Our case studies on corrupt capital perhaps present a bleaker picture than those in our other categories, because even the examples of success reveal a system that is not working well and that facilitates much of the other corruption illustrated in this book. Many of our case studies from other sections contain evidence of corrupt capital flows: large corporate bribes accruing to politicians and senior public officials, kleptocrats and the crony capitalists who benefit from state capture. The proceeds of the corruption need somewhere to hide. But where case studies might show a success in tackling corruption – such as the ejection of the Guptas from South Africa – the tracing, freezing and forfeiture of the proceeds of their corruption often lags behind.

Although the nature of the problem is clarified through our case studies – the use of the global financial system and a network of enablers to launder corrupt capital – and some solutions are apparent, successes are few and far between. We have selected some of these where there has been a success – Obiang, Hajiyeva and the self-destruction of Bell Pottinger – but we also see the unfinished business of holding professional enablers to account for their hands-off but undeniably complicit role in global corruption. The Panama Papers lie somewhere in between: a secret world successfully exposed, but by no means have all of those who were implicated in wrongdoing been held to account.

All of these cases show how the global financial system can be abused by corrupt capital. It is worthwhile remembering that not everything revealed by the Panama Papers was illegal or suspicious. The global system of secrecy over financial affairs has had legitimate uses. But perhaps the most startling revelation from the Panama Papers is the extent of the illegitimate uses. Before the Panama Papers publication, the notion of corrupt capital could have been written off as a marginal activity at the fringes of an otherwise well-functioning system. The Panama Papers confirmed what tax justice and anti-corruption activists had been saying for at least a decade: that illicit financial flows are at the very core of the system of financial secrecy, and not the fringe.

These cases give us a glimpse, a small window, into the sums of money involved. That is unusual, as the secrecy of this world of corrupt capital means that little is normally known.