Despite years of intense sanctions, regimes like Russia and Iran are not only surviving but thriving at keeping the money rolling in. 

What makes it worse is that we can’t blame it all on Tehran or Moscow. The uncomfortable truth is that much of this network of corrupt finance was created by us in the West… London being a primary culprit. 

In this episode David Patrikarakos speaks to Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum about how these countries are using shadow financial networks to earn and launder hundreds of billions every year, how it's having an increasingly dangerous effect on global geo-politics and why the West is partly to blame.

Producer: Max Bower 

Editor: Alex Graham 

Executive Producer: Bella Soames 

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini 

Host: David Patrikarakos 

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