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The Mysterious Mercenaries Flooding into Ukraine

by Bradley Hope /
By Lucy Woods Operating largely in the shadows, the Wagner Group has been dubbed the "Kremlin’s private army." Now in Ukraine, they are emerging from the shadows. In late February, The Times reported that 400 mercenaries were sent to Kyiv by order of the Kremlin. They are

CRAFT: The Ambassador

by Tom Wright /
Kirk Wagar's career path has taken some interesting detours. Het set up his own law firm in Miami in the 1990s and has been involved in Democratic politics for over thirty years, acting as Florida Finance Chairman for President Obama's two election victories. In 2013, Obama

What Did Goldman Know? Part II

by Tom Wright /
As the criminal trial of a former Goldman Sachs banker continues this week in New York, a key question is on everyone's lips: What did Goldman's senior ranks know about the involvement of Jho Low, a fugitive Malaysian businessman, in the 1MDB investment fund? A former

CRAFT: The Constant Gardener

by Bradley Hope /
In all my years of journalism, William "Bill" McMurry is the single most impressive law enforcement official I've ever met. He has what feels like the perfect combination of trustworthiness and resolve, open-mindedness and the ability to take on massive challenges. Tom and I first heard

CRAFT: Appeal to the Intellect

by Bradley Hope /
Among the cadre of journalists writing about the opaque and often bizarre world of the world’s richest people – both legitimate and illegitimate – the writer Atossa Araxia Abrahamian has one of the most unique voices. Her book Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen explores the hardly understood business of

Follow the Mega Yachts

by Bradley Hope /
Welcome to the inaugural column of Yacht Watch (Tagline: "We're going to need a bigger boat") from Whale Hunting Contributor Alex Finley, a novelist and former CIA officer with the insight to explore who runs the world through the prism of super yachts. This will be

5 Books: How the World Really Works

by Tom Wright /
At Project Brazen, we love books that take you inside a world, profiling the players who hold unusual power. Sometimes you've heard of these people. But often they're surprisingly unknown. So we've compiled five books that pull back the curtain on centers of influence,