"Robinson is an expert story teller whose clear, lively prose is lent force by a sharp sense of irony... rich in history and awash in the colourful villains who invented and refined money-laundering."
-- Globe and Mail
In 1994, when Jeffrey Robinson, author of The Laundrymen, first brought to the world's attention the problems of dirty money -- revealing how otherwise legitimate lawyers, bankers, accountants and even governments were helping drug traffickers hide the proceeds of their crimes -- he labeled money laundering the world's third largest business, estimating that at any given time there was around $300 Billion circling the globe, looking to get clean. Now, following in the footsteps of two previous international bestsellers -- The Laundrymen and The Merger -- Jeffrey Robinson brings the story of dirty money full circle, back to the offshore islands in paradise where the business of crime does its banking.
He calculates that the dirty money business has doubled in under ten years and has become so sophisticated that law enforcement and concerned governments flounder in its wake. He lays blame on the offshore world.
Tracking the route it takes, Robinson shows how dirty money -- for the most part, the proceeds of drugs , corruption and fraud -- drives much of the world's economy, how a few people have tried to do something about it, and how an unlikely cabal of powerful forces -- politicians, government agents, major corporations, criminals, and terrorists -- are intent on maintaining the status quo.
An eye-opening tour de force of investigative journalism, Robinson reveals the state of the art of business-as-crime worldwide. He lifts the lid on the lawyers, bankers, accountants, company formation agents, CEOs, and despots who have created -- and who actively sustain -- a world of window-dressing regulations where criminals and corporate giants live side by side, and by the same rules, beyond the reach of governments and the law.
"A lively anecdotal guide to the laundry business and related scams extending from cable piracy to internet casinos, pyramid selling, telemarketing fraud, disguised loans, kickbacks, false end-user certificates for everything from cigarettes to arms, to something called death-spiralling, a scheme devised to run a company's share price into the ground while selling to mug punters. But for human ingenuity at its most calculated, Modern Jihad comes up with the example of opium- addicted camels being used to carry unaccompanied contraband across the Iranian desert, travelling from one fix to the next.
-- The Guardian
"A frightening read for those believe in the sanctity and security of the banking system."
-- Nick Leeson, Management Today
"Robinson explains carefully and engagingly how and why money is hidden behind the names of non-existent corporations in barely plausible countries."
-- Time Out
"This is a book to give western governments nightmares... the whole black finance system has been allowed to infiltrate legitimate economies and banks to such an extent that it is virtually indestructible."
-- The Director
