Biteback lands Brivati's financial scandal investigation

Biteback Publishing has acquired Icarus: The Life and Death of the Abraaj Group by Brian Brivati, an "explosive" book about one of the world's biggest financial scandals.

Scheduled for publication in July 2021, Icarus will tell the story of Arif Naqvi and his Dubai-based Abraaj Group, pioneers of private sector impact investment in emerging markets. It was eventually forced into liquidation, culminating on 10th April 2019 with Naqvi being arrested at Heathrow Airport in a joint UK-US operation seeking his extradition to the United States.

The synopsis explains: "The dominant media narrative has painted Naqvi as an evil genius, the so-called ‘key man’ in an organised criminal conspiracy that is alleged to have lasted years but actually amounts to potential regulatory breaches which are usually dealt with, for those who are ‘one of us’, by fines and reprimands rather than threats of hundreds of years in jail. In this extraordinary investigation, based on extensive documentary research and dozens of interviews with the key players, political historian Brian Brivati sets out to provide rather different answers to the key questions that comprise this tale."

James Stephens, publisher, acquired UK and North American rights from the author. He said: "The accepted version of events pitches Arif Naqvi as a financial super-villain. Brian has produced a counter-narrative that is more complex, and Icarus promises to expose the murky methods the US employs in pursuit of its geopolitical interests. As such, it is an extremely important book."

Brivati said: "This book is a journey into the heart of superpower geopolitics and impact investing; the grandiose ambitions of private equity to do good while making money. The real victims are the people who would have used the hospitals, clean energy and education created by Abraaj’s investment. The evidence I have seen indicates that the Abraaj group was murdered; it did not commit suicide. This is a cautionary tale of the hubris of capitalists, Chinese overreach through the Belt and Road Initiative, and the limits and reach of US power in the age of Trump’s MAGA."