Feeding Dictators
Polish journalist Witold Szablowski has spent his career investigating what dictators like to eat.
China, Land of Flying Money
A system of money transfer dating back to the Tang Dynasty is undergoing a revival, thanks to money smugglers in China.
Dubai, Refuge for Oligarchs and Kleptocrats
Dubai booms in times of trouble. The cast of plutocrats setting up there to live their best life away from prying eyes is unbelievable.
Rich List: Nazarbayev's Shrinking Billions
Nursultan Nazarbayev erected a gleaming, ego-fueled capital in the middle of the steppe and amassed one of the greatest fortunes on earth.
CRAFT: Hunting Viktor Bout
In 2008, Robert “Zach” Zachariasiewicz – then a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration – was in a Bangkok police station. Sitting across the table was Viktor Bout, a notorious Soviet-born arms dealer that Zach had been investigating. Bout had just been arrested in a hotel conference room, where
Mapping Networks of Money and Power
Over three decades ago, an international bank called BCCI was shut down by regulators. BCCI had been bankrolling the criminal activities of fraudsters and dictators, as well as CIA operations abroad. The collapse of BCCI became the obsession of a struggling artist named Mark Lombardi who was moonlighting as a
RICH LIST: All the Ships in the World
By now we’ve all heard about the ballooning wealth of America’s garden variety billionaires. But further down the rich list, quietly climbing the rankings is Gianluigi Aponte, an Italian shipping magnate whose fortune at least doubled during the pandemic. Aponte represents a hidden class of the ultra-rich whose
Empire of Ink
On paper, you don't really need to know about a company called SICPA. Even the name is a bit of a turn-off. Ink? Who cares? But SICPA is actually a very powerful and secretive company with tentacles across the world. That ink? It's a special type called optically variable ink,