When tax officials and law enforcement do manage to recover assets and money from criminals, what happens next? How are those seizures used to benefit taxpayers and society? We think there are lots of missed opportunities here and the Taxcast goes to West Yorkshire in the North of England to see social reuse of seized assets in action. It's pretty heartening.
Plus: President Donald Trump has pardoned convicted money launderer Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. We speak to Scott Greytak of Transparency International US about what this means for the financial integrity of the US financial system and the ramifications for the rest of the world.
A transcript of the show is available here:
https://podcasts.taxjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Taxcast_Transcript_Oct_25.pdf
Produced and hosted by Naomi Fowler and Leo Schick.
Featuring:
Scott Greytak of Transparency International US
Dr. Amber Phillips, University of Bristol, Senior Criminology lecturer
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
Alison Lowe, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime
Tasha Dyson, Fusion Housing
Derek Jones, All Saints Landmark Centre
Tony Macaluso, Chapel FM Art Centre
Nigel Crowther, senior financial investigator, West Yorkshire Police
Alysha, Dance United
Further reading:
Trump's crypto pardon delivers immediate payback: https://popular.info/p/update-trumps-crypto-pardon-delivers
From Crime to Community: The Social Reuse of Confiscated Assets in Italy, Spain and Romania https://www.scena9.ro/en/article/crime-community-social-reuse-confiscated-assets-italy-spain-romania
Website with all our podcasts: https://podcasts.taxjustice.net/production/taxcast/