Kleptopia

How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World

By: Tom Burgis

Narrated by: Tom Burgis

Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

“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 corruption: 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 sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Tom Burgis (P)2020 HarperAudio

Scary Story and worth your time & money

So scary how embedded corruption has become with cross border consequences. Maybe it has always been so but is now more obvious since information is more available.
This story could have used some positives. If there are any out there, I wish the author had thought to impart them to us.
I also wish the PDF file had been attached to the US copy, assuming (with no evidence) that it would have made some of the detailed story easier to follow. Kept finding myself wondering which character, agency, country was being discussed, even though I listened mostly in one go and paid close attention faithfully. An editor should have suggested or inserted some reminders parenthetically, especially for non UK listeners, since the story jumps all over the world. And has so many characters to track. I suspect this book requires several focused listening sessions to grasp the entirety. Perhaps a hard copy would be good to have on hand.
On the narrator, I normally prefer a professional narrator since authors tend to be less acceptable overall, no matter that they obviously know more about the subject matter. Voice modulation, pacing, etc are obviously different with a professional. An author reading can distract the listener from an otherwise fascinating subject by style, accent, pace or other obstacle to understanding. In this case, I only subtracted one star for the performance as I gradually became used to the narrator and so engrossed that the narrator/author’s accent became less pronounced over time. I can’t say others can so easily be captured however so in future, Mr Burgis, consider having a professional do the narration.
Overall, a very deep, timely and complicated true story well told and worth the time and money.
To those who have remarked that this is a political bashing of the right, 99% of the story has no mention of US politics. Per Se. It is only at the very end that it is mentioned in relation to Ukraine & the infamous phone call, and some real estate deals well documented elsewhere in less detail. Except for relating US Presidential administration,s other US characters are mentioned earlier with no reference to politics but as they relate to crime, Russian heritage and the like. If there is any bashing (using the term advisedly) it is against the UK’s lack of financial oversight, Russia’s oligarchs rise after the Soviet Union’s collapse and Kazakhstan’s relentless pursuit of a “dissident banker” that cost billions, to mention but a few. US politics & Trump don’t come up as relevant until the very end of the book. Being a New Yorker, the very little that was written about Trump (et al) here could have been found in historical news clippings or contemporary local news of the day, having watched and read these at the time.
Highly recommend this book but be prepared to have a wild ride while you listen to the detailed story of international financial corruption happening right now and affecting all of us.
We could use a super hero right about now.

new fan

Must read to understand politics today really have to thank the author for this work

Very dense, yet so important and informative piece of work.

Very dense, yet so important and informative piece of work. It is worth reading to understand the background of the current situation in Russia, the role of different actors and countries, and the flow of dirty money.

Rama K Rao

Excellent expose into the murky world of private modern day buccaneers who are using their contacts intelligence and infrastructure of existing institutions in the Western world to extract assets for their personal wealth A great holiday read

Excellent Listen!

Multiple storylines expertly woven together to cover a very interesting topic! I would highly recommend to nearly anyone, even those not already familiar with the topic.

Kleptopia

Good material, well read, well researched. Difficult at times to keep the timelines straight however.

Worst Narration Ever!

This guy passes words as the constipated passes stool! Haven't even finished the book, but I'm raking my hearing across raging coals of fire listening to his strained narration. The very worst, I say!

Read it - don’t listen to it.

This rigorously researched and very important book that is crucial to understanding the way the world works today is unfortunately ruined by the author’s terrible narration. His sentences habitually begin with a near shout and end with soft murmurs, so that the experience of listening is both overstimulating and infuriatingly unintelligible. Because I was unable to hear the last two words of most sentences, it was almost impossible for me to follow the complex global narrative spanning decades and dozens of characters. The accompanying PDF was little to no help.

An important, enjoyable read

This book presents a sobering and illuminating picture of the rising trend among the internationally wealthy to hide power away by turning it into laundered money, and then to reconstitute it into power when its origins have been scrubbed clean.

The author is a surprisingly effective reader, and the narrative style of the book -- telling this history as a story rather than an accounting of names and dates -- makes it very enjoyable to listen to.

Highly recommended for those who want perspective on recent events and their origins over the last forty years.

USA edition is missing PDF

In the introduction, the author explains that an accompanying PDF provides info on his sources of information. Be aware that the US edition of the audiobook does NOT come with this file, though in some other countries it is included.