“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 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.”
hitting a nerve. It is a minor rampage here, dashing the vanguard on our quite crisis. How to corner it – corruption, plutocracy, dark money, legal bribery (party/campaign donations), financial secrecy, off-shoring/tax havens, abuse of power & the expropriation & allocation of “the state” on behalf of private/criminal/corporate entities …. & of course – kleptocracy. & hey! – murder, assassination, abduction, torture, intrusive surveillance, false confinement & assorted autocratic nightmare. The West’s “sheen” of specious moral superiority & regulatory vigour (a con) along with it’s developed “services” (law, government, PR, residency, tutelage, consultancy, banking & accounting) being prostituted for the facilitation & advantage of a veritable house-of-horrors of global organized crime.
Burgis has an interesting roster of offenders – with prime scrutiny revolving around Kazakhs, Russians, France, Zimbabwe & the Congo, the United Kingdom & America – with plenty of other culpable contributors passing through his lens. Israeli actors are a constant presence everywhere, which is perfectly predictable, as “The Jewish State” has long pioneered all ilk of organized crime in the name of national defense.
Pleasingly, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority are mauled & laid bare.
In a profoundly incongruent action of mega corruption & super subversion – the state now functions almost exclusively on behalf of specific criminal classes, whilst feigning formality & legitimacy.
there is amazing scoops, research & documentation. Burgis’s writing is also superb. His wry, terse, dead pan, but totally veridical & to the point descriptions & summations strip & dispel any avenue for bullshit or obfuscation. Straight-shooting in the hall of mirrors – the parties fucking over.
There is also plenty of richly informative & revealing fresh investigation into the notorious Felix Sater. An exceedingly sordid & shifty, Russian/Israeli fraudster, money-launderer, multi-spy, shadow agent & convicted felon with a stake on Robert Maxwell’s legacy who partnered, lodged, liaised & worked with reigning corruptocrat – Donald Trump aka the Reality Rapist. Tevik Arif was another squalor mired, super-shady ex-Soviet “money man” that teamed up with both aforementioned cronies (typical Trump companions). Arif was of course caught on the mega yacht the Savarona with gallons of trafficked, underage Russian & Ukrainian “sex workers” in Turkey in 2010. somehow he got off (proof of the books central focus in action once again) – & paired up with Sater & Trump to form the excrescent Bayrock Group real estate criminal venture. Trump is on video boasting about Arif & what he got up to on his yacht (wink wink). A sea of scum.
Kleptopia is a brilliant series of detailed snapshots of our derelict, poisonous, moribund, farcical, dysfunctional democracy? civilization? & the sham of “law and order” in the west & how we abet * enable large scale organised crime. This needs to be addressed now & wit extreme prejudice.
Tom Burgis, 2020, William Collins, 337 pages