Casey Michel's 'American Kleptocracy' reveals how the United States became a haven for dirty money from around the world, undermining its claims to fight corruption globally. Michel, an investigative journalist, shows that while America criticizes other nations for harboring illicit wealth, its own system of anonymous shell companies, lax banking regulations, and luxury real estate makes it the destination of choice for kleptocrats, criminals, and tax evaders. The book traces how money stolen from developing countries flows into American assets, from Manhattan condos to art collections to university donations, with an array of professionals facilitating the transactions while maintaining plausible deniability. Michel examines how states like Delaware, Nevada, and South Dakota have competed to offer the most opacity, creating a race to the bottom in financial transparency. He profiles specific cases where stolen funds found sanctuary in American institutions, showing the human costs in the countries from which wealth was looted. The book argues that addressing American kleptocracy requires not just enforcement against individual bad actors but systematic reform of the laws that enable financial secrecy. Readers will come away with a more complicated picture of corruption as a global system in which the United States is deeply implicated.