Patrick Radden Keefe on the Russian money that remade London

About this episode

In 2019, 19-year-old Zac Brettler fell from a riverside apartment balcony into the Thames. His death would reveal a massive dirty-money empire. Brettler's parents went looking for answers and learned their son had been living a lie, posing as the son of a Russian oligarch. Patrick Radden Keefe, Author of blockbuster books London Falling and Say Nothing, traces how one boy’s death opens onto a far bigger story: how London remade itself as a safe harbour for Russian and Gulf money. Keefe calls himself the skunk at the garden party, the outsider who names what locals keep hidden in plain sight Hamish Macdonald sits down with Keefe for a long, warm talk about money, grief, Instagram and why the…