American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History

Journalist Michel debuts with a blistering account of how greed, deregulation, and deliberate avoidance have enabled dictators and drug cartels to launder their illicit profits in the U.S. He documents the profligate spending and sadistic violence of corrupt rulers including Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his son, Teodorin, and explains how Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who is believed to have “run one of the largest Ponzi schemes the world had ever seen,” laundered money through Rust Belt steel mills and Cleveland real estate. The roots of the problem, according to Michel, go back to Delaware’s campaign in the 1980s to attract capital by offering anonymity to companies registered in the state. Other states soon followed suit; in Nevada, Michel contends, it’s easier to form an anonymous shell company than to get a library card, while an estimated $900 billion is held in anonymous South Dakota trusts. Efforts to increase accountability have been resisted by business leaders and politicians including Donald Trump, who sought to abolish the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by executive order. Through rigorous research and cogent prose, Michel builds a persuasive case that the influx of unregulated money decimates America’s industrial regions and poses a grave threat to democracy. This is a stunning portrait of avarice run amok. (Nov.)