Banksters

Overview

Alexander Lebedev continues his investigation of 'banksters' (gangster-bankers) scams which he started in his autobiographical book 'Hunt the Banker'. Each chapter examines a different sophisticated fraudulent scheme whereby stolen billions are laundered in offshore tax havens and deposited in secret accounts with the major UK and US banks, invested in shares of blue-chip companies, and converted into mansions, yachts, private jets, works of art and luxury goods.The topics covered include the cheating of their customers by supposedly respectable financial institutions in Europe and America, their complicity in laundering illegal proceeds of corrupt officials from all over the world; the financial pyramid schemes of Bernie Madoff and other mega-fraudsters, and black holes in the charity universe.Lebedev investigates the phenomenon of the symbiosis of 'dirty money' and the latest information technologies of the blockchain, which threatens the global financial system with a cryptocurrency apocalypse, and he describes the degradation of political elites inebriated by biased mainstream media and fake news stories. All this, and much more, in this revealing and controversial exposé of the world’s financial institutions.

Reviews

"(An) entertaining and wildly self-indulgent account of his life and career in Russia... a noble effort to save an industry in trouble." —Luke Harding , The Guardian "Alexander Lebedev's new book is a revelatory portrait of power players, from his days in the KGB to multi-million pound deals. [It] lays bare a world in which the grim violence and comic absurdism you might find in Gogol's short stories coexist... If Hunt the Banker settles a lot of scores, it's also a good-humoured account of his own foibles and business failings." —Anne McElvoy and Jim Armitage , Evening Standard

Author Biography

Alexander Lebedev is a Russian banker, philanthropist and public figure. A Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB's Foreign Intelligence Service, he was founder and beneficial owner of National Reserve Corporation, including National Reserve Bank. He is proprietor of the UK newspapers The Independent and The London Evening Standard, and is shareholder and investor of investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta in Russia. He also has a Ph.D in Economics.