Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1419 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Review
meticulous, dangerous and groundbreaking three-year investigation into the world of international organised crime
--Tribune

Sunday Times Culture
`Misha Glenny made his reputation as a BBC reporter during the break-up of the Soviet empire and in the Balkan wars. Those experiences introduced him to the murky, bloody, terrifyingly successful operations of the East European mafias, dominated by Russians. For this book, Glenny has extended his researches worldwide. He describes gang operations in Bombay, sex slavery and money-laundering in Israel, the Canadian marijuana trade, Nigerian investment scams, Brazilian cyber-crime and much else. His message is that the global marketplace has empowered criminals on a huge and terrifying scale.... He tells a grisly story very well'

Mail on Sunday
`Like a journalistic Indiana Jones he has travelled the world in search of his prey, displaying impressive stamina, intellectual chutzpah and physical bravery on the way... This is the most important non-fiction book of the year so far'

Customer Reviews

Gripping thoughtful read
An eye-opening look at how the globalisation of organised crime effects day-to-day life-whether we like it or not.

The timing of the liberalistion of the international financial markets and the coincidental collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe and the USSR means that the face of crime has changed for ever.

And as the author points out, so long as the profits are so big and demands for illegal products so high, no amount of policing can ever stamp it out. In fact, the more resources poured in to the "War on Crime", the bigger organised crime becomes......

Very readable and jampacked full of interesting facts!
I bought this book after reading a serialisation in a paper, and found it a really fascinating read. Everything from prostitution to guns to drugs to cyber crime to diamonds to people trafficking is covered in a wide ranging examination of the globalised nature of the black market, and its enormous influence on society and politics.

Not just about the drugs!!
Ok so, like many before me, I guess I have to establish some credentials before I review.......... I have worked both inside and against (at the same time!) much of the murky world chronicled by Glenny and would consider it a pretty good outsiders account of most aspects. It creates a very good spring board for the inquisitive but will unfortunately be missed by the general masses for any real impact.

However, I have to contradict a previous reviewer (or two) in that drugs is not the main driver/funder for criminal activity these days, nor does Glenny susbscribe to this misdirection. The various major criminal groupings are more than savvy enough to have long established their own intelligence and corporate networks; these devices shrewdly keep them one step ahead of the game and dictate which commodity, because yes dear reader it is big business we are talking about here, is likely to attract the least law-enforcement scrutiny, minimum sentencing if caught and, last but by no means least, the maximum profit in individual countries that they traffick to or through.

Currently, people trafficking and smuggling (there is a distinct difference!) is top of the charts; a "re-usable" commodity, easily dispatched with very low overheads and the bonus of minimal risk through comparatively minimal prosecutions.

Do my "fellow" reviewers therefore consider that we legalise slavery, of primarily women and children with smattering of menfolk, and all that this vile trade and it's sub-trades entail in the modern world quite so glibly as they do the legalisation of drugs from their false, and dare I say naive, deductions?