MONEYLAND

WHY THIEVES AND CROOKS NOW RULE THE WORLD AND HOW TO TAKE IT BACK

OLIVER BULLOUGH Profile, 304pp, £20, Oldie price £12.74 inc p&p

‘Money flows across frontiers, but laws do not,’ declares Bullough, a former Reuters correspondent in Moscow. ‘The rich live globally, the rest of us have borders.’ How the super-rich, including the world’s worst kleptocrats, hide their money offshore, and how respectable professionals assist them, are the focus of Bullough’s book. It is ‘pacy, clever and far more entertaining than you’d expect of a work on this subject’, wrote Andy Beckett in the

Guardian. ‘If you still have any illusions about the wonders of liberated capitalism, Moneyland will probably cure you.’

James Bloodworth, in the Times, found it ‘a gripping yet dispiriting book. Bullough understands the value of the regulatory system put in place by the Allies after the Second World War – and torn up with relish three decades later. As a Russian speaker who lived and worked in the former Soviet Union during the early Putin years, the author has encountered Moneylanders and their victims in the course of his work.’ The Economist’s anonymous reviewer observed that while ‘the obvious villains are foreign plutocrats… the real scandal is the way ritzy bankers, lawyers, accountants and PR people enable money stolen in poor, ill-run countries to be invested in rich, safe ones’. For Martin Vander Weyer, in

Literary Review, it is ‘a rattling good read, even if the book does not fulfill its promise to tell us how the wrongs it diagnoses can be put right. What it does offer is a global overview of kleptocracy, packed with shocking anecdotes, and appalling people. It’s all rather depressing, but worth the ride.’ Judging by the mere 10-page manifesto in a 300-page book and the ‘few practical steps’ Bullough offers, wrote Sunday Times reviewer John Arlidge, ‘you get the feeling he loves the colour writing more than the analysis… But for now, enjoy this darkly fascinating ride.’