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Oliver Bullough

@oliverbullough.bsky.social
24K followers 257 following 938 posts

Journalist; author of Butler to the World and Moneyland

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Reposted by Oliver Bullough
De Balie @debalie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How does dirty money shape our world? This Thursday at De Balie, @oliverbullough.bsky.social and Thomas Bollen (@ftm.nl) expose the global system of money laundering. An evening about shell companies, tax havens, crypto, empty high-end apartments and more. Tickets & info: debalie.nl/programma/th...
debalie.nl
The Dark Economy: How Dirty Money Shapes the World
Together with investigative journalists Oliver Bullough and Thomas Bollen we dive into the shadow world money laundering. A world of shell companies, tax havens, crypto and empty high-end apartments.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"I never thought they would risk the existence of MY humanity," sobs woman who invested in Posing Existential Risks to Humanity Inc.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'd love to hear a British official having to explain dogging to a US securocrat. bsky.app/profile/yeom...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I wish more people would realise that not everyone who wishes to put big money into British politics is Russian. In fact, hardly any of them are. bsky.app/profile/josi...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Are you interested in hearing me talk about money laundering? Are you someone who'll be at home at 6pm on October 20th? This is your lucky day! Sign up for the excellent BEARR Trust's annual talk here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-bearr-...
eventbrite.co.uk
The BEARR Trust online talk with Oliver Bullough
Journalist and author Oliver Bullough joins BEARR online on 20 October to discuss illicit wealth, kleptocracy and organised crime.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If you're in Devon, this weekend I will be doing not one but two events to talk about money laundering! You can come to one or, better, both if you're nearby...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but my dog (aged 11) has just discovered how nice it is to lie on the sofa.
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Reposted by Oliver Bullough
International Tax Observatory @taxobservatory.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
💸 How does dirty money move across borders, and why is it so difficult to stop? Join Oliver Bullough for #TheOffshoreTalks as he explores the hidden financial systems that allow illicit wealth to circulate, followed by a discussion with Sara Brimbeuf. 🔗 tally.so/r/0QKD26
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Trump urges Zelensky to stop playing the cards he doesn't have. www.ft.com/content/adb8...
ft.com
Donald Trump presses Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian refineries
US president tells Ukrainian leader in phone call it is all about ‘diesel, diesel, diesel’, according to officials
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The trainline and I are in a similar mood this morning, it appears.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Your occasional reminder that self-regulation has the same relationship to regulation that self-importance has to importance. bsky.app/profile/atru...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
But will it go south of the river? bsky.app/profile/mrja...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The future of the media involves highly-paid people talking, not very entertainingly, about lowly-paid people's work on podcasts, with the profits going to Gary Lineker.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I listened to The World At One, and the Israeli representative was almost ridiculously incoherent, combative and wrong (*Mark Carney* is extreme left??). I've been puzzling over this as a comms technique. Is it "flooding the zone" cleverness, and therefore good? Or is it just rubbish?
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
La maison, c'est moi! bsky.app/profile/kati...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The fact something as fundamental and superb as the RNLI is a charity is one of the most magical and strange things about Britain. You can support them here. rnli.org/support-us/g...
rnli.org
Donate to the RNLI and help save lives at sea
Your donations really make a difference. We depend on your generosity to educate people to stay safe and prevent tragedies on and offshore. Donate here.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I was stoked to go on my favourite financial-nerdery podcast to be nerdy about financial crime. www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/...
bloomberg.com
Watch Why Money Launderers Love $100 Bills - Bloomberg
Hardly anyone nowadays seems to carry much cash, never mind carrying around a bunch of $100 bills. So why does the amount of physical cash in circulation — especially big denominations like the $100 b...
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Reposted by Oliver Bullough
Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
In our new essay for the @financialtimes.com (you read that right), @astra.bsky.social and I link the extreme weather events we have all been living through to the rise of a new iteration of futureless fascism, wherein the rich and powerful plan for their bunkered survival behind fortressed borders.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Reform is giving strong vibes of Viz's Baxter Basics this morning.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Holy crap. Just watch the whole thing now. bsky.app/profile/step...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I am not a fan of our AML system but, if someone knows you well enough to know you have a big transaction coming in, and is suspicious enough about it to suspect money laundering, then the bank is probably* right to suspend the account pending enquiries. *100 percent certainly
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Treat drugs as a public health, rather than criminal, challenge. 1. raise tax revenue from selling them. 2. remove the primary basis of the criminal economy. 3. free up a big chunk of prison space. Politically tricky, but -- done right -- could really improve things. bsky.app/profile/jess...
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Reposted by Oliver Bullough
Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Here's the trade unions, somehow believing they can outspend billionaires. It's not just moronic, it's actively dangerous. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Burnham drops support for political funding cap aimed at curbing mega-donors
PM said he would set bar at £500k, but trade unions say funding reforms could undermine their ability to donate to Labour
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Who watches video podcasts, and why?
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Important thread about how UK's lawyers and defamation rules restricted journalism in the Arday case. We don't call it censorship, but that's what it is. bsky.app/profile/dann...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
After careful consideration, I've concluded that the magnifying glass is the most useless tool on a Swiss Army Knife.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Interesting algorithmic choice by the iplayer...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Not really relevant to Soho residents' objections to people standing up in pubs but I stayed in an airbnb in Soho in February, and the flat downstairs had this on the door.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
This unabashedly "liberal" candidate promised, while campaigning in the Democratic Party primary, to prevent the under-fives from buying fire-arms, but can he pivot to the center in time for the general election?
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Not relevant to Badenoch's weapons-grade inappropriateness for high office, but I'm always confused by politicians' habit of using people as a backdrop for a speech: shouldn't they be talking to the people, rather than standing with their back to them? bsky.app/profile/step...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Referring to Jon Harvey as Count Binface while insisting on pointing out that Tommy Robinson's real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is woke hypocrisy, in this essay I will...
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Reposted by Oliver Bullough
Robert Smith @bondhack.ft.com · 09/07/2026
Read every word of the latest from the great @annaisaac.bsky.social carefully and closely. Journalism at the highest level. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Millions of pounds and many, many questions: the untold story of why Reform figures face NCA scrutiny
Exclusive: The details behind the financial transactions that bankers have flagged up to the National Crime Agency
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Important move from the Telegraph. After all, nothing stops the kids laughing like a teacher telling them it's "not funny". bsky.app/profile/tomi...
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Reposted by Oliver Bullough
Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Nigel Farage has put corruption on the ballot in Clacton Now we need to make sure that the by-election is fought on a single issue: cleaning up the rot in British politics New by me on Democracy for Sale: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/farage-cor...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Farage has done us all a favour
Now we need a modern day Martin Bell
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I know everyone's being very "well actually" about the major parties deciding not to run in Clacton, but I think it's hilarious that Farage's publicity stunt has resulted in him going head to head with Count Binface. We haven't had a Boaty McBoatface moment to unite us as a nation for too long.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
It would be entertaining if the thing that finally brings down Nigel Farage is some bankers filing a Suspicious Activity Report, considering how utterly routine a thing to happen that is for any large transaction involving a Politically Exposed Person.
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Reposted by Oliver Bullough
Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Farage was given a deadline of 1pm on Tuesday to respond to the Guardian about this article. He gave a video address at 2pm announcing he would force a byelection in Clacton.
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kyleayers.bsky.social @kyleayers.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Not saying that game was stolen from Egypt but it is now on display at museum in London.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Vote Binface to take out the trash!
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
That refereeing performance in the Egypt Argentina game was a disgrace.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
First they came for people who had secretly taken millions of pounds in cash and gifts from a crypto-billionaire and a convicted criminals then been really twattish about it, but I did not speak up because it sounded like they kind of had it coming.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Back in 2016, the average cost to the government for running a by-election was almost 230K. Since Farage has "won the lottery", as he put it, perhaps he should volunteer to pay this entirely unnecessary expense that he's decided to foist upon us. questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques...
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
What Trump achieved is remarkable. Having previously been completely indifferent to the US football team, I felt the kind of relief when I saw they'd lost to Belgium as I normally feel when I wake up and see Reform have lost a by-election.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I don't even like football, and I'm cross about what the Trump/FIFA combo has done to the World Cup with this Folarin Balogun thing. I can't imagine how actual fans are feeling.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I reckon the odds of Reform UK collapsing, and then Nigel Farage reappearing as leader of a whole new party, have got rather shorter in the last few days.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I'm going on holiday soon, and I'd like your dynamite non-fiction book recommendations please. They can be on any subjects, but I'd like thing that are very well-written, and super-interesting.
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Should you be sufficiently intrigued by George Cottrell (who apparently calls Nigel Farage 'daddy', but also pays his bills, which is weird) to buy his book on money laundering, it's worth bearing in mind imo that John Lanchester thinks my book is "vastly superior". www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
John Lanchester · Squillions: Where’s all the cash?
If it were an industry, money laundering would be the third biggest business in the world, behind commercial property...
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
This Sunday times story about Farage is properly extraordinary Confirms so much of what I - and many others - have been hearing for a long time and begs *massive* questions about Farage’s finances, rule breeches and more www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
thetimes.com
Revealed: Nigel Farage secretly funded by convicted criminal
The Reform UK leader did not declare benefits including staff, security and housing by crypto-gambler George Cottrell, our investigation reveals
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Oliver Bullough @oliverbullough.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
As long as no one claims Herefordshire is in the West Midlands I'm easy on the whole "what is the north anyway?" thing.
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