Author – By: Tom Burgis
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.
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. While we are looking the other way, all that we hold most dear is being stolen.
About the Author
Tom Burgis won a fellowship at the Financial Times in 2006, and has worked on the paper ever since. He has reported from London, Brussels, South America and Africa, writing on the privation and conflict that accompanies the resource trade. His work has appeared in the Telegraph, the Independent,the Observer, the New Statesman, the Big Issue and Open Democracy, and in 2010 he was shortlisted for ‘Young Journalist of the Year’ at the British Press Awards.
Industry Reviews
‘Tom Burgis has long been revealing global financial corruption. Now in his landmark book Kleptopia he lays bare what we need to know, and act upon. Trump, Russia, China, New York, London and so much more. This book arms us to understand the massive undermining of the world’s financial systems. Burgis provides us with the terrifying evidence. Read it and act’
Jon Snow
‘Read Kleptopia now. There is no time to lose. Read it now to understand that the struggle between dirty money and clean money has been won by dirty money. Tom Burgis demonstrates that money does indeed stink – and shows in Kleptopia how to follow its scent’ Roberto Saviano
‘A powerful, appalling, and stunningly reported expose … It reads like fiction, but unfortunately is all too true: Burgis names names, and follows the money, right into the Trump White House, among other high places. His narrative shows how dark money has grown from a national problem into an international scourge’
Jane Mayer
‘Tom Burgis has taken the McMafia genre one step beyond the work of trailblazing authors like Roberto Saviano and Oliver Bullough. Burgis reveals exactly why in the last thirty years organised crime and financial capitalism have fused to create a force of such power that no government or leader is free from the pressure it is able to apply. This is Jane Mayer’s Dark Money on a global scale. When you pick this book up, you won’t be able to put it down.’
Misha Glenny