"How to Steal a Trillion Dollars", The Inner Workings of Kleptocracy and What we can do about it

IDD welcomed Oliver Bullough, author and journalist to discuss his book “How to Steal a Trillion Dollars”, The Inner Workings of Kleptocracy and What We Can Do About It.

Abstract: COVID19 is not just a viral pandemic, it has also unleashed a pandemic of fraud. From Bolivia to the Philippines, and from Ukraine to Zimbabwe, unscrupulous officials and politicians are exploiting the crisis to get rich. They are stealing from healthcare budgets, awarding contracts to their friends, hiding the proceeds, and condemning ordinary people to suffer through the disease without the treatment they need. This is not sadly a new thing: for decades, the globalised financial system has provided a shadow network to loot developing countries, and to spend that money in places like Britain. More than a trillion dollars a year goes missing. How does this work? And what can we do about it?

Speaker bio: Oliver Bullough is an author and journalist from Wales, whose journalism appears in The Guardian, the New York Times, GQ and elsewhere. He is the author of three books, of which the latest is the Sunday Times bestseller Moneyland, why thieves and crooks now rule the world and how to take it back.