Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former dictator, had a personal fortune of more than $2 billion; 40% of Angolans live on less than $20 a month. And Vladimir Putin has stolen so much from Russia and its citizens, that he—not Bezos, Musk, or Gates—may be the richest person alive. As Frank Vogl shows in his deeply researched and damning new book, laundering the dirty cash of kleptocrats into safe investments could not happen without the help of Western bankers, lawyers, accountants, and realtors – these are the enablers.

Vogl, the co-founder and former vice-chairman of the leading global organization fighting corruption, Transparency International, and the chairman of another, the Partnership for Transparency Fund, dives into the global financial trenches, tracking the trillions of illicit dollars zipping around the world and propping up authoritarian regimes. He describes the critical roles being played by the enablers to serve kleptocrats who are in power in scores of countries, including Russia, China, Iran, Egypt, Hungary, and Nigeria. Staggering sums of government cash have been stolen and laundered on a rapidly rising scale into investments in the wealthiest Western nations with the help of firms like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, BNP-Paribas, and HSBC, alongside leading law firms, auditors, real estate brokers based in the world’s major financial centers.