How did London become the world’s dirty money capital?

The Bunker

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nearly 40 per cent of the world’s dirty money flows through London, but what role have British institutions played in helping wealthy elites launder cash? Today on The Bunker, Tom Mayne, journalist and co-author of Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption, joins Seth Thévoz to discuss how deregulation, weak enforcement, and the UK’s libel laws have enabled corruption to thrive in the capital. Buy Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund The Bunker by earning us a small commission for every sale. https://bookshop.org/’s fees help support independent bookshops too. We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to https://Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit. www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Seth Thévoz. Producer: Liam Tait. Audio editors: Charlie Duffield and Robin Leeburn. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Like the podcast but not the adverts, support us on Patreon and get every episode ad-free.
0:05.6	Follow the link in the show notes to find out more.
0:09.0	Amazon offers term time working to their employees, like Anton,
0:13.6	who's home to look after his daughters during their holidays.
0:18.1	Hello!
0:19.0	To him, this is the best sound in the world.
0:25.3	Actually, maybe that's the best sound of all.
0:29.4	Now that's term time working.
0:31.8	Offered at Amazon.
0:33.4	Ten weeks off guaranteed per year.
0:35.2	Mix of paid holiday and unpaid time off.
0:37.3	Conditions apply.
0:46.2	Hello and welcome to The Bunker. You'll need to know on news and politics. I'm Seth Teville.
0:51.7	Listeners to The Bunker are no strangers, the tales of bribery, corruption and dodgy
0:56.1	oligarchs. Dealing with such topics, a major new book, Berksford University Press just came out.
1:01.9	Indulging kleptocracy, British service providers, post-communist elites, and enabling corruption.
1:08.3	It looks at why the UK is such a magnet for this shadowy world,
1:12.1	and I'm joined here by one of the authors, Tom Mayne of Exeter University. Welcome to the bunker, Tom.
1:16.8	Thank you. Great to be here. We often look at countries like Russia and call them kleptocracies.
1:21.5	Maybe we can start by just defining what do we mean by a kleptocracy.
1:24.7	Sure, well, the etymology means rule by thieves, but when we look at it in detail,
1:30.4	we're talking about a country where there is systemic grand corruption, where the leaders of that
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Podmasters, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Podmasters and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.