I have never understood how some leader of a country can steal so blatantly from their own people, then, when ousted, take their ill gotten gains and move to another country with total impunity! How does the host country allow this scam?! The money ought to be returned from whence it came! Those host countries are abetting criminals! Disgraceful. Very good read. Well written and great research.

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1QW04VNXM2H6I/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1501705512">This review</a> on Amazon says it well: <blockquote>Sharman is not the easiest author to read. He is laborious, constantly telling readers what he is about to say in the next few paragraphs and telling them that he has already mentioned some fact or person several times in previous paragraphs or chapters. Getting to the point is not a priority of his. But the basic investigative facts are impressive and revealing.</blockquote>

So, don't read this book for juicy details about the wretched excess of the most reprehensible people in the world, but do read it for the nuts-and-bolts of corruption. Since, sadly, I have never been in close enough proximity to truly interesting sums of money to gain first hand knowledge, I have idly wondered – how does grand corruption work? “Good morning, I'd like to deposit this suitcase full of blood-stained dollars.” “Certainly sir, right this way...”

Well, not quite like that, but not completely different either. All you really need is a relatively small number of people with a completely busted moral compass and no qualms about claiming to be an idiot if that what it takes to keep everybody out of jail. For example, if you work for an Australian bank and you blithely passed on an electronic bank transfer that was annotated (I am not making this up, see Kindle location 2925) “This is for jihad, [very bad word]!”, all you have to do, apparently, to escape time in the slammer is to insist with a straight face that you didn't know what “jihad” meant.

On the other hand, to stop or slow the flow of dirty money, or to extract the proceeds of evil activity from the claws of the heinous, you apparently need a large number of lawyers who are willing to forgo better-paying and less-frustrating jobs available in virtually every other type of lawyerly practice in favor of doing the right thing by powerless strangers who will never, ever, be able to advance a career. Surprisingly, such people seem to exist in large enough numbers to keep the asset recovery business chugging along nicely. This is encouraging because, as the author notes, what the world needs now is not more laws about this matter but somebody doing the unrewarding grunt work of enforcing and implementing the laws that are there already.

There's a lot of interesting information connected with this book on the 'net. I first read about it in The Economist magazine <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21717354-despite-improvements-fighting-grand-corruption-remains-struggle">here</a>. The Diplomat web site has a review <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2017/02/despots-guide-to-wealth-management-corruption-down-under/">here</a> which concentrates on Australia's sad record as a financial haven for the corrupt. Sharman also details Australia's shortcomings in YouTube videos <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8NiZqNcWag">here</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMbJbm8boBk">here</a>.

I received an free unfinished galley of the ebook for review. Thank you to <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> and <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100934080">Cornell University Press</a> for their generosity.

At the end of the Cold War, the tolerance for shady client states started to evaporate, revealing that leaders like the Bongos and Mobutu had strategically placed their loot in countries with strong rule of law and respect for property rights--i.e., exactly those nation which now wanted "good governance" and wondered why places with oil, cobalt and diamonds had such poor people. Sharman examines the change in tolerance, as well as the attempts to freeze and reclaim assets through programs like the UN's StAR office, as well as the cold shoulder most receive. The realities of kleptocracy are new to Americans, but long-familiar to almost everyone else.

It took until the 1990s for the West to admit that its donations to developing nations were largely stolen by local officials. Finally embarrassed as to how useless it has all been, the UN and the World Bank both instituted programs to recover stolen funds. (In the West, bribery is more common than theft, to the point where it was until recently a deductible expense. As a proportion of the economy, it is trivial.) Since then, various nations have slowly come around to implementing laws whereby they can seize and repatriate assets. Sharman focuses on four of them: Switzerland, Australia, UK and USA. This is the juicy theme of The Despots’ Guide to Wealth Management.

Sharman says many of the world’s governments are actually “criminal conspiracies” for elites to “plunder the countries they rule”. Even (if not especially) candidates who run on anti-corruption platforms turn out to be as corrupt as any, blocking investigations while spending billions abroad as the nation starves. Not caring where the money came from, many countries love the influx of currency. Australia in particular says it is nobody’s business as long as it is put to legitimate use in Australia. So it has become famous for noncooperation and even obfuscation of victim countries’ efforts. It has also become a prime attraction for Chinese and Papua New Guinea billions. China estimates several hundred billion dollars has gone missing, and well over ten thousand nationals have been buying houses, apartments and businesses overseas – then following along (usually via a third country to avoid suspicion) once their families are safely ensconced.

The game is rife with hypocrisy. While Xi Jinping purges 180,000 officials for corruption, his own family has suddenly been able to purchase tens of millions worth of Hong Kong and Chinese luxury real estate. Possibly more obnoxious is the USA, where the government berates banks for not catching deposits of ill-gotten wealth, while the government itself welcomes the same criminals to state dinners, debt forgiveness and billions in more aid.

Sharman is not the easiest author to read. He is laborious, constantly telling readers what he is about to say in the next few paragraphs and telling them that he has already mentioned some fact or person several times in previous paragraphs or chapters. Getting to the point is not a priority of his. But the basic investigative facts are impressive and revealing. What has been recovered is a rounding error on the total, and the patchwork of laws does little to crack the overall scheme of money laundering. Sharman sees little light on the horizon; laws will remain weak or unused, reporters will find out more than prosecutors, and the lawyers will continue to do best of all.

David Wineberg