An investigative journalist follows illicit fortunes — built by former Soviet officials, Central Asian oligarchs, and their intermediaries — as they're laundered through Western banks, law firms, real estate, and shell companies until the money emerges clean.
Burgis's central subject is the infrastructure of laundering itself: the lawyers, bankers, and registered-agent firms in London, Delaware, and elsewhere whose ordinary professional services are the mechanism by which looted state wealth becomes legitimate-looking private capital.
He traces how sovereign wealth funds and state-linked investment vehicles — the same category of institution behind the Gulf-fund deals that recur throughout this tracker — can function as laundering conduits as easily as legitimate investors, with little to visibly distinguish one from the other.
The book's throughline is that Western institutions aren't passive victims of kleptocratic money; the professionals who move it are often willing, well-compensated participants, and their participation is what makes the whole system function.