Casey Michel

Casey Michel is an American journalist and writer. He is the author of American Kleptocracy (St. Martin's Press, 2021). He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute's Kleptocracy Initiative, and a member of the Royal United Services Institute's Taskforce on a Transatlantic Response to Illicit Finance.
Writing career
Michel writes regularly on kleptocracy, illicit finance, dark money, and foreign interference, as well as developments in countries and regions formerly or currently occupied by the Russian and Soviet empires. His writing has appeared in outlets like Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Financial Times, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The New Republic, POLITICO Magazine, and Washington Post, among others. He has been described by CNN as an "oligarch expert," and by the Los Angeles Review of Books as "an indefatigable young American journalist who has virtually cornered the international kleptocracy beat on the US end of the black aquifer ."
In 2021, he authored American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History (St. Martin's Press), on the U.S.'s transformation into the world's leading haven for offshore and illicit wealth. The book received positive reviews overall. The Financial Times wrote, "Michel masterfully recounts the tragicomic outcomes when outré autocrats meet serviceable financial and legal systems… deserve praise for going beyond moralising and pointing out how an industry geared to enabling the corrupt is not just unsavoury but can hurt a country's real economic prospects." The Economist wrote, "Mr Michel builds his book around two characters, both prolific users of America's financial-secrecy infrastructure, deftly weaving together their stories and his analysis.... Fluid, coherent and entertaining."
The Atlantic wrote the book was "Brilliantly clear."
Personal life
Michel was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He graduated from Rice University, and received his Master's degree in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies from Columbia University's Harriman Institute. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Kazakhstan. He currently lives in New York.

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