Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World

Back in 1974 I was a Grade 1 clerk at British Transport Hotels working with Alex, a Pole in his sixties who was also a Grade 1 clerk. As far as he was concerned everyone was on the take. The office chat turned to Jesus Christ Superstar, ‘Archbishop Canterbury, he getting his cut.’ We laughed. Turns out he was a prophet. Turns out what separates us in this kleptocratic society of ours, in this kleptocratic world of ours, is just the degree to which we avert our eyes. As the angle moves towards zero, the cast of this book gets scarier and scarier, but it’s the complicity, the secondary and tertiary exploitation that gets you. If you want to understand why we are where we are, politically, economically, legally, morally, I would strongly recommend Tom Burgis’ Kleptopia.

Tedious, with convoluted rather rambling threads that were difficult to follow. Supporting data for various assertions always felt cursory and thin. In the end, the author states the blindingly obvious..... dirty money has to be cleaned to wield power and influence; where better to launder than real estate in UK/USA?...... The personal sob stories were over-done and the final section that focused on a vilification of Trump seemed to lack any solid evidence.

This book has an enormous amount of detail relating to its subject but it is presented in such a Hollywood type fashion that it is almost impossible to read. There are multiple characters sketched in glitzy details and endlessly confusing situations that make them almost impossible to follow and it is written in a terribly unique style: " What mattered.. was the story that was told, the story that was projected onto the world. That was what made the clouds angry rather than some other mood, what determined who was Jelyll, who was Hyde. The vocabulary of the stories about money served those who had lots of it." and on it goes, endlessly until one's brain screams 'enough, enough' but it doesn't stop. It is, ultimately, unreadable.

I have no doubt the author knows what he is talking about and has done an incredible amount of research but this is an almost impossible read in my view. He disgorges names, places and companies in enormous quantities and varying contexts that are impossible to connect. I kept hunting for threads but eventually gave up. I cannot believe this book has been through an editor. It is a great shame as the subject is so important.

A cracking narrative on dirty money laundering. Explains very clearly, roles of various participants, the various mechanisms and flows of dirty money across the globe. Though the focus is more on erstwhile Soviet republics, I reckon it works more or less in similar fashion across the world. What is more concerning is the role active or passive played by financial institutions, politicians, law firms, auditors and regulators which is very neatly discussed in the book. It feels like they almost act in concert to facilitate the laundering. The extent of human misery caused by corruption related to these activities is also laid bare. Troubling but reads like a thriller.