The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition invites you to “American Kleptocracy,” a conversation with Casey Michel and policy experts

November 17 – 12-1 p.m. EST

“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… This is a stunning portrait of avarice run amok.” —Publishers Weekly

With the Pandora Papers in the news, more Americans have learned how central the U.S. is to the world of “offshore” illicit finance. Throw out the stereotypes of palm-fringed tropical islands – snowy South Dakota and many U.S. states are now central to the money laundering schemes of dictators and criminals. Casey Michel’s new book, “American Kleptocracy” (released Nov. 23), is an investigative look into how the U.S. built “the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known” and how this system has “infected American politics, threatened US national security and gouged local communities.”

Heading into the “Summit for Democracy” hosted by the White House next month, policy experts from the FACT Coalition will share the steps the Biden Administration and Congress must take to turn off the gushing spigot of dirty money coming into the U.S.

Speakers:

• Casey Michel, author, “American Kleptocracy”
• Ian Gary, executive director, FACT Coalition
• Tutu Alicante, founder/director, EG Justice
• Kaisa de Bel, policy analyst, Global Financial Integrity, and co-author, “Acres of Money Laundering”

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, Foreign Policy, 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.