Where does ISIS’s money come from?

With the help of a leaked ISIS budget, that’s the question which a recent edition of the Planet Money podcast set out to answer.

What most struck me was how important the looting and black market sale of archaeological treasures is. This has been well reported on, but when people talk about cutting off the flow of money to ISIS, cracking down on the art treasurers black market is rarely mentioned. Yet it seems to be rather more important than that which usually gets the headlines.

So the podcast is well worth a listen in full: