"Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets" by Kimberly Kay Hoang

Kimberly Kay Hoang, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, traveled over 300,000 miles, conducting hundreds of interviews to trace the flow of capital from offshore funds in the Cayman Islands, Samoa or Panama to holding companies in Singapore and Hong Kong.Her book, Spiderweb Capitalism, reveals how some of this money finds its way into risky markets in Vietnam and Myanmar."Not only was getting access to wealthy individuals around the world highly challenging, but then trying to connect the dots of their relationships with one another in tangled and layered webs felt like being caught inside a 3D maze with no clear way in or out," Hoang noted.Those relationships are explored closely as Hoang details her field trips with financial professionals to look at proposed developments in as-yet-undeveloped parts of Vietnam or Myanmar.To succeed in making money in Asia you need to master the art of "playing in the gray," she was told. The gray being the territory between the legal and illegal.Making risky investments requires careful planning, repeated visits to the scene and a clear understanding of taxes and payments that might be involved to get the deal done, she said.Hoang illustrates the global nature of spiderweb capitalism with her interview with a developer who shares his own background: "I am Korean, educated in America, living in Hong Kong. My company is domiciled in Samoa and my investments are in Vietnam."The developer told Hoang that everything he was doing was legal. "The Pritzker family set up these structures, one of University of Chicago's biggest donors," he added.The information provided about Vietnam is particularly interesting. The country has come a long way from the war-torn nation of the 1960s and 1970s. Today, it's a country of 95 million people with a growing middle class, noted Hoang, whose parents were among that country's "boat people" who escaped capture in the 70s.