Kleptopia

How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World

By: Tom Burgis

Narrated by: Tom Burgis

Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's Summary

An Economist Book of the Year 2020. 

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year 2020.

In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning Investigative Journalist Tom Burgis reveals a terrifying global web of corruption. Kleptopia 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 Trump White House, it shows how the thieves are uniting – and the terrible human cost. 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 – the world’s piggy bank for blood money. 

Riveting, horrifying and written like fiction, this book shows that while we are looking the other way, all that we hold most dear is being stolen.

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 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"When you pick this book up, you won’t be able to put it down." (Misha Glenny, author of McMafia)

"A powerful, appalling, and stunningly reported exposé.... It reads like fiction, but unfortunately is all too true." (Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money)

"Read Kleptopia now." (Roberto Saviano, best-selling author of Gomorrah)

Why authors should NOT read their own work

This is a fascinating (and complex) story. Tom Burgis has written a really interesting book. Someone should have told him he is NOT a good narrator. I spent the entire time trying to cope with his idiosyncratic reading, sometimes missing vital information, and being CONSTANTLY irritated. Why? Well, imagine being the passenger in a car on a straight, flat road with the driver constantly and unnecessarily switching between accelerator and brake. That's how Tom narrates: fast - slow - fast - slow .... loud - whisper - loud - whisper. GOOD narrators do this to emphasise points and assist understanding. Tom does it for some other reason - and thereby makes it MORE difficult to understand. And have you heard of 'vocal fry'? That's when somone stops projecting their voice - giving it a 'rasping', less distinct quality - and thereby making it harder to identify the articulation. Tom seems to think this makes him sound more interesting and mysterious. Interesting? Yes. Mysterious? YES - you can't understand what he's saying! Have I finished giving free advice? No. Tom seems (to me, a non-Russian speaker) to speak Russian - he certainly sounds confident pronouncing Russian names. BUT he does it FAST, often combined with VOCAL FRY - with the result that most of my non-Russian-speaking colleagues have no idea what he just said. I suspect this would have been a GREAT listen if Tom had put his ego to one side and paid a good narrator. There! I've finished venting all the spleen that built up over 11 hours of listening to Tom's book - and reinforced my advice to the vast majority of authors - get a professional narrator to read your work - there are good reasons most authors do so.

Genuinely Fascinating

I bought this booked based on Twitter recommendations. I’m not vastly knowledgeable about the world of finance but it turns out I didn’t have to be to enjoy this fanatic book.
The author has clearly done his research, as is displayed in the book and with the accompanying documents with all sources. This thoroughly enjoyable book discusses the actions and secrets that have taken place around the world in the pursuit of money, and therefore power.
Focussed heavily around the city of London, Russia, Khazakstan, with connections to Africa, Central Europe and of course, the USA, it describes the key players and dark network they use to steal, hide and profit from their money.
The book does jump around somewhat, but gradually, all the prices fall into place as you delve deeper. The book reads like a thriller, as others have said, and follows a chronological order by date, so it flows well and the events all link up neatly.
I thoroughly recommend this book to anybody interested in the dark underworld, espionage or finance. Or anyone who just enjoys a thriller.
I read this book as an audiobook and as such it was sometimes hard to remember who was who. I think it’s be easier in print form as it would take a bit longer to get through. I listened to it on my daily commute (2 hours a day) so occasionally missed the odd detail here and there.

Very Good.

Very good but is spoilt by poor narrating.
As listeners get older and their hearing frequency range reduces then more importance is placed on the clarity of the narrators. This may not be apparent to the author if he is under 60. At 35 , I did not understand the importance of larger text on business cards phone numbers , by 45 I was often searching for a magnifying glass. A lot of businesses unknowingly lost out because I couldn’t make out phone numbers instantly.

Very good - should republish with a clearer narrator to widen the appeal of this very important book. It is particularly important to read it now as a background to the current tragic world events.

Brilliant account of global corruption

Investigative journalism at its best, coupled with brilliant storytelling. One of the most interesting and engaging books I've ever read.

Not Good Narrating

Narrator cannot speak properly and is irritating to listen to. Tried but just switched off.

Not a good audiobook.

The written book should be ok as the detail, breadth and depth of this story is excellent. However, this story in audiobook form is too complex with too many characters, too many asides and too many tangents making it very difficult to follow. After struggling through 2/3 rds I've finally given up.

Interesting stories , poor narrating

Book is fascinating, with an interesting narrative and facts that are unfortunately not investigated enough by the western governments, shows how money and politics intertwined and if you have enough money and connections with western politicians it is highly unlikely that that criminal enterprises that captured developing countries will ever see a light of justice. Having said all of the above, incredibly poor narrating, author should not have read this book here IMHO.

how the modern world works

Everyone should read this, it isn't a conspiracy theory, it's just a conspiracy and one that enables the powerful and wealthy.

For us NARP's (not a real person (watch 'Succession')) how our world is formulated for us, so that the people in power can pool wealth is a modern scandal but obviously, instead we believe conspiracy theories or get brainwashed by an in on it press.

It's no accident that the UK's PM and Gove were right-wing hacks before getting where they are now

Fascinating read BUT....

... this is like the tv series “The Crown” - seems like a documentary, but in fact is a science fiction story.

I would take the facts presented with a pinch of salt.

Truth stranger than fiction

Horrifying, but brilliant. Well written with a fantastic turn of phrase. A terrifying story that's puts the current crisis in the Ukraine in context.

Excellent book

Well done Tom Burgis for both an excellent captivating and very well narrated book. Will most certainly listen to it one more time.