Casey Michel is a writer and journalist based in New York City. His writings on offshoring, kleptocracy, and financial secrecy have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Vox, The New Republic, and POLITICO Magazine, among others. He is an Adjunct Fellow for the Hudson Institute's Kleptocracy Initiative, and has contributed research pertaining to offshoring, illicit finance, and foreign interference to the German Marshall Fund, the Human Rights Foundation, and others. He received his Master's degree in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies from Columbia University's Harriman Institute, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Kazakhstan. American Kleptocracy is his first book.
"Brilliantly clear." --Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic "Fluid,
coherent and entertaining." --The Economist "Michel masterfully
recounts the tragicomic outcomes when outré autocrats meet
serviceable financial and legal systems....deserve(s) praise for
going beyond moralising and pointing out how an industry geared to
enabling the corrupt is not just unsavoury but can hurt a country's
real economic prospects." --Financial Times "Michel's diligent
dissection is...a capable, eye-opening account of laissez faire
financial laws and practices that serve the interest of criminals
alone." --Kirkus Reviews
"A blistering account of how greed, deregulation, and deliberate
avoidance have enabled dictators and drug cartels to launder their
illicit profits in the U.S....Through rigorous research and cogent
prose, Michel builds a persuasive case that the influx of
unregulated money decimates America's industrial regions and poses
a grave threat to democracy. This is a stunning portrait of avarice
run amok." --Publishers Weekly "Michel's clear prose helps make a
complicated subject comprehensible, and leaves readers with some
hope that financial corruption may not be so inevitable after all."
--Booklist "[Michel] is a masterful storyteller who grips readers
with truthful and disturbing accounts of outlandish
schemes...eye-opening and comprehensive." --Library Journal
"Michel, a dogged investigative reporter, is as knowledgeable as
they come on financial corruption in and around the United States.
In American Kleptocracy, he brings it all together....Michel makes
a convincing case that there has never been an illicit financial
system as robust and versatile as the one the U.S. has created, a
shadow economy servicing financiers, lobbyists, old money and the
newly corrupted." --CrimeReads "Clearly-written, compelling and
fast-paced...a clarion call for citizens and those at all levels of
government who have not yet realized that we need to clean up our
own act to protect ourselves from predatory adversaries." --Fiona
Hill, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution "Casey Michel
brings home the extent to which the United States has fueled money
laundering, corruption, and other crimes plaguing the world. His
passionate writing comes from his outrage at what has gone on in
our own backyard and his understanding of what is at stake, namely
trillions of dollars hidden from our national treasury with help
from U.S. banks. Readers will learn why it is critical for
Americans to look inward and do more to stop the abuses here at
home that are helping to power illicit finance around the
world."
--Senator Carl Levin "Remarkable and well-researched....Casey
Michel shows how the US has taken the top spot at the ease of doing
illicit business legally." --Katharina Pistor, author of Code of
Capital "Remarkable and perspicacious...an important and
eye-opening book." --Bradley Hope, New York Times bestselling
co-author of Billion Dollar Whale "Casey Michel cuts through the
spin, to reveal the inner workings of the American economy. His
writing has shown again and again the subterfuges and secrecy at
the heart of how money moves through the financial system, and does
it with panache, wit, and a blessed aversion to jargon." --Oliver
Bullough, author of the international bestseller Moneyland: The
Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World
"Casey is the foremost journalistic voice in the fight against
kleptocracy. No other individual is so consistently on the case and
interested in both the actors and the possible policy responses.
His knowledge of the existential danger posed by kleptocracy is bar
none, and we rely on his work like no one else to inform
policy."
--Paul Massaro, Congressional Policy Advisor, U.S. Helsinki
Commission "American Kleptocracy is essential reading to understand
how the U.S. has become the global destination for dirty money.
Michel exposes the international shell games that the super-wealthy
and their professional enablers deploy to launder and stash cash.
He exposes why this matters, as illicit funds disrupt local real
estate markets and undermine honest economic activity." --Chuck
Collins, Institute for Policy Studies, author of The Wealth
Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions "An
indefatigable young American journalist who has virtually cornered
the international kleptocracy beat on the US end of the black
aquifer." --The Los Angeles Review of Books "In this vitally
important book, Casey Michel follows the money. He shows us how,
and why, so much of it ends up in American luxury real estate,
hedge funds, startups, and shell corporations. Compelling true-life
stories, carefully marshaled statistics, and careful analysis
combine to make Michel's book the must-read account of one of the
key challenges of our time." --Dan Nexon, Professor of Government
and Foreign Service at Georgetown University and co-author of Exit
from Hegemony "Casey Michel has written a vivid, compelling account
of the terrifying march of dirty money. His book helps us
understand how some of America's abiding ideals--property, privacy,
philanthropy, free markets, capitalism, even democracy itself--are
being hijacked. American Kleptocracy should be read urgently by
anyone who wants to preserve open societies and the rule of law."
--Tom Burgis, author of Kleptopia "Casey Michel's book is a wake-up
call: America has become the money laundering capital of the world.
The book underlines: If you want to interrupt corrupt money flows
you should start in the U.S." --Frederik Obermaier, author of The
Panama Papers "A superb, read-it-immediately study of one of the
darkest phenomena of our times." --Ben Judah, author of This is
London
"If the right person writes the right book, and enough of the right
people read it, incredible changes can take place. Casey Michel has
written such a book. In the right hands, it could spur policy
shifts in the U.S. that would have global ramifications." --Jasmin
Mujanovic, author of Hunger and Fury "Compelling and
colorful....Casey Michel is one of the United States' brightest
emerging foreign policy thinkers--a scholar, journalist and policy
expert who has spent years chronicling the rise of globalized
corruption in meticulous detail. In American Kleptocracy, he
provides the definitive account of the defining threat of our
era--weaving together an irresistible narrative with a bold but
pragmatic agenda for reform that can end America's complicity in
foreign corruption." --Nate Sibley, Head of Hudson Institute's
Kleptocracy Initiative "Excellent...Michel's genius lies in his
narrative, which weaves together the development of U.S. financial
secrecy and countermoves with actions in the United States of two
of the world's great kleptocrats." --Anders Åslund, Just Security
"Rule-of-law democracies are engaged in a clash of civilizations
against international criminals, kleptocrats, and corrupt
politicians. Michel exposes the troubling role the U.S. has played
in facilitating the dark economy and underscores the urgent need
for transparency, reform, and accountability." --Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse
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