Power Corrupts

Latest Episodes:

Fake IDs Sep 21, 2021

Show notes

Could you fake your death and get away with it? In this episode, we look at fake identities, from people who've tried to fake their own deaths to an audacious wine fraudster who made millions as he sold new wine in old bottles.

We speak to a private investigator who proves that people are, in fact alive, and a wine merchant who decided to act like an FBI agent in his quest to stake out a man who was making fake bottles of his wine. And in the process, we see glimpses of how identities are harder to forge in the 21st century.

Guests in this episode: Steven Rambam, private investigator; Laurent Ponsot, master winemaker; Peter Hellman, author of In Vino Duplicitas; and two eminent historians, Helen Watt and Paul Dryburgh.

Support our work here: patreon.com/powercorrupts

And buy Brian's new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097

Do Not Disturb Sep 14, 2021

Show notes

Is going into exile safe any longer?

A few years ago, a former Rwandan intelligence chief hiding out in exile was found strangled to death in a Johannesburg hotel room. Hanging on the door outside was a "Do Not Disturb" sign. It had been placed there to buy the assassins a bit of extra time as they fled the country.

This episode looks at the alarming rise in transnational repression and cross-border killings, where dictators and despots hunt down their enemies no matter where they are in the world. In the process, we ask whether dissidents can ever be safe in the 21st century, or if it's just a matter of time before their murderous authoritarian regime hunts them down.

This episode features Michela Wrong, a phenomenal journalist and author of Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad, which you can and should buy here: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/michela-wrong/do-not-disturb/9781610398435/

It also features the voices of Isabel Linzer and Nate Schenkkan at Freedom House, and you can find their report on transnational repression here: https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression

And we speak to Geoffrey York, who has reported on Rwanda for years as the Africa Bureau Chief of the Globe & Mail. You can find his reporting here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/geoffrey-york/

Pre order Brian's book - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

Click Here To Kill Everybody Sep 07, 2021

Show notes

In early 2021, hackers infiltrated the software that controlled the city's water supply in Oldsmar, Florida. Through dumb luck, they caught the intrusion shortly after the hacker tried to poison the city's water.

This hack was part of a growing array of attacks against the Internet of Things, objects that used to operate offline but are now connected to the internet—and therefore vulnerable to hacking. From Wi-Fi enabled tea kettles to cars that can be taken over remotely to knocking power out for entire countries using smart thermostats, the risks are everywhere. We're just lucky there hasn't been an Internet of Things attack that has been on the scale of 9/11 or Hiroshima – yet.

Guests this episode include Bruce Schneier, the author of Click Here to Kill Everybody; Nicole Perlorth, a reporter for the New York Times, Ken Munro, an ethical hacker, and Chris Valasek, a hacker who remotely took over a Jeep a few years ago and now works as the Director of Product Security at Cruise.

To check out Nicole's book, click here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/this-is-how-they-tell-me-the-world-ends-9781635576061/

To buy Bruce's book, click here: https://www.schneier.com/books/click-here/

And to read about Chris's Jeep Hack as reported in Wired, click here: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/

Pre order Brian's book - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

The Shell Game Aug 31, 2021

Show notes

When it comes to understanding the underworld of corruption and criminality, you can't just look at the rich crooks. You also have to look at the lawyers who help them dot the i's and cross the t's as they try to stash their illicit cash somewhere offshore. And to accomplish that goal, you have to understand the world of shell companies, corporate entities that often exist only on paper to shield vast sums of wealth from the taxman or the prying eyes of journalists.

It's a dangerous world, and it has led to the assassination of at least one journalist who tried to expose the secrets of the world's super rich.

In this episode, we speak to the two journalists who broke the Panama Papers – the largest leak of offshore documents in the history of illicit finance. They walk us through the world they uncovered at Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama, that helped set up some of the world's shadiest shell companies for some of the world's shadiest people.

Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier (who are not related) took immense personal risks to blow the story wide open. They tell us how they did it – and what secrets they uncovered about the ways the world's richest people make up their own rules.

For further information about the Panama Papers, go here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/

And for the Daphne Project, visit this site:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/the-daphne-project

Pre order Brian's book - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

The Billion Dollar Shack Aug 31, 2021

Show notes

We all know that offshore areas of financial secrecy exist. In this episode, we're going to take a look at the origin story of one of them. It's a story that will make you question the caricature you probably have in your head about why shadowy offshore economies develop. And it's a story that involves, quite improbably, seabirds that made people rich, a failed musical about Leonardo Da Vinci….and a shack worth a billion dollars.

You may not have heard of it, but you can rest assured that terrorists, Russian mobsters, and rich oligarchs trying to set up their own banks know its name. This is a tale of greed, corruption, environmental destruction, and how – and why – the Davids of the globe can become Goliaths of illicit finance.

This episode features interviews with Jack Hitt, an award-winning journalist; Selena Shannon, a former journalist and a senior producer at Audiocraft; and Lisa Hollander, a former actress who starred in a doomed musical about Leonardo Da Vinci's love life, funded by seagull droppings on a little island in the Pacific that you've probably never heard of.

To read Jack's New York Times reporting about Nauru from 1999, click here. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/10/magazine/the-billion-dollar-shack.html

And for a review of the Leonardo Da Vinci musical published in 1993, go to this link:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/fertiliser-island-scents-musical-success-first-night-leonardo-1489451.html

Pre order Brian's book - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

Power Corrupts Season 3: Returning 31st August 2021 Aug 05, 2021

Show notes

They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But when it comes to the underworld of corruption, murder, and greed, from drug cartels to hackers to political psychopaths, what you see is often just the tip of the iceberg. To understand how the world really works, you have to look at what's hidden below the surface.

From Brian Klaas, professor of global politics and Washington Post columnist, the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast returns on August 31, 2021. Subscribe now to make sure you don't miss an episode.

Biological Weapons Apr 09, 2020

Show notes

Pandemics are horrifying. But what if one could be unleashed deliberately? How did ancient armies from the Greeks to the Mongol hordes use germ warfare? Why did America conduct tests on unsuspecting people in New York and San Francisco? Can biological weapons be developed to only infect a single person? And why is the US government researching how to use insects as taxis for viruses?

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

Revolutions Apr 02, 2020

Show notes

When revolutions happen, everything changes. In this episode, we'll look at why one revolution was launched when a rebel leader in southeast Asia started climbing trees; how Teddy Roosevelt's son led a CIA-backed coup in 1953 that contributed to the Iranian revolution; and why one East German guard had a bad day -- and forever changed history as a result.

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

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Power Corrupts is written and narrated by Brian Klaas. The executive producer and sound editor is George McDonagh.

Pandemics Mar 26, 2020

Show notes

Pandemics are as old as human civilisation, from the Plague of Athens to mysterious diseases that ravaged armies throughout history. But there's a lot you probably don't know about them. Why did "dancing plagues" erupt repeatedly in Medieval Europe as a result of "hot blood"? Why is calling it the "Spanish Flu" an egregious historical injustice? How do mathematical modellers incorporate Italian vs. American culture into their forecasting and predictions? And what did Isaac Newton manage to do while he was "working from home" during the plague pandemic of 1665?

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Power Corrupts is written and narrated by Brian Klaas. The executive producer and sound editor is George McDonagh.

Catastrophic Miscalculation Mar 19, 2020

Show notes

Have you ever made a catastrophic mistake? What if your mistakes could cause an empire to fall, a war to start, or thirty million people to starve to death? History and politics are defined by catastrophic miscalculations -- those "oops" moments in which leaders cause immense damage because they just didn't think things through. Whether it's Mao's campaign to murder sparrows leading to a deadly famine; Burma's dictator crashing an economy by following astrology and his lucky number rather than expert advice; or an emperor who really, really should have bought a cannon, such mistakes define our past, present, and future. Don't make the mistake of not listening.

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

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Power Corrupts is written and narrated by Brian Klaas. The executive producer and sound editor is George McDonagh.

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