Cited in the early 19th century, appearing in The Indicator, 12th edition entitled Thieves, Ancient and Modern, published in 1819 by the British writer Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), in a passage that alludes to Spain (pictured below). It is a composition given by the elements of the Greek klepto, identifying the idea of theft, derived from the verb kléptein, referring to the action of snatching or stealing, with roots in the Indo-European *klep-, for stealing, and -kratía, interpreted in this context as government, associated with the verb krátos, for strength, on the roots of the Indo-European *kar-, for firm, strong or difficult.

Nevertheless, in the 21st century, this word emerges in the public eye in when President Bush, who began the war with Iraq in March 2003 on the pretext of nuclear weapons that were never found, calls for an initiative in August 2006 to end kleptocracies around the world, illustrating the threat by citing leaders like Hussein (Iraq), Aleman (Nicaragua), Abacha (Nigeria) and Fujimori (Peru).

It describes systematized state structures around the direction of public funds, allowing looting, corruption and illicit enrichment, often mentioned in countries like Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua or Argentina. There are always groups in society that benefit from the implementation of certain policies, so that historically the most powerful are directly and indirectly those who have more benefits at the tax level, supported by their ability to influence.

Associated with the same etymological roots, some of the words that stand out are: kleptomania (conjugation of the Greek elements klepto- and -mania), or clepsydra (given in Greek as klepsýdra), and on the other hand, we can find aristocracy (visible in Greek aristokratía), ochlocracy (set in the Greek ochlokratía), democracy (from the Greek dēmokratía), and knowing how to differentiate idiosyncrasy (by the Greek idiosynkrasia), whose reference is governed by the Greek krasis, referring to mixture or convergence.