LORETTA NAPOLEONI

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Some economists study the economy in books; others chase it in the field, where the money hides: through money-laundering circuits, the coffers of armed groups, the routes of traffickers, the servers of tech giants. Loretta Napoleoni belongs to the second category.

 

An internationally renowned economist, author and investigative journalist, she was the first in the world to analyse the financial flows of terrorism and to calculate the size of the terror economy — pioneering work that changed the way governments and security services confront the phenomenon. Born in Rome and a citizen of the world by vocation, she divides her time between London and the United States.

 

From the City to the Red Brigades

 

A Fulbright Scholar at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Rotary Scholar at the London School of Economics, she holds an MPhil in Terrorism Studies from the LSE, a Master's in International Relations and Economics from SAIS and a PhD in Economics from Rome's La Sapienza University. Fresh out of university, she worked with the International Monetary Fund on the convertibility of the Hungarian forint — a project that later became the blueprint for the convertibility of the rouble. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s she worked as an economist in the City of London and in the United States for banks and international organisations.

 

But it was behind the scenes of legal finance that she found her true subject: the economics of terror. She was among the very few to interview the Red Brigades after decades of silence and, in 2003, followers of al-Zarqawi in Europe and the Middle East. She is also one of the few economists to have predicted the 2008 credit crunch.

 

The expert governments compete for

 

In 2005 she chaired the group of experts on terrorist financing for the Club de Madrid, bringing together heads of state from around the world to forge a new strategy against the financial networks of terror. Her advice has been sought by the leading Western governments and by major law-enforcement agencies and institutions, including US Homeland Security, Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, the Catalan police and the Turkish army.

 

A voice for investigative journalism

 

Napoleoni is a leading figure in international investigative journalism: she served as President of Journalismfund Europe, the Brussels-based organisation that funds independent investigative journalism and major European cross-border investigations, and from 2007 to 2010 she directed Italy's first investigative journalism course.

 

She is a consultant for the BBC and Sky News (UK), has been a consultant for CNN and a columnist for El País. Her analysis and commentary appear in publications around the world — from The Guardian to Le Monde — and in Italy she writes for Il Fatto Quotidiano, Il Venerdì di Repubblica, L'Espresso, Wired and Vanity Fair, among others.

 

On stage

 

A speaker at the TED Conference in 2009 and at numerous TEDx events, until 2012 she taught a seminar on business ethics at Cambridge University's Judge Business School. She is one of the most sought-after voices on the international speaking circuit: her lectures — on the global economy, geopolitics, technology, money laundering and terrorism — are renowned for making the most opaque mechanisms of world finance accessible, and even gripping.

 

Books

 

Her books, translated into 21 languages including Chinese and Arabic, are international bestsellers. Maonomics won the Premio dell'Associazione per il Progresso Economico in Italy and the Singapore National Critics Choice Best Non-fiction Award.

 

Technocapitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good (Seven Stories Press, 2024; Meltemi, 2025) — Her latest work: whoever controls technology controls the world. From Musk to Bezos to Zuckerberg, the rise of the new robber barons who, from Silicon Valley to low Earth orbit, are rewriting the rules of economics, politics and society — and how we can take back the future.

 

The Power of Knitting (Tarcher/Penguin, 2020; Sul filo di lana, Mondadori, 2020) — A surprising essay on knitting as a political act, a tool of resistance and of human reconnection.

 

North Korea: The Country We Love to Hate / Kim Jong-un, il nemico necessario (UWA Publishing, 2018; Rizzoli, 2018) — The story of an unknown country, North Korea, and of a leader far more strategic than the West believes.

 

Merchants of Men: How Jihadists and ISIS Turned Kidnapping and Refugee Trafficking into a Multi-Billion Dollar Business (Seven Stories Press, 2016; Rizzoli, 2016) — The investigation that exposes the billion-dollar business of migrant smuggling and kidnapping, at the crossroads of drug trafficking, ISIS and the 'ndrangheta.

 

The Islamist Phoenix: The Islamic State and the Redrawing of the Middle East (Seven Stories Press, 2014; Isis, lo Stato del terrore, Feltrinelli, 2014) — A worldwide bestseller translated in over 15 countries: the first book to reveal the true nature of the Caliphate.

 

Democrazia vendesi (2012) and Il contagio (2011) — Economic crisis, sovereignty for sale and popular uprisings: two pamphlets that anticipated the debate on Europe.

 

10 Years That Shook the World (Seven Stories Press, 2011) — The story of an extraordinary decade, from 9/11 to the killing of Bin Laden: the events that changed the world told as dispatches from our collective memory, across politics, economics, technology and the environment.

 

Maonomics: Why Chinese Communists Make Better Capitalists Than We Do (Seven Stories Press, 2011; Rizzoli, 2010) — China's bitter medicine for the scandals of our economy. A multi-award winner.

 

Terrorism and the Economy: How the War on Terror is Bankrupting the World (Seven Stories Press, 2010; La morsa, 2009) — Distracted by Al Qaeda and robbed by Wall Street: how the war on terror inflated the financial bubble.

 

Rogue Economics: Capitalism's New Reality (Seven Stories Press, 2008; new updated Italian edition, Solferino, 2025) — The dark side of the new world order: a classic back in bookshops, more relevant than ever.

 

Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation (Seven Stories Press, 2005) — A real-time portrait of al-Zarqawi and the new jihadist generation, published just as the world was waking up to his threat.

 

Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks (Seven Stories Press, 2005; first published as Modern Jihad, Pluto Press, 2003) — The book that founded a discipline: for the first time, the dollars behind the networks of terror.