John Perkins, now an author, is a former ‘economic hitman’ (EHM) who wrote about his dark career in his explosive memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

Basically, he would convince governments of developing countries to take on massive loans that would leave them shackled to US government and corporate interests. These debts gave Americans the power to control those countries’ politics and economies from behind the scenes.

I was on the forefront of this and played a role in its transformation, from old-fashioned imperialism—where countries directly occupied other nations—to this new form of empire-building that is accomplished primarily through economic manipulation, cheating, fraud, and the seduction of wealth.

John’s work took him around the world, from Indonesia to Latin America. In Indonesia, for example, he helped justify large loans by presenting skewed economic forecasts. These projects, which were supposed to lift countries out of poverty, often led to economic dependency and social unrest.

For clarity, the huge loans that John facilitated came primarily from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).