From the bestselling author of MONEYLAND and BUTLER TO THE WORLD, a revelatory new anatomy of global money laundering, the crime that makes crime pay
Without money laundering, few crimes of acquisition would be worth the trouble. South America's drug cartels would be stuffed without it, as would Nigerian kleptocrats, Afghan terrorists, American tax evaders and a whole bestiary of human (and animal) traffickers the world over.
And yet, estimates of the dirty portion of world GDP have held steady at 2%-5% for decades. All efforts at legislation, diplomacy, prosecution and compliance have been a complete flop. It's not a lack of will to stamp it out. It's a lack of insight. So join bestselling investigative journalist Oliver Bullough on a perspective-altering adventure through the flipside of the global economy.
In the criminal world, cash is still king (in fact, crime might now be the main thing cash is good for, and even why it still exists). Barter is pretty good too: vast, continent-wide exchanges of everything from luxury handbags to baby eels support a triangular drug trade linking Europe to the Far East. Cryptocurrencies flow through paper ledgers that would make a Florentine merchant feel at home.
And the system works. Whether you're a fraudster, a cartel boss, a corrupt politician, a kleptocrat or a terrorist mastermind, your options to move and hide your money are more secure and more impenetrable than they have ever been. There has never been a better time to be a criminal. It's time that changed."Should be required reading for every politician, regulator and board member with an interest in the financial services industry . . . Such an important book" - FINANCIAL TIMES
"A jaw-dropping exposé . . . Bullough is one of Britain's finest investigative reporters. He is thorough, his sources are impressive, and he has a lovely, easy style which takes us through some of the darkest features of the world's economy. He also has a fine sense of moral purpose . . . He seems to be completely without fear" - GUARDIAN
"I've been writing about the global financial system for thirtyyears, but reading this revelatory book by Oliver Bullough, I now realise I barely knew the half of it" - Literary Review
