Audiobooks by Tom Burgis

Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth

'BREATH-TAKING AND JAW-DROPPING' PETER FRANKOPAN 'A TRUE-LIFE TRHILLER' ANNE APPLEBAUM From the bestselling author of Kleptopia comes a true story about Cuckooland – a world where the rich can buy everything – including the truth. Everywhere, the powerful are making a renewed claim to the greatest prize of all: to own the truth. The power to choose what you want reality to be and impose that reality on the world. For three years, Tom Burgis followed a lead that took him deeper and deeper into Cuckooland – the place where the rich own the truth. The trail snaked from the Kremlin to Kathmandu, Stockholm to the Steppe, from a blood-soaked town square in Uzbekistan to a royal retreat in Scotland. Burgis hunted down oligarchs, developed secret sources and traced vast sums of money flowing between multinational corporations, ex-Soviet dictators and the west’s ruling elites. And he found one man who wanted the power to bend reality to his will. This book tells an astonishing story: a tale of secrets and lies that reveals how fragile that truth can be. Whether it’s in Kazakh torture chambers or the UK’s High Court, the lords of Cuckooland are seizing control of the truth. They decree what stories may be told about war and money and power, what we are permitted to know – and more importantly, what we are not. From the bestselling author of Kleptopia, Cuckooland is a deeply reported work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller. It is a story of how globalisation and technological revolution have combined to imperil the foundation of free societies: that the truth belongs to the many, not the few.

Tom Burgis (Author), Joe Eyre (Narrator)

Audiobook

Kleptopia: Wie Geheimdienste, Banken und Konzerne mit schmutzigem Geld die Welt erobern

Vom Kreml bis Peking, von Harare bis Riad und von Paris bis zum Weißen Haus - in Kleptopia folgt der preisgekrOnte EnthUllungsjournalist Tom Burgis dem schmutzigen Geld, das die Weltwirtschaft Uberflutet, Diktatoren ermutigt und Demokratien schwAcht. Burgis folgt in seinem Buch vier Spuren, die ein globales Netz der Korruption aufdecken: den Unruhestifter aus England, der Uber die Geheimnisse einer Schweizer Bank stolpert, den ehemaligen sowjetischen MilliardAr, der ein privates Imperium aufbaut, den rechtschaffenen kanadischen Anwalt mit einem mysteriOsen Klienten und den von der CIA geschUtzten Gauner aus Brooklyn. Ein packender Reality-Thriller, der zeigt, wie kriminelle Korruption die Politik und Rechtssysteme auch in etablierten Demokratien unterwandert.

Tom Burgis (Author), Simon Diez (Narrator)

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Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World

‘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 ‘A must-read … Magisterial’ Washington Post ‘Read Kleptopia now’ Roberto Saviano, bestselling author of Gomorrah ‘[A] landmark book’ Jon Snow They are everywhere, the thieves and their people. Masters of secrecy. Until now we have detected their presence only by what they leave behind. 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. They have amassed more money than most countries. But what they are really stealing is power. In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together four stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption: the troublemaker from Basingstoke who stumbles on the secrets of a Swiss bank, the ex-Soviet billionaire constructing a private empire, the righteous Canadian lawyer with a mysterious client, and the Brooklyn crook protected by the CIA. Kleptopia follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, it shows how the thieves are uniting – and the terrible human cost. While we are looking the other way, all that we hold most dear is being stolen.

Tom Burgis (Author), Tom Burgis (Narrator)

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The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent. In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it's a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states' value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa's new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft; their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline. This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa's past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africa's resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth $333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction. But who received the money? For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels France's nuclear reactors. In petro-states like Angola three-quarters of government revenue comes from oil. The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them. A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states; their people are largely serfs. The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force. What is happening in Africa's resource states is systematic looting.

Tom Burgis (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa's Wealth

Overseas Press Club Award Winner 2016 A shocking investigative journey into the way the resource trade wreaks havoc on Africa, 'The Looting Machine' explores the dark underbelly of the global economy. Africa: the world's poorest continent and, arguably, its richest. While accounting for just 2 percent of global GDP, it is home to 15 per cent of the planet's crude oil, 40 per cent of its gold and 80 per cent of its platinum. A third of the earth's mineral deposits lie beneath its soil. But far from being a salvation, this buried treasure has been a curse. 'The Looting Machine' takes you on a gripping and shocking journey through anonymous boardrooms and glittering headquarters to expose a new form of financialized colonialism. Africa's booming growth is driven by the voracious hunger for natural resources from rapidly emerging economics such as China. But in the shadows a network of traders, bankers and corporate raiders has sprung up to grease the palms of venal local political elites. What is happening in Africa's resource states is systematic looting. In country after country across the continent, the resource industry is tearing at the very fabric of society. But, like its victims, the beneficiaries of this looting machine have names. For six years Tom Burgis has been on a mission to expose corruption and give voice to the millions of Africans who suffer the consequences of living under this curse. Combining deep reporting with an action-packed narrative, he travels to the heart of Africa's resource states, meeting a warlord in Nigeria's oil-soaked Niger Delta and crossing a warzone to reach a remote mineral mine in eastern Congo. The result is a blistering investigation that throws a completely fresh light on the workings of the global economy and will make you think twice about what goes into the mobile phone in your pocket and the tank of your car.

Tom Burgis (Author), Dugald Bruce Lockhart (Narrator)

Audiobook