Former US Treasury Assistant Secretary and FATF President Marshall Billingslea joins Nate Sibley to discuss the need for American leadership in responding to evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

How did China sustain meteoric economic growth amid vast corruption? Yuen Yuen Ang joins Nate Sibley to explore what powers China’s crony capitalism, the impact of Xi’s anti-graft campaign, and why it’s time to rethink our approach to measuring corruption.

Authoritarian regimes spend significant sums trying to influence politics within the US and other democracies. Anna Massoglia of Open Secrets joins host Paul Massaro to discuss closing US lobbying loopholes.

What role has corruption played in shaping Russia and Ukraine’s diverging paths in recent decades? Thomas Firestone, a former DOJ lawyer posted in Russia who now works on corruption and national security cases, joins Paul and Nate to discuss.

Casey, Paul and Nate discuss whether targeting Russian oligarchs can help deter Putin’s escalating aggression against Ukraine, and whether it is time for financial warfare to become a NATO operational domain.

Paul Massaro talks to Edward Lucas about the outsized role of Britain in laundering the world’s ill-gotten gains, particularly from China and Russia, and enabling kleptocracy. They discuss what this means for democracy in Britain and globally and how Britain can fight back.

As the White House warns of an “imminent” attack on Ukraine, former US Treasury Assistant Secretary Marshall Billingslea joins Nate Sibley to explore what options America and its allies still possess to deter Putin from further escalation. They also consider lessons for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Hudson senior fellow Peter Rough joins Paul Massaro and Nate Sibley to discuss US policy options for deterring further Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as the role of strategic corruption in undermining Europe’s response.

Paul Massaro talks to Dr. Andreas Fulda about how the CCP leverages its market to silence academics and other critics. The two discuss the case study of Germany, which has been particularly vulnerable to the CCP’s extraterritorial censorship.

Paul talks to Russian opposition politician and economist Vladimir Milov about Putin’s troop build-up on the border of Ukraine and how that links back to the corruption that underpins the Kremlin system.

The new US Strategy on Countering Corruption was released hours before the Summit for Democracy and promises to rewrite the rulebook on global anticorruption efforts. Josh Rudolph of the German Marshall Fund joins Casey, Nate and Paul to discuss what’s in it.

Casey talks to Nate and Paul about his debut book, which chronicles the rise of US financial secrecy through the colorful stories of two famous kleptocrats—and explains why the US must lead global efforts against transnational corruption. American Kleptocracy is published November 23, 2021 and available to preorder now: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250274526/americankleptocracy

Casey, Nate and Paul discuss the kleptocrats at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), the role of bribery in driving environmental abuses, and how green sanctions and law enforcement can punish the worst of the world's polluters.

Casey speaks with Lakshmi Kumar, policy director at Global Financial Integrity, about the damaging - and deadly - consequences of money laundering in American real estate.

Description: Casey and Paul chat about the US Treasury Department's recent sanctions review, raids on sanctioned Russian oligarchs, and why targeted sanctions remain the best tools for targeting kleptocrats - as well as their networks. The articles mentioned in this episode include:

Casey, Nate and Paul discuss the biggest stories emerging from Azerbaijan, Chile, Czech Republic, Pakistan and elsewhere, amid calls for heightened scrutiny of the professional enablers of transnational corruption—including many American lawyers.

Miranda Patrucic, a senior Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project journalist who worked on the Pandora Papers, explains how she followed the money as part of the biggest journalism investigation in history. Paul Massaro reveals the reaction from the US Congress: an ENABLERs Act to tackle professional facilitators of transnational corruption.

Casey, Paul and Nate discuss why Hunter Biden’s plan to auction his artwork to anonymous bidders engages serious money laundering risks, what Meng Wanzhou’s release tells us about China’s globalized kleptocracy, and the latest on anti-corruption reforms in Washington, DC.

Matt Schrader and Paul Massaro discuss the nature of corruption in the Chinese Communist Party and how that corruption underpins its rule in the country. They also discuss how the CCP's corrupt practices are exported abroad and how western enablers and enterprise become intertwined with the CCP in way deleterious to democracy.

Paul, Casey and Nate discuss Germany’s problematic relationship with authoritarian capital, how money laundering gutted Vancouver’s real estate market, US missteps in Afghanistan, and major legislation from the US Congress. Paul & Casey's Foreign Policy piece: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/13/americas-money-lost-the-afghan-war/

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US transformed its capacity to wage financial warfare against terrorists, kleptocrats and other dangerous adversaries. Hudson senior fellow David Asher, who played a leading role in that effort, joins Nate and Casey to discuss lessons for contemporary efforts against transnational corruption.

Beijing has poured trillions of dollars into infrastructure development throughout the world since launching the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. But as CSIS scholar Jonathan Hillman tells Nate Sibley, these investments too often involve opaque deals, corrupt practices, and exploitative political influence.

Jodi Vittori, a military veteran and leading expert on corruption and national security, joins Paul, Casey and Nate to discuss how failure to tackle pervasive graft fatally undermined the US mission over two decades, where stolen funds ended up, and what lessons can be drawn for future operations.

Amid the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, former US Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea joins Nate Sibley to discuss how the Taliban funded its 20-year campaign, what kind of economy it will oversee, and what the US and its allies should do to keep its malign activities in check.