From the bestselling author of Butler to the World, Drugs for Gucci reveals how organised criminals move vast amounts of dirty money around the globe, how they escape the eyes of law enforcement and how they turn their ill-gotten income into vast amounts of legitimately recognised wealth.
Without the existence of money laundering, few crimes of acquisition would be worth the effort required to commit them. But despite decades of effort expended on stamping it out, money laundering is more ubiquitous than ever, with organised criminals coming up with ever more innovative and efficient ways to clean their cash. With forensic precision, Oliver Bullough pulls back the curtain on this shadow financial system and joins together the dots of a sophisticated international operation that connects illegal logging in Papua New Guinea, real estate purchases in Vancouver, terrorism in the Middle East and capital flight from China.
Drawing on complex court records and first-hand accounts from convicted money launderers, prosecutors and serious fraud officers, Bullough reveals that there may, in fact, be a way to stop crime from paying - if only we are prepared to enter the tunnel at the heart of the global economy and see where it leads . . .