6/7/2023 0 Comments The looting machine reviewI especially appreciated a concept from an Angola specialist Burgis met: When Burgis isn't able to get the exact details, he still illuminates the general mechanisms by which the resource wealth of African states is funneled into the hidden bank accounts of the political elites. He runs into major roadblocks when investigating Chinese companies generally and the shadowy "Queensway Group" in particular. Yet there was only so much of the hidden financial web that Burgis could untangle. I was shocked by his level of access to the highest levels of African government and industry. He names names and backs up his claims with painstaking on-the-ground investigative reporting. Noting that "like its victims, its beneficiaries have names," Burgis dives into the specifics in African resource states from Angola to Zimbabwe. Financial Times reporter Tom Burgis traces the illicit flows of tens of billions of dollars of African natural resource wealth to local dictators, Western corporations and financial elites, and - more recently - massive Chinese enterprises. But all of these pale in comparison to the scale of the financial crimes described in "The Looting Machine". For my 2018 "Year of Crime and Punishment," I've been reading about bank heists, insider trading, contract killing, and identity theft.
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