Clipocracy is on the rise and the transnational networks of corrupt states and their

enablers are threatening democracies too.

Not only of Putin's corrupt networks been exposed by the conflict in Ukraine,

we've seen far more corruption at home in the UK and the US.

The latter is often seen in its most obvious form,

access to preferential COVID contracts, or financing political campaigns in ways that feel like bribes.

But corruption becomes an organizing system that chokes societies and is increasingly creeping into the West in ways that experts say undermine our way of life and our security.

I'm immemobiles and this is not a Welcome to this is not a drill. In today's episode I'm joined by a

longtime corruption analyst and author Sarah Chase and guardian

investigations correspondent Tom Burgess to unpack how kleptocracies and corrupt networks operate globally,

and to ask how much of a threat it poses to global security,

and whether the networks of enablers are undermining our democracy.

Joining me now is Sarah Chase, longtime corruption analyst and author of several books

about corruption, the most recent of which is called everybody knows corruption in America.

Sarah your interest in corruption appears to have begun organically from

diagnosing issues in Afghanistan when you were working there and then writing about the dangers of corruption there and then following that thread on to look at other countries in the US.

Can you briefly explain how it was you came to see corruption as a pernicious issue,

particularly when you were in a context that was rife with pernicious or complex issues?

Yeah, it definitely came to me. I didn't come to it. It's not like I went to

Afghanistan with this bee in my bonnet about how we needed to impose so-called

Western standards on a country for which corruption was just part of the

culture. It was the reverse. It was Afghans who came to me. I went to, I mean, initially I founded a radio station right you know and I was with a group of

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