‘Casey Michel has written a vivid, compelling account of the terrifying march of dirty money. His book helps us understand how some of America's abiding ideals — property, privacy, philanthropy, free markets, capitalism, even democracy itself — are being hijacked. American Kleptocracy should be read urgently by anyone who wants to preserve open societies and the rule of law.’
Tom Burgis, author of Kleptopia
‘Casey Michel’s book is a wake-up call: America has become the money laundering capital of the world. The book underlines: If you want to interrupt corrupt money flows you should start in the U.S.’
Frederik Obermaier, author of The Panama Papers
‘Michel masterfully recounts the tragicomic outcomes when outre autocrats meet serviceable financial and legal systems.’
Martin Sandbu, Financial Times
‘If the right person writes the right book, and enough of the right people read it, incredible changes can take place. Casey Michel has written such a book. In the right hands, it could spur policy shifts in the U.S. that would have global ramifications.’
Jasmin Mujanovic, author of Hunger and Fury
‘Mr Michel builds his book around two characters, both prolific users of America’s financial-secrecy infrastructure, deftly weaving together their stories and his analysis.’
The Economist
‘A superb, read-it-immediately study of one of the darkest phenomena of our times.’
Ben Judah, author of This is London
‘Remarkable and well-researched … Casey Michel shows how the U.S. has taken the top spot at the ease of doing illicit business legally.’
Katharina Pistor, author of Code of Capital
‘Casey Michel brings home the extent to which the United States has fuelled money laundering, corruption, and other crimes plaguing the world. His passionate writing comes from his outrage at what has gone on in our own backyard and his understanding of what is at stake, namely trillions of dollars hidden from our national treasury with help from U.S. banks. Readers will learn why it is critical for Americans to look inward and do more to stop the abuses here at home that are helping to power illicit finance around the world.’
Senator Carl Levin
‘Rule-of-law democracies are engaged in a clash of civilisations against international criminals, kleptocrats, and corrupt politicians. Michel exposes the troubling role the U.S. has played in facilitating the dark economy and underscores the urgent need for transparency, reform, and accountability.’
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
‘Compelling and colourful … Casey Michel is one of the United States’ brightest emerging foreign policy thinkers — a scholar, journalist and policy expert who has spent years chronicling the rise of globalised corruption in meticulous detail. In American Kleptocracy, he provides the definitive account of the defining threat of our era — weaving together an irresistible narrative with a bold but pragmatic agenda for reform that can end America’s complicity in foreign corruption.’
Nate Sibley head of Hudson Institute's Kleptocracy Initiative
‘Clearly-written, compelling and fast-paced … a clarion call for citizens and those at all levels of government who have not yet realised that we need to clean up our own act to protect ourselves from predatory adversaries.’
Fiona Hill, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
‘An indefatigable young American journalist who has virtually cornered the international kleptocracy beat on the U.S. end of the black aquifer.’
The Los Angeles Review of Books
‘American Kleptocracy is essential reading to understand how the U.S. has become the global destination for dirty money. Michel exposes the international shell games that the super-wealthy and their professional enablers deploy to launder and stash cash. He exposes why this matters, as illicit funds disrupt local real estate markets and undermine honest economic activity.’
Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, and author of The Wealth Hoarders: how billionaires pay millions to hide trillions
‘In this vitally important book, Casey Michel follows the money. He shows us how, and why, so much of it ends up in American luxury real estate, hedge funds, startups, and shell corporations. Compelling true-life stories, carefully marshaled statistics, and careful analysis combine to make Michel’s book the must-read account of one of the key challenges of our time.’
Dan Nexon, professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony
‘[Casey Michel is] owed a debt of gratitude by free people everywhere.’
Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation
‘Journalist Michel debuts with a blistering account of how greed, deregulation, and deliberate avoidance have enabled dictators and drug cartels to launder their illicit profits in the US … Through rigorous research and cogent prose, Michel builds a persuasive case that the influx of unregulated money decimates America’s industrial regions and poses a grave threat to democracy. This is a stunning portrait of avarice run amok.’
Publishers Weekly
‘Michel’s clear prose helps make a complicated subject comprehensible, and leaves readers with some hope that financial corruption may not be so inevitable after all.’
Booklist
‘[Michel] is a masterful storyteller who grips readers with truthful and disturbing accounts of outlandish schemes … eye-opening and comprehensive.’
Library Journal
‘Michel, a dogged investigative reporter, is as knowledgeable as they come on financial corruption in and around the United States. In American Kleptocracy, he brings it all together … Michel makes a convincing case that there has never been an illicit financial system as robust and versatile as the one the US has created, a shadow economy servicing financiers, lobbyists, old money and the newly corrupted.’
CrimeReads
‘[A] compact grenade of a book.’
Gideon Haigh, The Weekend Australian
