Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World

by Oliver Bullough

Which brings us back to Paul Manafort. This wholesale looting is only possible because of people like him—Western enablers: lawyers, consultants, lobbyists, accountants and others who move their clients’ money and help them hide it in clever ways. If you try telling an informed Russian that the West is a principled alternative to Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, he’ll likely ask why then Putin’s propaganda chief was allowed to buy property in Beverly Hills on a bureaucrat’s salary, or why the deputy prime minister owns an apartment within walking distance of London’s House of Commons. This hypocrisy is a gift to Putin, who can not only undermine his opponents by highlighting it, but also use the West’s offshore tools against it: as a conduit for money to fund his security services, to create anti-Western propaganda and to support political extremists favorable to his interests. Corruption is a force multiplier for the West’s enemies, and yet the West continues to accept dirty money into its economies by the billions.