From the bestselling author of MONEYLAND and BUTLER TO THE WORLD, a revelatory new anatomy of global money laundering, the crime that makes crime pay
Without money laundering, few crimes of acquisition would be worth the trouble. South America's drug cartels would be stuffed without it, as would Nigerian kleptocrats, Afghan terrorists, American tax evaders and a whole bestiary of human (and animal) traffickers the world over.
And yet, estimates of the dirty portion of world GDP have held steady at 2%-5% for decades. All efforts at legislation, diplomacy, prosecution and compliance have been a complete flop. It's not a lack of will to stamp it out. It's a lack of insight. So join bestselling investigative journalist Oliver Bullough on a perspective-altering adventure through the flipside of the global economy.
In the criminal world, cash is still king (in fact, crime might now be the main thing cash is good for, and even why it still exists). Barter is pretty good too: vast, continent-wide exchanges of everything from luxury handbags to baby eels support a triangular drug trade linking Europe to the Far East. Cryptocurrencies flow through paper ledgers that would make a Florentine merchant feel at home.
And the system works. Whether you're a fraudster, a cartel boss, a corrupt politician, a kleptocrat or a terrorist mastermind, your options to move and hide your money are more secure and more impenetrable than they have ever been. There has never been a better time to be a criminal. It's time that changed.
| ISBN: | 9781399618090 |
| Publication date: | 29th January 2026 |
| Author: | Oliver Bullough |
| Publisher: | Weidenfeld & Nicolson an imprint of Orion |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 336 pages |
| Genres: |
Financial services law and regulation Currency / Foreign exchange Drugs trade / drug trafficking Corporate crime / white-collar crime Organized crime Political science and theory International economics Economic history |
From the bestselling author of MONEYLAND and BUTLER TO THE WORLD, a revelatory new anatomy of global money laundering, the crime that makes crime pay
Without money laundering, few crimes of acquisition would be worth the trouble. South America's drug cartels would be stuffed without it, as would Nigerian kleptocrats, Afghan terrorists, American tax evaders and a whole bestiary of human (and animal) traffickers the world over.
And yet, estimates of the dirty portion of world GDP have held steady at 2%-5% for decades. All efforts at legislation, diplomacy, prosecution and compliance have been a complete flop. It's not a lack of will to stamp it out. It's a lack of insight. So join bestselling investigative journalist Oliver Bullough on a perspective-altering adventure through the flipside of the global economy.
In the criminal world, cash is still king (in fact, crime might now be the main thing cash is good for, and even why it still exists). Barter is pretty good too: vast, continent-wide exchanges of everything from luxury handbags to baby eels support a triangular drug trade linking Europe to the Far East. Cryptocurrencies flow through paper ledgers that would make a Florentine merchant feel at home.
And the system works. Whether you're a fraudster, a cartel boss, a corrupt politician, a kleptocrat or a terrorist mastermind, your options to move and hide your money are more secure and more impenetrable than they have ever been. There has never been a better time to be a criminal. It's time that changed.
Everybody Loves Our Dollars features in the following genres: Political science and theory, Drugs trade / drug trafficking, Organized crime, International economics
Everybody Loves Our Dollars is available in Hardback
Everybody Loves Our Dollars was written by Oliver Bullough and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson an imprint of Orion
Everybody Loves Our Dollars has 336 pages
£22.50