Moneyland

Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back

By Oliver Bullough

Category: Economics | Reading Duration: 19 min | Rating: 4.4/5 (329 ratings)

About the Book

Moneyland (2018) is a revealing – and worrying – examination of the lengths to which the rich and corrupt will go in order to keep their money safe. From Nevadan trusts and Angolan oil fields to Russian assassins and tropical islands, this book tracks dirty money, no matter where it goes.

Who Should Read This?

Current affairs addicts
Billionaires trying to protect their assets
Anyone working in finance

What’s in it for me? Discover the ploys the rich and disreputable use to hold on to their money.

Do you ever wonder how the rich stay that way? What exactly they do to stop taxes and tariffs from whittling away at their money? Are you curious about how they leave so much wealth to their children?If so, you’re in luck – the chapters that follow will answer all those questions and more. Illuminating the tricks and tactics employed by the rich and powerful, they touch not just on financial regulations but also on global corruption, crime, and even assassination.When finance became global, piecing things together began to get very difficult – something of which very clever and very rich people have taken great advantage. If you’re interested in finding out exactly how, dive into the chapters that follow and begin to unravel the mystery.In this summary, you’ll learn - what a wedding dress reveals about global finance;

how a T-shirt sent a terrifying message; and
which US state is a blossoming tax haven.

Chapter 1: Postwar efforts to stabilize markets quickly failed.

Prior to World War II, global finance was relatively unregulated. Money flowed rapidly among nations; it destabilized currencies and caused poverty and widespread social unrest, both factors in the outbreak of the war.Years later, with victory in sight, the Allied powers turned their attention to preventing this situation from arising again. To this end, they decided that the value of national currencies would no longer be determined by market fluctuations. Instead, they would be tied to the US dollar, the value of which was pegged to US gold reserves, a stabilizing force.The Allies also agreed that in the future, money would only be allowed to travel overseas in the form of long-term investments. Risky, short-term international investments were strictly prohibited. It was a bold and effective move – but it wasn't to last.The key message here is: Postwar efforts to stabilize markets quickly failed.These new international financial regulations worked well for a time. But before long, bankers started exploiting loopholes in the new laws. For example, although the US government oversaw American banks and regulated their loans to ensure stability, it couldn’t interfere with dollars that were stored overseas. As a result, London bankers could do what they liked with the dollars they controlled – the British government simply didn’t care. This uprooted currency became known as eurodollars, and it could flow among countries just like in the old days. This was the first blow to the stable postwar framework.Not long afterward, eurodollars were joined by an even more daring financial innovation, known as eurobonds. These new bonds were different from investments of the past. Through clever planning and artful negotiation with European authorities, bankers gave this new type of investment a whole host of attractive features. For a start, the profits earned on eurobonds were tax-free – but that’s not all. In the past, institutions that issued bonds had to record the personal details of those buying them. Eurobonds did away with this restriction. In fact, eurobonds weren't tied to individuals at all; issuing institutions simply gave buyers a coupon to be redeemed when the loan’s term had elapsed. This made them enormously appealing to individuals seeking to hide wealth.This situation was a far cry from the ideals that the Allies had advanced at the end of World War II. Instead of reining in the world of global finance, their new regulations inadvertently ushered in a new, more aggressive market – and money went global as never before.

Chapter 2: Offshore havens are perfect hubs for financial crimes and corruption.

Imagine that you’ve just defrauded your country of a few billion dollars. Where would you hide the money? Would you put it in the bank? Maybe stash it under your mattress? Please. That’s amateur thinking. As any embezzler knows, the best place to stash ill-gotten gains is offshore, in a jurisdiction with favorable laws and financial discretion. Somewhere, in short, like Nevis, a small Caribbean island with a population of just 11,000.The key message here is: Offshore havens are perfect hubs for financial crimes and corruption.When Nevis gained independence from Britain in the 1980s, a group of American lawyers led by a man named Bill Barnard had the ear of the island’s leader, Simeon Daniel. In just a few years, Daniel and these lawyers transformed Nevis into the ideal place to stash secret assets.How did they do this? Well, Nevis no longer recognizes the judgments of foreign courts, so any attempt to get at someone’s assets has to be conducted within the island’s own legal system. That means posting a $100,000 bond just to begin your case. And if more than a year has elapsed between the offense and the day you file the papers, the court will dismiss your claim.Before you get that far, though, you need to figure out whether or not the assets you’re after are in Nevis. But the island has a “confidentiality ordinance” that prohibits sharing financial information with anyone who can’t prove their right to hear it.Nevis isn’t an anomaly, either. Around the year 2000, the British island of Jersey made headlines when FIMACO, a mysterious company based on the island, attracted the attention of Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov. Skuratov noticed that FIMACO had received tens of billions of dollars from his country’s central bank. But as far as he could ascertain, the company served no purpose whatsoever. It was a shell. Skuratov suspected that the funds sent to FIMACO were being funneled back to central bank officials through other channels. This suggested widespread corruption in the central bank, with officials using the hidden funds to finance lavish lifestyles.Skuratov went public about FIMACO, and not long after he did, state-controlled TV broadcast footage of a man resembling him cavorting happily with a pair of prostitutes. The pushback seemed to confirm his suspicions. Skuratov was fired not long after, and his successor abandoned the investigation.

Chapter 3: Corrupt rulers enrich themselves in some of the world’s poorest places.

Have you ever heard of a TV show called Say Yes to the Dress? If not, the premise is simple. Each episode features a number of brides-to-be who visit an upscale New York store and pick out their dream wedding dresses. Sounds pretty uncontroversial, right?Well, it usually is. But an episode that aired in May 2015 caused quite a scandal. This installment was special, focusing on three “VIP” brides whose wedding budgets were almost unlimited. The largest bill came to $200,000, the greatest amount ever spent in the shop. That’s a lot of money, sure – but why the scandal? Well, the bride-to-be was named Naulila Diogo, and her father was a minister in Angola’s notoriously corrupt government. The money that Naulila spent on her dress raised some serious questions about the integrity of the country’s politicians and their concern for their impoverished fellow citizens.The key message here is: Corrupt rulers enrich themselves in some of the world’s poorest places.For most people in Angola, life is hard. Life expectancy there is just forty-two years, and more than 80 percent of the country lives in poverty. To put Naulila’s big purchase into perspective, if her father had earned the same amount as the country’s president, it would still have taken him two and a half years to pay for her shopping spree! So why was a government minister able to spend two hundred grand on wedding outfits for his daughter?Well, one way Angolan politicians get rich is through corruption. The country has abundant oil reserves and diamond fields, but the proceeds from selling these resources have never been widely shared. In fact, many Angolan officials have been accused of accepting bribes from Western companies in exchange for access to oil. And the dishonesty doesn’t stop there. Between 2007 and 2010, $32 billion simply disappeared from the Angolan budget! And in 2002, the governor of the country’s central bank was caught transferring $50 million of government money into his personal bank account.Back in 1999, an organization called Global Witness drew attention to corruption in Angola, but they were met with a stern rebuke from a leading Angolan politician. The man’s name? Bornito de Sousa, the father of the fashionable bride.There was a minor outcry in the Angolan media when the episode aired, but de Sousa’s reputation survived. In 2017, he became the country’s vice president.Angola may sound like an outlier, but it’s far from the only country with rampant corruption. Nor is it the worst.

Chapter 4: Corruption doesn’t respect national borders.

If you’re lucky enough to live in a relatively corruption-free country, it’s easy to imagine that the scenarios described in this summary are remote from your world. Let’s say you live in the UK, for example. Unlike in Russia or Angola, the rule of law in the UK is ironclad, and illegal dealings are quickly snuffed out. Right?Well . . . yes and no. One of the remarkable things about kleptocracy, the rule of the corrupt, is that it has an irritating knack for overcoming national borders.The key message here is: Corruption doesn’t respect national borders.Want an example of corruption reaching across borders? Well, it would be hard to find a clearer one than the 2006 murder of UK resident Edwin Carter, also known as Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, died of polonium poisoning in London in November 2006. Now, polonium is not found in the natural world, meaning that Litvinenko had almost certainly been deliberately poisoned. Why? Well, before he emigrated to the UK, Litvinenko exposed a secret Russian government organization dedicated to assassinating troublesome politicians and businessmen.When he arrived in London, Litvinenko continued to share information about kleptocrats with private investigators. The information he provided on one dangerous Russian magnate and politician led to the collapse of a multimillion-dollar deal the man was planning. And that, it seems, is what sealed his fate.Within two months, Litvinenko was dead. All signs indicated that two acquaintances of his, who visited him in London just before he fell ill, were responsible for the murder. But the men had returned to Russia by the time Litvinenko died, and their government refused to cooperate with the British investigation.In fact, one of the suspects, a man named Lugovoy, was soon awarded a medal for “services to the Fatherland,” and also won a place in the Russian parliament. As if this weren’t enough, he sent one of Litvinenko’s friends a T-shirt reading, in slightly awkward English, “Polonium-210 . . . nuclear death is knocking your door.”It seemed clear that the order to murder Litvinenko had come from high up in the Russian government. This wasn't an isolated incident, either – there have been many other murders in the UK with indications of Russian involvement. But while national borders have failed to stop these crimes, they do pose obstacles to investigations. So far, Russian authorities have refused to play ball.Increasingly, it seems that there’s no such thing as a safe place to expose the crimes of kleptocrats.

Chapter 5: The era of Swiss financial secrecy is over, but new problems have emerged.

In 2007, a banker named Bradley Birkenfeld earned himself a forty-month prison sentence and banked over $100 million in a single move. What did Birkenfeld do? He told American authorities about his involvement in a huge Swiss tax evasion scheme that deprived the US Treasury of $100 billion in tax revenue every year. As a whistleblower, Birkenfeld was entitled to a portion of that money. But because he wasn’t fully honest about his own actions, he also wound up in jail. In the past, Swiss banks had cooperated with their clients to hide assets from US authorities. But after Birkenfeld’s revelations, everything changed.The key message here is: The era of Swiss financial secrecy is over, but new problems have emerged.In light of Birkenfeld’s revelations, the United States drew up new and more stringent regulations for dealing with overseas banks. These banks would no longer be trusted to ensure that their clients paid taxes. Instead, Congress passed a law requiring all foreign financial institutions to reveal the names and assets of the US citizens on their books. If banks refused, they faced a tax of 30 percent on any investment income gained in the United States.The Act came into operation in 2015, and it’s already eradicated some common types of tax evasion. But the new system is far from perfect.Take the Common Reporting Standard, or CRS, the crown jewel in the system that takes on hidden assets all over the world. In many ways, it’s a step in the right direction. In the past, governments swapped financial account details only on request. Now, countries participating in the CRS do so automatically. This makes it far easier to identify anyone trying to evade taxes.But there’s a problem. As we’ve seen, ill-gotten gains flow out of some of the world’s poorest nations – places like Angola – at an alarming speed. But even with a mountain of financial information at their disposal, many of these countries simply can’t scour databases in search of financial wrongdoing. With their budgets already strained, they simply lack the manpower to pursue sophisticated tax evaders.What’s more, one powerful country doesn’t release data in accordance with the CRS. And it’s not a typical tax haven: it’s the United States.Although foreign banks have to tell the United States about their American clients, American banks don’t have to return the favor. As we’ll discover in the next blink, this makes the United States an increasingly attractive tax haven.

Chapter 6: Many US states are becoming international tax havens.

Some countries are notorious tax havens – Switzerland, obviously, and the Cayman Islands. But when looking for a place to stash ill-gotten billions, few of us would think of the US state of South Dakota. But we should. Why? In a word: trusts. A trust involves passing your assets to a trustee, an individual or institution that follows the instructions you laid down when you made the agreement. Before the 2007 Swiss banking scandal, South Dakota’s trustees held $32.8 billion. Just a decade later, they held $226 billion – a sevenfold increase in ten years!South Dakota isn't the only state that's abusing trusts. In fact, it's another state that really pioneered the practice: Nevada.The key message here is: Many US states are becoming international tax havens.Imagine you’re a billionaire and you’re trying to figure out how to pay as little tax as possible. You’ve heard good things about the laws in Nevada – but what exactly does the home of Las Vegas offer someone in your financial position?Well, first of all, Nevada allows you to create trusts that last 365 years. In the United States, if you use a trust to pass assets to a descendant, you only pay taxes on those assets when the trust ends. When a trust lasts for three and a half centuries, so does your tax avoidance.And it gets better. It's common practice for island tax havens such as Nevis and Jersey to make it incredibly hard for creditors to go after assets, and Nevada is much the same. If two years have passed since you put your assets in a trust, they’re untouchable. So if you go through a divorce and your ex-husband tries to claim a portion of the billions in your trust, wish him good luck! No creditor has ever managed to extract assets from a Nevada trust.Finally, Nevada can keep your billions just as secret as Swiss banks used to. If you give a non-US citizen any formal power over the trust – for example, the power to change the trustee – then for tax purposes, it’s a foreign trust. This means that the United States legally can’t share information about it with foreign governments. And if it’s registered with an American trustee, then it’s simultaneously American, according to the Common Reporting Standard. And the CRS, of course, is the one to which the United States doesn’t subscribe.In short, Nevada might just be the safest place in the world for your billions.

Final summary

The key message in this summary: **When money went global, the rich and dishonest saw an unprecedented opportunity to protect and conceal their wealth. Because laws stop at borders but money doesn’t, vast riches can be siphoned off into jurisdictions with financial secrecy and laws favorable to hiding cash. This leaves governments and regulatory bodies with little option but to chase money around the globe.

About the Author

Oliver Bullough is an award-winning non-fiction writer from Wales whose work has focused extensively on Russia and Eastern Europe. His writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Guardian, and on the BBC. He is also the author of The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame Be Great.