
A10 | Investigating systemic corruption
From The Monkey Dance by The Monkey Dance
April 17, 2026 · 1h 1m · Episode 51
About this episode
The episode discusses systemic corruption, its definitions, and the dangers of exposing it with guest Irene Tello Arista.
There is a lot of money behind keeping corruption difficult to track, but there are also plenty of folks working hard to build better tools for tracking it. The only problem is that exposing it can be extremely dangerous. In this episode from 2 years ago, we sit with Irene Tello Arista and chat about how to define corruption, the systemic pressures that allow it to take hold, and discuss how grand corruption and petty corruption are different not only in scale but in methods. We cover a bit of Irene's background in Mexico starting an NGO to uncover corruption networks, human behavior more generally, and how corruption looks different in different places. Full show notes on the website
People in this episode
Guest: Irene Tello Arista
Topics covered
- corruption
- systemic issues
- NGOs
- human behavior
- tracking corruption
Keywords
- corruption
- systemic corruption
- Irene Tello Arista
- NGO
- human behavior
- grand corruption
- petty corruption
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Mexico
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