Kenneth Rijock

I picked this book up recently from a local charity shop where it had been filed with the fiction books. I have read several books on how drug dealing empires were built and inevitably fell but none which detailed how the vast sums of money was laundered.

The books starts about halfway through the story of Rijock's laundering career and then jumps back to the beginning. Rijock wasn't a career criminal at the start, he was unhappy with life and drifted into the business. He was a lawyer and it show more all started by offering a few bits of advice to people he socialised with in the growing Miami drug scene. Cocaine was the drug of choice and like many people at the time he was enjoying the party lifestyle.

Slowly, offering legal advice turned into starting up shell companies in tax havens and smuggling millions of dollars out of Miami to clean it up for the drug cartels and the mafia. Rijock is pretty up front when he talks about how in the early days he convinced himself that he wasn't actually breaking the law. At the time he was living and in a relationship with a police officer so he was in a tricky spot. I think its obvious that she knew what was going on but they had an understanding that she wouldn't ask and he wouldn't tell.

Far from just involving the cartels and mafia the scheme involved many banks and high level officials in the Caribbean. This allowed him to act without fear of the US having any legal power in these countries. What he didn't account for what a joint task force between US and UK agencies.

This book was an ok read. The writing wasn't great but it's not terrible so it look me a little longer to read than I had anticipated. Rijock comes across as a likeable man and there are some great insights into the world of money laundering. show less