By
Tom Odhiambo
Title: Moneyland: Why Thieves & Crooks Now Rule The World And How To Take It Back; Author: Oliver Bullough; Publisher: Profile Books, 2019; Pages: 304; Language: English
Often when a Kenyan company’s books are in the red, one will read in the newspapers that a ‘foreign’ investor from somewhere in the world – named or unnamed country – is willing to fund it. In most cases the said investor won’t be named. He – it is rarely a she – will wish to remain incognito for many reasons. But it is possible to hypothesize that such investors are really just Kenyans who had moved money out of the country – to avoid scrutiny by tax authorities or to evade taxation – and are willing to bring it back in the name of a ‘foreign’ investor. Such money, hidden somewhere in some tax haven or invested in another country, under a series of companies, is what Oliver Bullough writes about in Moneyland: Why Thieves & Crooks Now Rule the World & How to Take It Back (2019).
Moneyland reads like a thriller novel. Indeed, it isn’t easy to put this book down. For the first page to the last, it is a race – the reader has to run to catch up with the narrator’s details, as they emerge, linking individuals, institutions, companies, countries, crime, business, media, governments, politicians, presidents, lawyers, tax officials, etc in a shocking web of how money started to travel around the world in the post-2nd World War moment to today. Then, the travelling money was real cash, American dollars mostly. Today, money is moved or can be moved across country borders in cash, in gold, in the form of houses, cars, and electronic transfers.
This is a book that is easy to ignore whilst browsing the bookshelves at the local bookstore. Many academics would probably not bother about it, unless they read its review or have heard someone talk about it. Its title may not necessarily attract the attention of a lawyer or a tax justice activist or development expert, or anyone who is interested in how government collects its revenues and how individuals always try to dodge taxes. Indeed, its story begins in a nondescript neighbourhood of London, where one can buy a readymade company, which can be used to hide one’s money and investments etc.
But the real interesting part of the introduction is when the author narrates the real beginnings of the term ‘offshore’. That this word came from radio pirates is in itself a fascinating story. Just like the individuals who bank beyond their countries’ borders because they want to avoid the prying eye of the curious journalist or taxman, the term referred to radio stations broadcasting from ships moored just beyond the boundaries of Britain, but within reach of young audiences who wished to listen to music beyond what BBC offered at the time. This is how Bullough describes the offshore radio stations: “Offshore radio stations were as physically present as any other broadcaster, in that you could easily find their broadcasts on your wireless, yet they were legally absent, and very difficult to deal with.”
That description aptly summarizes ‘Moneyland’, a world where the owners of the banked money don’t exist under their legal identities. Instead, their identity is concealed under an onion-like layer of company after company. In this world very few prying eyes can ever see beyond the second or third layer, if they can survive the sting of the onion – yes, Bullough shows that people have lost their jobs or been killed for trying to look too deeply into the concealment rings that surround companies that are used to keep money in Moneyland.
One of the most important features of Moneyland is ‘shell companies’ – entities that are legal but largely for reasons of hiding the owner of some property or money. Shell companies have been used for decades to hide licit money, so that it may not be taxed or to avoid its confiscation in case the owner is what is described as a politically exposed person; or they are used to ‘clean’ illicit money by way of laundering it through legal acquisition of property, which can in turn be sold and the money banked legally! Bullough writes, “It is not impossible for law enforcement to see through shell companies or to confiscate assets held via corporate vehicles, but it is expensive, laborious and time-consuming, even if you try to cut corners.”
However, shell companies cannot succeed on their own without help from law firms and banks. It is banks that enable offshore banking through transfer of money from one branch to another or through deposit boxes. Bullough shows that banks are willing to bend the rules and practice private banking where ‘no questions’ are asked about high net worth individuals when they open accounts. Such individuals may be politicians or businesspeople who wish to keep their money away from the public or even private eyes of others. In such cases banks can aid money laundering, can enable theft of public assets or money, and can, knowingly or unknowingly aid in sustaining repressive regimes – think of many African dictatorships and try to find out who and where they kept their money.
But offshore banking and the urge by the moneyed to keep away from the taxman and possibly avoid change of government regimes, and also keep as much money as hidden has also spawned what can be called mail order citizenship. With enough dollars one can buy a passport and citizenship or permanent residency in many places in the world today. Today several countries advertise globally, inviting rich people from other countries to invest in elsewhere and become naturalized citizens. In such countries, not many questions will be asked about the sources of one’s wealth, and one can move into their new country to avoid taxes or prosecution, if they had committed crimes.
Moneyland is a world or the rich and superrich. It is the zone for the plutocrats, the men and women who have amassed enough wealth to be able to guarantee themselves and their offspring a very comfortable life. Such individuals, as Bullough shows, are citizens of the ‘world of consumption’, where money is not a problem. Thus, whether in New York, Amsterdam, Beijing, Cape Town, Nairobi or Vancouver, plutocrats are largely identified by their high consumption patterns and the fact that these are individuals whose money is mostly liquid, thus available for them wherever they are. This means that they are not tied to one place, country, or continent. Unfortunately, plutocracy is a world, therefore, whose citizens will happily dodge taxes, launder ill-gotten wealth, and support undemocratic regimes if such regimes serve the interests of the plutocrats.
In an optimistic ending of his narrative, Bullough suggests that something can be done to stop the plutocrats and crooks that steal and bank money well beyond the reach of governments and tax agencies, and are unfairly amassing wealth to the detriment of the many. But as he shows, despite the USA leading the rest of the world in making it difficult for Swiss banks to keep information on their clients hidden, the latest best tax havens are in several American states. Also, the American real estate sector offers very many wealthy people all over the world the opportunity to hide their money. This simply means that the fight to against Moneyland is a tough one.
Which is why Bullough ends Moneyland: Why Thieves & Crooks Now Rule the World & How to Take It Back in a hopeful rather than radical tone, “So what do we as citizens need to do? We need to know who owns what; we need to put crooks in jail; we need to stop our cities from laundering the stolen wealth of the world. And we need to support any politician prepared to build the coalitions required to do this patient, taxing, technical and unglamorous work. Only by doing this can we truly take back control of our economies and societies and halt the wholesale looting of the world that threatens us.” What can you do to add to Bullough’s call?
The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi. He can be contacted at: Tom.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke; 0720009155.
