I recently watched the episode ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever’ of Bad Billionaires: India on Netflix. This statement from James Crabtree stood out for me.
There’s a very clear double standard in the way that we view corruption in the world. People look at countries like India and say, “these countries are corrupt”, but, actually, much of the worst corruption would not be possible without seemingly respectable international finance. Somebody like Nirav Modi needed international banks in order to funnel his money abroad. He needed international lawyers. He needed tax havens in order to host his shell companies. And so, the corruption, the grand corruption you see in countries like India works hand in glove with a different and much more anonymous form of corruption, which is entirely created in rich countries like Britain or Switzerland and America.