The mysterious death of the teenager who posed as a Russian billionaire – podcast

For decades, London has been a magnet for global wealth, a flashy playground for the super-rich. To one teenage boy, it contained an elite scene he desperately wanted to be part of: the oligarch class.

Not just rich, but powerfully connected billionaires who amassed such huge fortunes with so few questions asked that they helped turn London into what was called the “dirty money capital” of the world. Zac Brettler began posing as the son of one. Within months, he was found dead on the riverbank in central London. He was 19 years old.

In his explosive new book, the author and New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe has tried to uncover what the Metropolitan police failed to. He tells Nosheen Iqbal how he started to try to find out what had really happened to Zac, and how he had become ensnared in one of London’s most dangerous circles.