
Kleptopia
How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World
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Narrated by:
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Tom Burgis
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By:
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Tom Burgis
About this listen
“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 HarperAudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Vanessa Patrick PhD
- Narrated by: Jeed Saddy
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Power of Saying No, award-winning professor and researcher Vanessa Patrick delves into the new science of saying no. She introduces the ground-breaking concept of "empowered refusal"—a proven framework for saying no that puts you in charge of your life—and reveals some surprising secrets about the power of the word no.
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Needed editing
- By R. Van der Lugt on 10-07-24
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The Panama Papers
- How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money
- By: Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Late one evening investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500 million in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.
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highly recommended for the ears of the 99% and 1%
- By Craig S Smith on 12-06-18
By: Frederik Obermaier, and others
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Capital Without Borders
- Wealth Managers and the One Percent
- By: Brooke Harrington
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Capital Without Borders tackles this tantalizing question through a groundbreaking multi-year investigation of the men and women who specialize in protecting the fortunes of the world's richest people. Brooke Harrington followed the money to the 18 most popular tax havens in the world, interviewing wealth managers to understand how they help their high-net-worth clients dodge taxes, creditors, and disgruntled heirs - all while staying just within the letter of the law.
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Eye opening read on roots of Wealth Management
- By Amazon Customer on 01-25-21
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Life Is What You Make It
- Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment
- By: Peter Buffett
- Narrated by: Peter Buffett
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Which will you choose: the path of least resistance or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction? You may think that with a last name like his, Buffett has enjoyed a life of endless privilege. But the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett says that the only real inheritance handed down from his parents was a philosophy: Forge your own path in life. It is a creed that has allowed him to follow his own passions, establish his own identity, and reap his own successes.
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My new all-time favorite book
- By K.Indira nagaveni on 06-06-17
By: Peter Buffett
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Foreign Agents
- How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World
- By: Casey Michel
- Narrated by: Joe Dwyer
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself. These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous regimes in the process.
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Should be read by everyone
- By Jeroen on 10-27-24
By: Casey Michel
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The Great Transformation
- China’s Road from Revolution to Reform
- By: Chen Jian, Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.
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Excellent history but the narration’s mispronunciation takes away from the story
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-25
By: Chen Jian, and others
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Offshore
- Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism
- By: Brooke Harrington
- Narrated by: Jennifer Walden
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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How do the rich keep getting richer, while dodging the long arm of the law? The ultra-rich seem to live in a different world from the rest of us. That world is called offshore. Hidden from view, the world's ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way.
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Informative
- By Seattle mom on 03-02-25
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Money Men
- A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth
- By: Dan McCrum
- Narrated by: Dan McCrum
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When investigative journalist Dan McCrum first came across Wirecard, the hot new tech company that looked poised to challenge Silicon Valley, it all looked a little too good to be true: offices were sprouting up all over the world, and they were reporting runaway growth. In the space of a few short years, the company had come from nowhere to overtake industry giants like Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank on the stock market. As McCrum began to dig deeper, he encountered a story stranger and more compelling than he could have imagined.
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Interesting book but…
- By Rock Climber on 06-11-23
By: Dan McCrum
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The World for Sale
- Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources
- By: Javier Blas, Jack Farchy
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources. It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets: enabling an enormous expansion in international trade and connecting resource-rich countries - no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres.
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Explains a lot!
- By jaga on 03-24-21
By: Javier Blas, and others
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The Return of Great Powers
- Russia, China, and the Next World War
- By: Jim Sciutto
- Narrated by: Jim Sciutto
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dawned what Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History.” Three decades later, Jim Sciutto said on CNN’s air as the Ukraine war began, that we are living in a “1939 moment.” History never ended—it barely paused—and the global order as we have known it is now gone. Great powers are reinvigorated and determined to assert dominance on the world stage. And as it escalates, this new order will affect everyone across the globe.
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Disappointing
- By Douglas Peifer on 03-14-24
By: Jim Sciutto
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Tracers in the Dark
- The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency
- By: Andy Greenberg
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely—whether in drug dealing, money laundering, or human trafficking—than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in currencies with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government, beholden to no bankers, these black marketeers have sought to rob law enforcement of their chief method of cracking down on illicit finance: following the money.
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Could not put this down
- By Mike Reaves on 01-28-23
By: Andy Greenberg
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Rinsed
- From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks
- By: Geoff White
- Narrated by: Geoff White
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Money laundering has been around for centuries. For as long as people have been stealing money, there's been an industry ready to wash it. But recent tech innovations have created vastly complex new systems for laundering that threaten to overwhelm authorities, destabilise economies and disrupt societies. Ranging from the flamboyant luxury of Dubai hotels to quiet coastal Ireland, from the UK to Nigeria and from Indonesia to North Korea, Rinsed is a truly global relevatory investigation into the new army of innovative launderers ... and the consequences for all of us.
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Almost but not quite plagiarism
- By T.T. on 06-19-24
By: Geoff White
Very dense, yet so important and informative piece of work.
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Rama K Rao
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Excellent Listen!
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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.
Scary Story and worth your time & money
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new fan
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Kleptopia
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Worst Narration Ever!
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Read it - don’t listen to it.
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Good book.
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Wow. The dystopian future we fear has arrived.
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