money than most countries. But what they are really stealing is power.

In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together four stories that reveal a terrifying global web of the troublemaker from Basingstoke who stumbles on the secrets of a Swiss bank, the ex-Soviet billionaire constructing a private empire, the righteous Canadian lawyer with a mysterious client, and the Brooklyn crook protected by the CIA.

Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, History, Business, Finance, Crime

464 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2020

About the author

Tom Burgis a journalist, who has worked primarily as a correspondent for the Financial Times.

Reviews

[Amanda Youngs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was far from an easy read - or listen (I had the audio book as well).

But it's very worthwhile, if you're interested in seeing how global the business of dirty money and money laundering is these days. It genuinely spans the world, with Russia and the US, Kazakhstan and China featuring as well as the UK.

I admit that it's a dense book. You have to really concentrate to follow who features where and in which country, but a great deal of painstaking research has gone into finding these links, and so you feel, once you've started and become invested, that you want to follow things through - even though they can take you to some uncomfortable places!

Not a book I would have chosen for myself because of its difficulty, but every now and then you have to stretch yourself or you forget you have a brain!

[Geevee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kleptopia was a readable book that was interesting and equally depressing.

There are a good many strands to the corruption, bribes and money laundering described, some which seemed to be left uncompleted with others included to emphasise but not necessarily needed for the wider narrative (notably, a protest in a Kazakhstan town and the brutal treatment of those protesters).

Perhaps, unsurprisingly to many, myself included, the characters are a mix of oligarchs, henchmen, politicians, regulators and investigators. Burgis's story centres on Kazakhstan, and its corrupt president (1991-2019) Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the men and few women who did [still do] his bidding to keep the illegal money flowing in.

This baseline then expands to those Kazakhs, Russians, Ukrainians, Arabs, South Africans and many others, who own large corporations and front companies to launder money. Money from mining, oil, gas, other natural resources and those former state enterprises that became owned [in every sense of the word] by the oligarchs.
This money - the billions and billions of US and other dollars, Pounds, Euros, Yen, Renmimbi - that is hoovered up from company sales, deals, contracts, and trade, and is then flushed through front companies and payments and favours to consultants (yes, you Tony Blair), "security & intelligence" teams, politicians (yes, you Nicolas Sarkozy), professional services, auditors and bankers, and importantly and using the former into property and land opportunities (yes, you Donald Trump). This is used to buy more influence and the capability and ease to launder yet more cash into property, yachts, and everything in between.

Tom Burgis's book follows these using a select few oligarchs, investigators and deal-makers how they found and keep favour or lose this favour with Nazarbayev. We read of Kazakh and Russian criminals, and cooperation with the US/Italian crime families, and their scams and protection rackets in the States. We read of London, France and Italy awash with Russian, Kazakh and Arab money hidden or lost in listed companies and real estate. We read of, notably US and British, regulator and law enforcement attempts to interrupt and prosecute, but also of important regulator, city bodies and courts seemingly looking the other way. We read of African leaders asset stripping their nations for kickbacks and influence. We read of killings and kidnappings in Europe, Africa, the US, and of Italy's judiciary stopping one in-flight extradition to Kazakhstan that commenced with the kidnap of a mother and her young child.

But for all this, the story and the outcomes remain a bit mixed and multi-layered. There is much more here about how Kazakhstan operates, and how City/Wall Street know corruption and laundering happens, there is more about politicians, such as Blair, Sarkozy, Trump, MBS, Xi and Biden all use the oligarchs and various country leaders for money, investment and of course influence.

Overall, a book well worth reading and Burgis deserves great credit. Where Kleptopia stands, is as part of the wider library of books, including those about Putin, Trump, Joe and Hunter Biden, Hilary Clinton, MBS and Jamal Khashoggi, Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, Xi Jingpin, Bolsonaro, oligarchy in general, and shows how we are all taxed and managed to be within the law, whilst the world's "elite" operate much, much differently.

[Zainab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom deserves billions of dollars in a Swiss account for having kept track of difficult people with difficult names. It so deserves a screenplay. Trump and likes won't like it, sure. But it'll be like a combination of the Godfather, Goodfellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Maybe, the Malaysian kleptocrat would like to fund another masterpiece with his dirty money. Hmm. That'll be fascinating.

Anyway. It was a tiring read. My eyes hurt; my brain's shut down. But at least now I know, with sufficient real-life examples, how money is laundered. It indeed is an art. But the artists are really crooked.

[Andreas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book had a lot of promise, but overall I would say I did feel disappointment after finishing it.
There are just too many threads and characters. I admire all the research mr. Burgis must have put into writing this book, but I think it would have been better to focus on just one story or one character (mr. Wilkins, mr. Sater, mr. Mashkevich) or one storyline (either the illicit financial flows, the tax dodging strategies, the covering up by financial institutions in the City of London, or the exploitation by oligarchs in Kazachstan).
Sometimes it's better to leave side stories out of the book (e.g. the Africa chapters) for the sake of clarity and to avoid people having to turn back to the character pages all too often.
The same goes for the story of mr. Ablyazov. It also wasn't really clear if the author wants us to show him sympathy for falling out of grace in Kazachstan.

[Rohit Enghakat · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fast paced book and a look at the world of money laundering, corruption, billionaires and oligarchs. The author has done a good job researching the events, mainly in Russia, Kazakhstan, USA and UK. Asia does not feature here except for some references.

The title of the book caught my attention. The blurb was even more promising. But sadly the book did not live up to its promise. It was hard to keep track of the stories and even harder to keep track of the characters flitting in and out. It was a downer for me.

[Rob Schmults · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a mess of a book - the writing is a jumble, the author can’t seem to decide on a focused line early on and then when things do start to be more coherent, he drops his core story and another book seems to want to break out with 50 pages to go. Too bad as he does go after an important topic with broad consequences for much of the world.

[Avishek Ghosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

While writing the review for Kleptopia, the first thought that comes to my mind is that of what another Goodreads reviewer said, that Tom Burgis, the writer of Kleptoipa, should get a million dollar (tax free) for the impossible efforts to put these convoluted threads and trails of dirty money together under a comprehensive narrative with direction for general readers.

Researched and presented with painstaking details, Kleptopia explores the entire periphery of dirty money ecosystem while focusing on what the western media calls the The Ablyazov Affair , the fight between Kazakhstan banker and dissident Mukhtar Ablyazov and the corrupt ex president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. The book explores the recent history of money laundering with rich details, from offshore shell companies to funneling money to rage civil wars in African states to secure the mining rights of natural resources. It explores the United Kingdom's shadowy organization The City of London and traces the spider's web it spreads across the world, from tax heavens to the heart of Africa. It describes the modus-operandi of pre/post Soviet Russian political dynamics in laundering dirty money and influencing world politics. Burgis has masterfully explained how the dirty money completes its metamorphosis and returns to economy as clean money. The book is living tale of the alchemy of turning money into power and power into money.

While reading this book, I can't help but think how vulnerable the picture of the ideological progress is that we as a civilized global community have come to believe. Contrary to how we general people see that the world either runs or should run on democracy or meritocracy, it actually runs on kleptocracy where money earned through corruption by depriving the mass are circulated and shared, scavenged and plundered by the powerful people using the power of the very institutions that were set-up to safeguard the interests of the mass. From oligarchs to mafia to politicians to bankers and many in-between, manipulate laws, change facts, kill, torture, obliterate people and their lives and livelihoods to keep the stream of blood money flowing unabated. Philosophically, this sets the question, where are we headed? Are we still living in a society where the Machiavelli's Prince should be the text book for everyone to life a prosperous life? Is prosperity and the high-flying life that we are so obtrusively bombarded with everyday by means of commercial advertisements and promotions come at the cost of kleptocracy? If in the higher echelons of power and influence, we haven't fundamentally changed from our ideological/evolutionary drives that we acquired 2 million years ago then what all that we consider as "progress" stands for?

"Money is the only river that flows upward..."

A must read for everyone who wants to have a realistic and cohesive economic/political worldview.

[Edwin Setiadi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The privatisation of power and their laundromats for stolen money

This is Blacklist meets McMafia meets the investigation attempt in Billions. It is a fast-paced narration of a true story of the names that you’ve probably never heard of, but secretly controls a huge chunk of the world’s money.

The book reads like a spy novel and it is gripping right from the very beginning, with so many mind-blowing plot twists that prove the dirty money behind several world occurrences, from election rig in Zimbabwe, to Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal, that Saudi Ritz-Carlton Purge, to the acquisition of ABN Amro by Royal Bank of Scotland.

The story has everything, including the plunder of some countries’ assets, the privatisation of power, the usage of “front men” by dictators to manage their billions, the global money laundering network, assassination of political opponents, the jailing of whistleblowers, the prosecutions of “fall guy”, industrial espionage, bribery and extortion, fake suicide, love and kidnapping, dynastic marriage, a family fallout, stock market manipulation, and one particular chapter that explains how a certain American president fits in this network of schemes: not as someone literally implanted by Russia in the US as a puppet per se, as always suspected, but instead as one of the best in his role as a front or a launderer.

Ultimately, I read this book during Russian invasion on Ukraine, as I wanted to figure out why do the British government is so very reluctant to freeze Russian oligarchs’ assets? The key, as it turns out, lies in the difference between tax evasion and money laundering.

While tax evasion sucked money out of the country into tax havens, money laundering has the opposite effect of pumping money into the country. “If you could stop yourself thinking about its origins”, remarked Burgins, “those inflows of dirty money from around the world were just another source of investment into otherwise declining economies.”

And the City of London serves as the laundromat for oligarchs (such as the Trio for Nursultan Nazarbayev - the main focus of the book - or the Russian front men for Vladimir Putin) and their dirty money, where riches from the looting of the ex-Soviet states are sent to Britain and laundered into properties, stocks, businesses, cars, fashion, and other legitimate assets, including a football club.

Hence, the infamous nickname of Londongrad, Boris Johnson’s refusal to publish a parliamentary report on Russian interference in British politics, and the Tory government’s odd decisions in regards with their stance on Ukraine invasion and the sanctions toward Russia. Read the book, and it all adds up.

The book is 465 pages long but I’ve managed to read it cover to cover in just over 3 days as it is so damn engaging. It is with this in mind that I refrain to spill anymore details that could spoil the plot of the story for anyone who wants to read it, despite the massive urge to tell it all. So very highly recommended.

[Darnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

An important topic, handled in an intolerable style. Nonfiction books sometimes meander with unnecessary narrative elements, but this dives in to become a pseudo-novel. Regardless of the author's claims that it's all accurate, it wanders through personal stories instead of presenting ideas cohesively.

[Andrew]

It's hard for me to read Kleptopia and not think of that meme format with Charlie from It's Always Sunny standing in front of a corkboard with an impossible tangle of strings connecting Post-It notes.

Because it goes all the way to the top, man!

I applaud Burgis' effort, and I enjoyed meeting the cast of sociopaths along the way in this... case study, let's call it? Kazakh oligarchs and white South African moneymen who sound like bad guys from an '80s action movie? Hell yeah, all of that.

The problem is that Burgis really needs to give his readers some breathing room (or, you know, work with an editor, that position that publishers are increasingly trying to avoid requiring). The networks are so dense that it can be awfully hard for those of us who haven't spent months researching the primary sources to trace each line that Burgis draws. So this is a book that, I would say, overprovides given its title. Ignore the grandiose claims in the blurb above (and especially ignore anything the WaPo says in general). Read Kleptopia if you want a madcap romp through the money laundromat.

[Alexandros Potapidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It felt a bit surreal reading this book while on my commute from a little village of West Sussex to the grandeur of London, a place that feels as if everything that is happening in the world is happening there. The reason it felt surreal had to do with the fact that I had started a new job as a compliance officer for a financial institution, which entails navigating the dangers of financial crime and money laundering. Kleptopia on the other hand is rift of individuals and companies that have used political power to convert it into financial gains and took advantage of their funds in order to promulgate their grip on the political sphere. As the author succinctly encapsulates, "the thieves had used power to steal money, then used that money to steal more power", p. 48. Tom Burgis, a journalist for the Financial Times, uncovers only a negligible part of this vicious circle. In this synchronised dance of officials, whose declared purpose is to serve the greater good of people and society, they are aiming to enrich themselves through corrupt methods. He dugs into a corporation that has indirect links to the (ex) president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and revealed how this company used its wealth to expose the gaps in regulatory practices and managed to exploit the, thirsty for capital, London stock market.

Along the way Burgis unraveled the company's involvement in Mugabe's regime that stole the 2008 elections in Zimbabwe by receiving $100m from the very same Kazakh company in exchange for selling a platinum mine. Additionally, the author demonstrated how funds whose origins are found to be connected to illicit and criminal activities found their ways to the lucrative sector of the US real estate. It was the same industry that helped a money mogul to flourish (while doing business with money launderers) and become the 45th US president. One of the central characters of Burgis' story is Nigel Wilkins, whose role as a compliance officer for a London based Swiss bank and later a whistle-blower, should have exposed the inadequate processes in place to deal with money laundering. Instead, Nigel was fired from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) when he exposed the truth to his superiors.

In some respects Kleptopia is also a philosophical examination between money and power and Burgis is using his strong metaphorical and allegorical skills to walk us through the biggest financial crimes that are hiding in common view. In essence the book is a narrative reminiscent of an ancient Greek drama, corresponding to the three parts of the book, Crisis-Chrysalis-Metamorphosis. An accurate allegory of a story of corruption, power, and money. London is "a bureau de change for converting power into money", p. 57. As for the financial regulator in the UK, according to Nigel the watchdog was not policing the moneymen, as its declared purpose ought to be, but protecting them. The FSA's task seems to be removing obstacles to the transportation and multiplication of money. In one sense this should not come as a surprise considering the fact that the financial industry is a big hub that absorbs its workforce from the same talent pool, whether it is the banks or the regulator. In other words, everyone is shopping from the same shops.

The interesting element of Kleptopia is its skill to elegantly shift from the general to the particular and vice versa. From the pity money-launderers exploiting petrol schemes to the notorious kleptocrats that are in the position of power to subvert state institutions and seize for themselves what belongs to the people. These individuals are known as D. Trump, V. Putin, Xi Jinping, T. Ertogan, and M. Bin Salman, among many others. The state system does matter because it is harder to sustain a kleptokratic democracy than a kleptokratic dictatorship; "there are so many more people who could demand to be bought off, and it is much harder simply to imprison or eliminate them", p. 221. This is why Donald Trump does not belong to this special club anymore. The book also excels in skillfully interchanging events of seemingly insignificant importance (a robbery in 1983 Britain) to world changing events (Arab spring revolution). It demonstrates how these events can shape the fortunates of individuals who machinate to enrich themselves while stealing from the nation and its people what rightfully belongs to them. A particular case would be the 2008 financial crisis where banks were saved thanks to public money.

Overall Kleptopia is a fascinating work of investigative journalism into the world of money laundering and corruption. It sheds light to the dark corners of the City of London and Manhattan. However, it can be exhaustively detailed and offer a vast magnitude of characters. It also provides links between events that can't be confirmed, which can lead to assumptions without the element of proof. This resulted in a legal suit by the people the author exposes in the book. Correlation does not always mean causation and caution should be exercised when examining particular events, but not the bigger picture. 

[Cheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a mess, surprisingly. The writing is *beyond* awful. Just terrible. Plus, there are way too many threads, characters, stories, etc. to follow. Disappointing b/c this is such an important topic. But it is pretty much unreadable. I cannot believe the author is a journalist and writes for a living. It was like he was bending over backwards to write indecipherable sentences.

[Zainab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kleptopia is about the transformation of money, the fight to exploit natural resources, and the continual project to destabilise the truth. It untangles the complex global webs of the rich and powerful – with the dirty city of London at the very heart of it. ‘The Big Four’ accountancy firms, the world’s biggest mining companies, Saudi’s MBS, Tony Blair, George Osborne, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage make an appearance. At times, I couldn’t quite believe these could be real-life events and found myself googling some of the kleptocrats that Tom Burgis investigates.

There’s something about Tom Burgis’ northern twang that makes him a loveable storyteller on the audiobook. He writes dramatic scenes with flair. Eventually I had to return to reading in hard copy to make notes due to the sheer level of detail. I had the advantage of being familiar with a number of the corporate plotlines, but it is easy to get lost in the names and allegiances. Despite the evolving loyalties, this book remains gripping with some truly jaw-dropping revelations.

The chapter that narrates the story of Roza in Zhanaozen (19) has remained under my skin since finishing this book. Nigel Wilkins, the whistleblower that threads this story arc, is similarly memorable. There’s a brief chapter on Grenfell (37) which brought a rush of emotions back to the present day. Finally, there’s one particularly nasty mining giant at the heart of this book (see chapters 36, 39) which was being investigated under the UK SFO. While still reading, I was shocked to hear in the news that the SFO case was dropped after a ten-year investigation.

[Karyna Oliinichenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is really good, in my opinion a bit complex and in some parts difficult to understand, especially if you don't know the context and situation in countries described. But this book gave me some ideas to think about:
1. Even though tax evasion goes hand in hand with money laundering, governments are more eager to fight tax evasion. And there is a logical explanation - while tax evasion takes money out, money laundering pumps money in. If you close your eyes on the origin of money (drugs, human trafficking etc.), this is just another source of investment in the economy, especially declining one.
2. "The only thing more corrupt than a kleptocratic dictatorship is a kleptocratic democracy - there are so many people who wants to be bought off and it is much more harder to imprison or eliminate them." It is harder in the sense that you still need to adhere to the rule of law and justice and not just eliminate people how it is done in dictatorships.
3. If there is a medicine for kleptocracy, it is honestly and truth. Simplier said than done, the struggle seems to be endless, especially since kleptocrats like to distort the truth and create alternative reality. But if we persist as society together, not leaving people who are trying to uncover the truth alone, we can build better society for all of us.

[Daniel Warriner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tough read filled with schemes and twists, a torrent of money laundering, murder ordered from the top, and (for me) difficult-to-pronounce names. Kleptopia (2020), by Tom Burgis, is a dark but briskly told tale about the world's biggest thieves and the flow of riches they loot, with a focus on Washington, Moscow, Kazakhstan, Swiss banks, London, and the Congo. Exhaustively researched, the myriad stories Burgis unfolds, many crossing over others, are centered around a bunch of powerful crooks who the author sees (and is able to see) as key players in the dirty money game, along with some of their enablers. I liked it, but keeping track of who's who was hard, and I was left feeling rather helpless in the grand scheme of things, not to mention overwhelmed.

[Kam eghdami · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written, disjointed and impossible to follow random thoughts and characters. Furthermore, It would have immensely helpful if the author had attended a refresher course on grammar.
The book is purportedly about kleptocracy and abuse of power, yet one is subjected to chapters about Roza who is leading the strike in kazakhstan and unsurprisingly, is beaten up by the security thugs. There is no rhyme or reason to sudden and frequent swerves into information blind alleys. After a while, I was grateful for the speed reading course in my youth.

[Rennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating subject that I want to know more about but this is not the book for me. It was a problem of density as both the book and I were too dense to make a go of it together.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well worth investing in. I'll need to read it again. There are bucket loads of names and places and the threads are not easy to follow. It's a global view of how dirty-money is moved and washed; often I was reminded of an octopus and the tentacles reaching out across countries of note: China, Kazakhstan, Russia, even the UK.

Laundering money in Kazakhstan ! I read about that somewhere a while back.

[Michael Southall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Burgis is a FT investigative journalist who published 'The Looting Machine' in 2015 before 'Kleptopia' which tackles the topic of the systematic theft of Africa's wealth.

Clearly, his books are based on a huge amount of research as mentioned as other readers, and presumable his book on Africa is based on his experience as a FT correspondent in Lagos and Joburg.

The key and probably the only issue with this book is definitely the sheer number of characters and the feeling of having to keep track of numerous storylines simultaneously.

Having said that, I enjoyed most of the book, especially the last chapter which sums up the issue of systemic corruption faced by countries around the world in a macro perspective.

Below are some quotes in the final chapter I noted down for myself to look back on:

-'Chiefs, generals, ministers, legislators and central bankers had chosen to store their money not among their compatriots but within the global financial secrecy system. It was as though monetising public office was no longer an aberration but the purpose of seeking that office.'

-'Left and Right: these are just their costumes. The mafia would admire the loyalty they inspire: at the Donald's impeachment trial for his Ukrainian favour-trading, Republican senators listened to cast-iron evidence that he had abused his office, then acquitted him.'

-'During the 2019 general election campaign, Johnson refused to publish a parliamentary report on Russian interference in British politics. The day after he won, he swung by a London party thrown by a billionaire veteran of the KGB's foreign intelligence arm.'

-'The Petros, they have a mechanism for setting the price they charge for the oil they steal from the countries they have invaded from within: they call it OPEC.'

-'They have taken hold in central Europe, eastern Europe and Russia, with imitators on every continent: Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in Philippines, Erdogan in Turkey, Netanyahu in Israel, Maduro in Venezuela, Trump in Washington.'

And this final quote at the perfect timing for Trump's behaviour as the mail-in ballots are being counted as I write this on the 6th of Nov, 2020:

-'But like a parasite altering a cell it invades, so kleptocratic power transforms its host. Those who use their public office to steal must hold on to it not just for the chance of further riches but in order to maintain the immunity from prosecution that goes with it. When elections come around, losing is not an option.'

[R · Rating 2 out of 5]

Charts Nigel Wilkins brave attempts to uncover the wealth management practises at Swiss Bank BSI. He died before this book was written.

BSI was set up in the early 20th century, and became key in the 1930s to helping wealthy Jews hide money, and then during WW2 by managing wealthy Nazi’s wealth in Switzerland.

Nigel was sacked from his compliance work at BSI after uncovering mass fraud during the 08 crisis (most fraud happens in crises as banks have an excuse to hide evidence) and siphoning off money in tax havens. He then moved to the FSA (which was funded by the banks so had limited appetite to pursue charges against banks) but was powerless after Cameron struck a deal with the Swiss to pay back some of the laundered money to HMRC, but avoid prosecution.

Nigel, frustrated moved to the FCA, who became uninterested after George Osborne’s speech at Mansion house that “banker bashing was over” and promptly replaced the FCA Chief who was deemed to be too hard on the banks. After Russia invaded Crimea, a leaked document showed the UK government’s desire to punish Russia, but allow it access to London.

The upshot is that London remains the conductor of laundered money around the world. The world’s four pillars now have three Kleptocrats in power. The West (Trump), Europe (Russia), the Middle East (MBS, who does at least not engage in it laundering himself, rather through the PIF) and the East (Xi Ping, who has hidden his wealth in outside of China).

[Alastair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Burgis' book on how criminal proceeds flow around the globe is by far the most gripping and readable account of the subject I have yet encountered. The Financial Times journalist weaves a surprisingly intelligible narrative out of the, by design, incorrigible structures created to mask the laundering of money on the global scale. As Burgis describes it, this system enriches professionals in the West, entrenches despotic regimes outside the West and robs all populations of their wealth and resources. Accordingly, we should all be much more concerned about it than we are. The day I finished this book, an alert on my phone flashed up - an Economist article on precisely the subject of global money laundering. As the article reports a professor of anti-corruption stating: "Global efforts to stamp out money-laundering have, if anything, waned over the past five years" (Article: The war against money-laundering is being lost, 12th April 2021). It will come as no surprise, then, that Burgis' book lacks a happy ending but that makes this brave piece of journalism all the more important for it.

By far the stand out feature of this book is how it develops near novelistic characters out of the panoply of individuals it chronicles, from the tragic Nigel who blew the whistle on a crooked Swiss bank but whose warnings were ignored by UK regulators, to Semyon Mogilevich - the Brainy Don - key moneyman in Russia, to the terrifying Victor Hanna - a man without a past who orchestrated dodgy dealings in Africa on behalf of Central Asian billionaires.

The stories are told in chapters ranging from two pages to dozens as Burgis paints a picture of the complex financial intrigues designed to enrich the few at the (literal) cost of the many. Central to the corruption are the ex-Soviet billionaires who have plundered their countries, with a particular focus on those linked to Kazakhstan. What should disturb Western readers is the value and willingness of our own legal, accounting and banking systems to serve such individuals. We are told about the lawyers who hire private detectives to pursue individuals on the run from their own, tyrannical governments; PR firms who work to ensure enemies of the state feature only negatively in Google results; and an assorted array of former spies who provide services and expertise for enormous fees.

This work reminds me of another recent book on Central Asian corruption, Dictators Without Borders by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw. It is instructive to look at the differences in approach between the two books, whose overall messages are broadly similar: that the West is complicit in the ransacking and despotism of regimes it hypocritically labels as corrupt.

Cooley and Heathershaw's book takes something of an itemised approach, analysing a series of schemes across the Central Asian region and revealing the global money laundering system by way of a set of examples. The examples themselves are, as a result, quite easy to keep track of as they are laid out in just a single chapter and described in detail. By contrast, Burgis focusses on an interconnected web of corruption and molds out of all this one continuous narrative.

This extremely ambitious approach has two clear benefits: it prevents the book appearing too much like a textbook. Cooley and Heathershaw comes off quite dry whereas Burgis reads like a white collar Game of Thrones, with its immense cast of characters, unexpected twists and byzantine politics. Secondly, it gives the reader a sense of the unbelievable complexity of the kleptocratic regimes it describes; instead of a post-hoc description of a particular ruse, we are whisked through the conflicting, confusing, multifaceted events almost as if they were happening around us. This lends the book an immediacy and 'lived' quality I've not seen in other books of this type. It really is begging to be turned into a mini-series.

But the telling of such complex interlinking stories is also the book's biggest problem. It is virtually impossible, particularly towards the start of the book, not to get lost. As I said above, this is almost part of the point as the reader is dragged bemused through a world of alternative facts and deception. But - assuming there was no post-modern playing with the reader in this manner intended - I have to peg this as a (modest) failure on the book's part. It is even more of a shame because it could have been remedied with a few summaries scattered throughout and generally better signposting, particular at the start of the book. Knowing roughly the contour of the story before setting out would have been of immense help in getting through the challenging early pages where many, many names are thrown at you thick and fast.

This is the only drawback, however, to what is an otherwise exceptional book on a subject about which there is far too little public awareness and consequent outrage. And while global money laundering may appear far-removed from most people's everyday lives, Burgis makes clear why we should care. When describing the general approach to money laundering he remarks that:

"If anyone challenged your story, you had to destablise the truth. Maybe this had happened, maybe that had happened, who could say? An objective truth, reachable by honest enquiry? No such thing existed."

While this quote describes money launderers, it could just as easily be a description of the so-called 'post truth' political discourse of the late 2010s and 2020s. That Burgis ultimately links the flows of dirty money to Donald Trump should, therefore, come as no surprise. As I stated at the outset, this book will not leave you with a smile on your face, but it is a valiant attempt to draw attention not only to corruption but also to deeper, more pernicious trends in society that anyone who believes in standards of evidence, objective enquiry and, ultimately, meaningful facts should be concerned about.

[Hannah Schumacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The investigative journalism was great but the threads were all over the place (literally) and hard to follow. Had a lot more about Kazakhstan than I originally thought it was going to have, and less about what I wanted to read with the London banking narrative. Being really big in scope and also narrow in on personal narratives gave us a lot of names and relationships to remember and I felt that I lost the impact of what was happening at times. Still crazy to think about the ties of money with political power, Trump of course made it into this book but it was published in 2020 so we’ve had a lot more of him since then

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating but I did find this quite a heavy read. It is horrifying how so much dirty money comes into the economy and politics. I really thank Tom and investigative journalists like him for revealing this. Just overall this was quite dense, quite into the detail of their criminal endeavours and like the money trail, pretty complex. I suspect brilliantly researched - the mere fact that they had to get the attack lawyers onto the author says a lot. But as said make time for it. It’s not a bedtime read which is when I manage most of my reading.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so good and yet so insanely infuriating in an era when Donald Trump has been re-elected, particularly when you unpack his ties to Felix Sater in Trump term 1. However, it is not just about him; I was deeply fascinated with the ripple effects of state level corruption in Kazakhstan which threads throughout. I hope good can triumph over corruption again, and also that Mr. Burgis continues to live in safety.

READ THIS BOOK BECAUSE THE MOST CORRUPT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD DON'T WANT YOU TO.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book on corruption and the love of money over everything else.

Those two seem to be more prevalent more-and-more.

I found this book fairly timely and upsetting.

But well researched and written!

4.5/5

[Ulrika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite hard to follow, but I'm not sure if that is because it jumps around a lot or because of the large cast of characters with very difficult names. However, I got enough out of it to see how high up the corruption goes, and it is pretty shocking stuff. Highly recommended, but take notes as you go along!

[James Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kleptopia is a page turning expose of global corruption that seems like it was conjured up for a Hollywood script, but unfortunately is appallingly real. Kleptopia does a great job shedding light on the grip dirty money has over the world. It does not inspire hope but is worth the read.

[Bryson Boddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tour-de-force of modern journalism on the state of capitalism. Really makes you lose faith in the system… but wow what entertainment!

[Jitna Bhagani · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting, but also disheartening. but a good read for anyone interested in understanding and dismantling corruption. #eattherich

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

guys don’t read this, couldn’t even finish it