How London Became the World’s Dirty Money Capital

New Yorker investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe joins Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer to discuss London Falling, his new book on the mysterious death of 19-year-old Zac Brettler, who passed himself off as a Russian oligarch's son, and how anonymous foreign wealth and decades of deregulation remade London into a sanctuary for dirty money.

Keefe explains what Russia's invasion of Ukraine actually changed about London real estate, why sanctioned oligarchs selling their mansions may have simply handed the keys to the next buyer, and why the powerful almost never see themselves as the villain.

The wide-ranging conversation also covers Say Nothing and the unresolved legacy of the Troubles in Northern Island, whether the CIA had a hand in spreading the Scorpions' "Wind of Change," and what Keefe learned during a year inside the Pentagon. The episode closes with summer reading recommendations from all three.

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This week, Patrick relates how a conversation with his kid about prediction markets convinced him that Trump-era cynicism has already escaped politics.

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Photo credits:

Senator George Mitchell, Bill Clinton, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair at Queen's University Belfast, Ireland on April 17, 2023 (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

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