Bribe, Swindle or Steal

Robert Clark, Manager of Legal Research at TRACE, discusses the TRACE Matrix, a data driven tool that assesses the likelihood—by country—of a company being asked to pay a bribe. This podcast is technical and may be of particular interest to academics and those in civil society seeking new ways to measure risk.

New York Times reporter Ian Urbina discusses his excellent but grim series about crime and impunity on the high seas.

Sarah Chayes joins the podcast to talk about her latest book: On Corruption in America and What is at Stake. She takes us from the myth of King Midas through to the present in a lively history of corruption and then leaves listeners with a detailed call to action.

Bradley Hope discusses his excellent book about the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and key milestones like the “Ritz Carlton Prison”, the kidnapping of Prime Minister Hariri of Lebanon and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. He also discusses some of MBS’s modernization efforts and what the Kingdom might look like if he hadn’t risen to a position of power.

James Wright of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) discusses the FinCEN files. He describes the coalition of investigative reporters who dug into the leaked documents and what they found as they reviewed over 2000 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARS) spanning more than five years.

Harvard law professor Matthew Stephenson provides some context for understanding this new EO and then lists the three primary threats it poses for corruption. A more detailed discussion can be found on his Global Anticorruption Blog (GAB).

Today’s podcast is an edited version of a recent George Washington University Law School webinar reviewing the Trump Administration’s impact on anti-corruption efforts and forecasting the likely impact of either a second Trump or a Biden Administration in January.

Alex Crutcher with the Al Jazeera Investigative Unit discusses the sale of “golden passports” to wealthy criminals and high risk individuals. The team pursued the story in the wake of a major data leak and their reporting has resulted in the cancellation of the program and several high level resignations in the Cypriot government.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, reporter and anti-corruption activist, was murdered near her home in Malta by a car bomb on 16 October 2017. Today, we’re reposting our conversation with her lawyer to mark the third anniversary of her death. It’s a timely reminder of the risks that investigative reporters take all over the world to provide us with insight into high-level corruption and the violence the powerful brazenly employ to shield themselves.

Dan Alexander, author and senior editor at Forbes, discusses his book about Trump’s business deals with foreign entities, including one very strange deal with the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar.