Yet until just a few weeks ago, a first cousin to money laundering received far less attention: money washing. The conversion of corrupt, if not illegal, oligarch money into Kensington flats and Premier League football clubs. London, aka Londongrad, has become the global capital of money washing, but it’s more widespread than that. Much more. The sources of this money are kleptocratic regimes: Governments that operate like organized crime syndicates, extracting wealth from the resources and hard work of the people they rule. Think of Russia, Saudi Arabia, the other petrol states, and countries ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe where corruption lets billions leak from the legitimate economy into the pockets of the elite, the patrons of the money washers.

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