AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020


A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020


‘If you think the UK isn't corrupt, you haven't looked hard enough … This new and terrifying book follows a global current of dirty money, and the murders and kidnappings required to sustain it’ GEORGE MONBIOT, GUARDIAN

‘When you pick this book up, you won’t be able to put it down’ MISHA GLENNY, author of MCMAFIA

'Combines forensic investigative journalism with the narrative propulsion of a literary thriller. The result is a masterful, gripping read that is all the more disturbing because it's true' NATHAN FILER, bestselling author of THE SHOCK OF THE FALL

‘Gripping, disturbing and deeply reported’ BEN RHODES, bestselling author of THE WORLD AS IT IS

In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis reveals a terrifying global web of corruption.


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 Trump White House, it shows how the thieves are uniting – and the terrible human cost.

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 – the world’s piggy bank for blood money.

Riveting, horrifying and written like fiction, this book shows that while we are looking the other way, all that we hold most dear is being stolen.