Kleptopia

How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World

By: Tom Burgis

Narrated by: Tom Burgis

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘If you think the UK isn't corrupt, you haven't looked hard enough … This terrifying book follows a global current of dirty money, and the murders and kidnappings required to sustain it’ GEORGE MONBIOT, GUARDIAN AN ECONOMIST AND WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020

‘When you pick this book up, you won’t be able to put it down’ MISHA GLENNY, author of MCMAFIA

‘Gripping, disturbing and deeply reported’ BEN RHODES, bestselling author of THE WORLD AS IT IS

In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis reveals a terrifying global web of kleptocracy and corruption.

Kleptopia follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, enriching oligarchs and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, London 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.