McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime

by Misha Glenny

Have you ever bought a pirate DVD? Taken drugs? Fallen for a phishing scam?

Organised crime is part of all our worlds - often without us even knowing. McMafia is a journey through the new world of international organised crime, from gunrunners in Ukraine to money launderers in Dubai, by way of drug syndicates in Canada and cyber criminals in Brazil.

During his investigation into the dark side Misha Glenny speaks to countless gangsters, policemen and victims of organized crime, and also explores the ferocious consumer demands for drugs, trafficked women, illegal labour and arms across five continents.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime, History, True Crime, Politics, Economics, Business

550 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 8, 2008

Reviews

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things I learned from reading this book:
Illegal trade accounts for 20% of global GDP.
If you want a hit done right and cheaply, hire the Serbs.
The fall of communism is the single most important event accounting for the rise of global criminal syndicates.
There are a lot of brothels in Tel Aviv.
Bollywood and the Indian mafia go hand in hand.
Park and wash your money in Dubai.
Nigerian email scams are the real deal (they actually do originate in Nigeria).
A lot of pot comes from Vancouver BC.
People who deal in the marjiuana industry are much more laid back; those dealing with cocaine, very very dangerous.
The war on drugs: lost.
Colombian women love boob jobs. And blow may be on its way out, not because of good policing, but amphetaimnes and synthetic drugs is on the up and up. It's a pill, more user-friendly, and doesn't involve paraphernalia of injecting or sniffing.
Per captia, Brazilians do the most on-line banking. And they commit a lot of cybercrime.
Japanese yakuza down, Chinese corruption up.
The Chinese view snakeheads positively; the village pulls the funds together to sponsor someone to go out of the country, guy comes back and builds a big house for his family.

The chapters cover the crime syndicates the world over: Russia, the Balkans, India, South Africa, Colombia, Brazil, China, and Japan. Breathtaking in scope, it's wildly entertaining. It would've been fun to along for the ride and sit through the three hundred or so interviews that went into the book.

[Whitaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Misha Glenny is a journalist. That tells you what you need to know about the approach that he takes to the topic of globalised organised crime in this book. It's large reportorial, with minimal analysis and no overriding thesis. Whether this is good or bad depends on your point of view. The advantage of this approach is that it delivers a punchy narrative; the disadvantage is that the subject remains an unwieldy morass. (♪ If you prefer not to read the book, but want to get a short introduction to the work, TED has a good 20 minute lecture by Glenny himself that touches on all the main points covered in his book. It's easy to listen to and comes with photos and even a short video.)

The unwieldiness is inherent in his subject-matter: organised crime in all its protean forms across the globe from America to Zimbabwe. This is not the romance of Al Capone or John Dillinger. As he details in this book, organised crime has gone global. Think Goldman Sachs or MacDonalds, but infinitely dirtier

The sex and drugs —cocaine, opium, and cannabis—are of course there, but they represent only one small fraction of what organised crime gets into. We read here of more traditional forms of organised crime: protection rackets, the trafficking of human labour and prostitutes, and fencing of stolen goods. We also learn of its more arcane forms: email scams; traffic of oil and arms; sales of rare earth metals, diamonds and gold; counterfeiting of goods; and tax fraud. And, of course, the highway that makes it all possible and profitable: money laundering.

The journalistic approach was something I personally found frustrating because it made it difficult to step back and see the big picture. Nevertheless, certain themes gradually stand out. The main drivers of globalised organised crime are:

• Hungry jocks

From an economic point of view, a person's decision to enter into the drugs trade as a producer, distributor, or retailer is entirely rational, because the profit margins are so high… profits margins for traffickers can be even higher than those of luxury goods companies. [260-263]

While Glenny starts his history with the fall of the Soviet Union, the same basic features and template arise in other countries as well.

Grinding poverty coupled with anarchy drive aggressive testosterone-driven young men out into the streets and into crime and thuggery. In Eastern Europe, former athletes, soldiers, and policemen now out of work and hungry capitalised on the only skills they had—strength of arms, both muscular and fire-powered—to feed themselves. Intimidation and protection rackets quickly diversified into other business areas where entry barriers were low: theft, drugs, fencing of stolen goods, and prostitution.

While the specific trajectory differs from country to country, the same dynamic of jocks and hunger provides a ready-made supply of muscle and manpower to the industry. Amusingly, Glenny's account of Japan describes the yakuza as having the same human resource problems faced by other more legitimate industries: a lack of young Japanese willing to do dirty work, and the availability of cheaper alternatives in the form of Chinese gangsters willing to kill three people for the price of one.


• Weak, underfunded (read: small) governments

Organised crime and corruption flourish in regions and countries where public trust in institutions is weak. Refashioning the institutions of Kafkaesque autocracy into ones that support democracy by promoting accountability and transparency is a troublesome, long-term process. [90]

Impoverished states do not have the resources to cope with the vastly more well-funded criminal syndicates. With neither a sufficiently educated and well-fed labour force capable of confronting organised crime nor sufficient funds to pay them enough to present an attractive career path in comparison to crime, governments are simply outmatched and out-gunned. Glenny provides many examples, but two will suffice:
• In Italy, smuggling across the Adriatic was conducted using a fleet of high-speed speedboats each costing US$1 million. Every night, over 20 speedboats would make the crossing. The Italian coast guard had only two speedboats to try to deal with the problem.
• In Brazil, the world's biggest and most dangerous organised crime syndicate, the Primeiro Comando da Capital, was actually wealthy and well-armed enough to contest the state for power and control of Sao Paolo.

Indeed, a weak or weakened state is a fertile ground for organised crime to thrive for myriad reasons:
• Poor rule of law means legitimate businesses hesitate to invest and expand. This keeps the market economy weak, and tax revenue low.
• Low tax revenue means less ability to build strong institutions that will foster trust in its citizens, who will be willing, in turn to cooperate with police forces and the legal system.
• A weak market economy means less legitimate jobs for hungry citizens. It also means that the weak government is more willing to tolerate the grey economy which absorbs and feeds what would otherwise be hungry, restive malcontents.
• A poor government workforce is more easily corruptible.


• Demand

Organised crime is such a rewarding industry in the Balkans because ordinary Western Europeans spend an ever burgeoning amount of their spare time and money sleeping with prostitutes; smoking untaxed cigarettes; sticking €50 notes up their noses; employing illegal untaxed immigrant labour on subsistence wages; admiring ivory and sitting on teak; or purchasing the liver and kidneys of the desperately poor in the developing world. [55]

In many ways, organised crime is the nec plus ultra of capitalism. It is simply supply responding to demand. Just as America's experiment with Prohibition spawned moonshine and speakeasies, the demand for chemical or sexual thrills will spawn the supply of drugs and prostitutes. Ironically, the very virtues of capitalism—the drive and demand for cheaper goods and labour—underlie the rise of organised crime. If sweatshop labour produces cheap clothes, then in a perverse manifestation of Gresham's Law, the cheaper goods and labour will drive out the more expensive.


• Globalisation and the deregulation of financial markets

In 2007, with GDP at around US$50 trillion… the world's financial assets were now three times that figure. Even more dizzying and frightening is the figure of US$300 trillion that is accounted for by "derivative" securities. [392]

Most people understandably associate organised crime with drugs, prostitution, people-trafficking and similar activities. But the biggest bosses of Russia and Ukraine understood that if you really wished to strike the really big money, you should invest in two "legitimate" businesses—energy and arms. [109]

The nexus of money laundering takes place at the borderlands of the licit and illicit markets. Glenny notes that illicit goods and money move back and forth across these borders with ease and speed that makes it increasingly difficult to disentangle and distinguish legitimate from illegitimate trade and finance.

Hard drugs provide funds for weapons that provide barter goods for the rare earth metal Coltan. Funds from human trafficking are used to buy and resell property at astronomical prices the proceeds of which are then banked into off-shore accounts and recycled into arms sales that then fund energy transport companies that seem to do very little. Banks and audit firms remain seemingly unperturbed by the vast sums entering the ledgers and then leaving, and indeed, it is hardly in their interest to pose too pointed questions.

The globalisation of production, distribution, and consumption has benefitted organised crime as well, which is able to organise business on the basis of comparative advantage. Production of illegal goods is split into production of raw materials, shipped to manufacturers of the finished product, and then sold to middle-men who then transport the goods to the retail customer. And, of course, the internet and cybercrime have opened up a whole new frontier for illegal gains.


Speculation as to the Future

Futurology is a mug's game. But the upcoming decade will, I think, provide an interesting live experiment where Europe, racked by its austerity and its flailing economy, will undoubtedly see its states and governments weakened. Their close proximity to the Eastern European dens of organised crime will surely represent a lucrative opportunity for recruitment of disenchanted and unemployed young men and the expansion into new territories of production and labour.

The ability to capture and corrupt big business and governments of such brand-name countries will surely prove too tempting a prize. And for those who think that these governments have already been captured, I can assure you that this is small potatoes compared to the levels and extent of corruption in Asia and Africa where, in the worst countries, corruption is a cost to every single daily transaction.

But, hey, it's no big deal. Think of it as a form of voluntary tax. Instead of paying the government, you pay the gangsters. Some already feel that it amounts to the same thing. As Glenny notes, when communism fell in Eastern Europe, instead of paying taxes to the state (which had no idea how to tax the new small-scale private enterprise), businesses willingly handed over 10-30 per cent of their turnover to local thugs, who would ensure in exchange that they could continue trading, free from the violence of gangsters working on behalf of their competitors. The best part was that they weren't being forced by the state to pay. It was all voluntary. Well, the catch was that if they chose not to pay, they'd likely have died, but hey, it's a free market: caveat emptor, man, caveat emptor!

One key area that will undoubtedly represent low-hanging fruit is cybercrime. Glenny notes that the three key prerequisites for cybercrime are steep levels of poverty and unemployment; a high standard of basic education for a majority of the population; and a strong presence of more traditional organised-crime forms. These factors are highly likely to mature in a poverty-stricken Europe of the next decade. And their underfunded governments will find it hard to build the departments of skilled technical staff needed to tackle these problems.

A recent article in the Guardian suggests that the takeover has already begun. It reports that gangs have started targeting homeless people in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Southampton, Dover, Leicester, and Luton and turning them into modern-day slaves. Note that England's austerity measures have yet to kick in.

Yes, I think the next decade will indeed be an interesting experiment in rampant and wild-west capitalism. But, you know, I know that I can rest assured that all the money being generated by this crimebusiness will trickle back down to the population to create even more wealth for all. Wonderful thing to look forward to isn't it? I'm so excited I could pee in my pants.

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review must start with a confession to my darling “big sis” Julie: I found this book because I watched the TV series starring our beloved James Norton, saw it was based on a book and hunted down a copy, only to find out the book contains a few anecdotes which were the basis of the show’s plot (which is a thriller/cautionary tale about why you really, really shouldn’t get involved with the Russian mob). No regrets though, because the book is still very interesting, but watch the show if you can. So good and scary. Also, James Norton. Wink wink.


OK, let’s review this thing!

I’m not a straight-edge, but even in college and even when I was very active in the punk scene, I was never interested in drugs. I’m not sure when my awareness of the “food chain” (by that I mean the process of manufacturing, packaging, selling and ultimately delivering) of drugs came to be, but I know that it was early, because at 18, I was already horrified by the cycle of violence and suffering that had been part of the process that culminated in my classmates getting high. I didn’t want to be complicit in this heinous process. I have, in parallel, always been morbidly curious about the mechanism of organised crime. As any idiot can guess, this a business like any other: it’s all about supply and demand. Organised crime is lawful capitalism’s unruly little brother. You want something badly enough? Someone will get it for you, and not necessarily through legal channels… And if your economy is down the tubes, your social institutions aren’t trustworthy and don’t take care of/protect their citizens, what are the real alternatives to put food on your family’s table and pay the bills?

This book claims it will change the way you view the world: I wasn’t actually shocked by anything I read in here, but it’s still a depressing subject to read about – because it is much worse than we tend to think it is. But if you are curious about the incredibly intricately tangled mess that is global organized crime, this is a good place to start. Glenny meticulously untangles the history of the “alternative economy” of each country he visits, and the information that he brings forward, while obviously colored by his own ideological biases, are nevertheless often mind-blowing. His prose is very fluid and conversational, often tinted with his wry, dark humor, which makes the book a very engaging read, considering the topic. I must mention that he has a wonderful dark sense of humor that occasionally made me giggle – and that serves as much needed comic relief, considering the subject matter.

“Ordinary people around the world may think that they have no relationships to transnational criminal syndicates, but anyone who has used a cell phone or computer notebook in the past decade has unwittingly depended on organized crime for his or her convenience”, he writes, and alas, the way illegitimate and legitimate economy intersect can make us accidentally complicit in more ways than we think. From drugs to caviar, firearms and cheap labor, Glenny follows the trails and shows how close to home they actually are.

This review summarizes the book more skillfully than I could: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ; but if you are curious about the inner workings of the criminal underworld, this is a fascinating read.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially wary of this account of contemporary organised crime. Misha Glenny's 'Fall of Yugoslavia' had frustrated me as good narrative but weak analysis. I need not have been so concerned.

Yes, Glenny still does not quite 'get' that he is being fed a line sometimes by people who have an interest in extending their own power. And, yes, he still trots out liberal-imperial cliches in the short epilogue. However, the vast bulk of the book rises above the ‘given’ ideology.

It provides an excellent account, travelling from the Balkans through every theatre of criminal enterprise and ending up in China, not merely as a narrative of crime, the supplier of illegitimate needs and desires in a globalised world, but as an account of how the state system is beginning to crumble under the pressures of these trades.

There are sub-texts here that are immensely valuable for students of international affairs – above all, that imperial exploitation has left a culture of resentment in which non-Western criminality can not only thrive but develop an alternative moral compass that cannot easily be dismissed.

This will pass but the thieving of the British Empire in Africa, India and from China in the Opium Wars may be forgotten at home but it is not forgotten where the thievery actually took place. Victorian Britain was once a drugs dealer using violence in ways little different from the cartels of Medellin.

The bottom line is that once trading barriers were eliminated by globalization and massive demands unleashed – including demands for drugs, risk-taking and sexual pleasure as well as jobs and cheaper versions of expensive consumer goods – no police or security force was resourced or skilled enough to counter the operation of the laws of supply and demand on a global scale.

The perfect idiocy of the West was not merely to drop all trade barriers without adequate planning for the consequences – including mass migration – but to think that destroying rival state structures such as the Soviet Union would not bring the organizational muscle of a degraded security apparatus into alignment with criminal gangs whose main motivation would be purely economic.

The starting point for all criminality, across the world, is for state structures to try to ban rather than manage some human requirement (mind-altering substances, pleasures, status-driven wants or simply the need to cross a border to earn a living). These are the fools who think that an ‘ought’ is an ‘is’ and that the law, being self-evidently representative of the ‘good’, works without immense costs when it works against human instincts and needs.

There is a difference between law as protector of persons and property from other persons and law as code of conduct to meet pre-set cultural or religious standards. While those standards subsist, everything is secretive but it is still happening. Once those standards cease to hold for great tracts of the population, a market opens up where state terror is no longer sufficient to counter the demands of desire or need.

Economic interests then emerge to exploit these needs and desires and these interests are not always the bad guys. Sometimes, they resort to violence simply because they cannot rely on the state to regulate their markets, while those markets are often the only way economic forward for depressed populations.

Even if a Western State ‘takes out’ a gang boss or gang, the system simply re-assembles and re-connects, much like the nuclear-proof internet, albeit with short term violence and the lacuna actually results in improved production methods and increased supply. Warlord gangsters with a monopoly have an interest in keeping prices high and restricting supply. Break the monopoly and everyone is driving down price and increasing supply.

But what makes the situation so much worse is that the ideological basis for state attempts to deny the population what they want ‘in their own interest’, which might under normal circumstances motivate public servants and public to contain criminality, collapses under post-modernity.

It is the wider public that wants what the gangs provide and, in a way, why shouldn’t they? By what right do states dictate our pleasures, certainly not by divine right? Glenny seems to think that we are naughty for wanting these things (the message clearly purveyed to him by the 'authorities'), but we might as easily say that the bureaucrats are very naughty indeed for not allowing us these things on fair and safe terms.

On the one hand, in the US in particular, we see the emergence since the 1920s of special interests who rely on public cash (as taxes) being voted them year in year out, in increasing amounts, to deal with threats that they themselves define and popularise. They extend their remit internationally because, like all imperial markets, they must otherwise expand or die.

Glenny tells the story of the ultimate in bureaucratic stupidity where US Homeland Security's container monitoring took place in China at source to check nuclear smuggling but under conditions where none of the Americans spoke Chinese and the cops were, shall we say, not always exactly not corrupt – what was being signed off was a steady flow of cheap production from North Korea stamped ‘made in china’.

On the other hand, when a State is finally degraded by its own economic failures, the pauperized security apparat finds that it has the sudden need and means to engage in the market itself, either directly or in alliance with criminal gangs. By the time we reach China we have a working Political Criminal Nexus.

What is the common denominator here? Why, the State, of course, and its self interest and failures. The gangsters, though barbarous and cruel, are merely taking things from one place where people are very poor and giving them to people who are much richer in return for cash. Clearly the States do not seem to be doing much about helping the very poor people and Glenny's account of how FARC in Colombia got into coca productions ends up making one see FARC in a new and positive light and the Colombian state thugs (backed by the US) in a rather less positive one.

The poor coca or opium producer, the Fukien peasant or the educated but dirt-poor Nigerian, the beautiful East Asian village girl or the Balkans youngster get the cash they desperately need to survive, albeit smaller than the worth to the gangsters further down the line. At the other end, the Westerners get what they want.

The Westerners get doubly taxed – high prices for their illicit pleasures and high ‘legitimate’ taxes to keep thousands of security men and bureaucrats slaving away to keep those prices high by disrupting the supply lines. Meanwhile, the lack of legitimacy means that the poor do not get full value (‘fair trade’) and there is no regulation of the health and safety aspects of what is supplied. Liberal and faith-based moralists are almost certainly central to the rotten core of the politics involved here.

Similarly, without legal protection, there is no recourse but to the gun and corruption so that the whole security apparat gets suborned by people whose capital accumulation is substantial and who are always one step ahead of any attempt by over-paid bureaucrats to deny then access to their loot. Losses are budgeted into the game, driving down benefits for the poor and prices up for the rich.

It is a mess but no one wants to face the fact that you cannot buck the market except within a tough authoritarian state (which means a sclerotic economy) and that world government is just not going to happen (and that it would simply be a sclerotic authoritarian state writ large if it did).

And so it goes on – thuggish stupid state security systems claiming the moral high ground but building huge prison systems like gulags and destroying the freedoms and wealth of their own peoples in their drive to control the market and thuggish entrepreneurs who claim the same market ideology as their opponents and never have to give true value to the two ends of the supply chain.

Glenny follows the Western liberal party line at the end about more global governance but it is not convincing. It is just a job creation scheme for increasingly inept administrators and some very brave but misused grunts on the ground. Imagine the tax take for Governments if those grunts were administering the trade themselves!

Glenny gets to the nub of the issue at one point: the stupidity of the war on drugs. One solution would be the legalization of human pleasures regardless of the priests and ideologues in order to give fair value to the peasants and young women who provide the services. From this point on, regulation could improve health and safety and punish not the small user but exploitative bosses in between.

But, regardless of all this, the reality is that globalization has, in around 30 years, broken the back of one Empire (the Soviet) and is placing two others (the Atlantic and the Chinese) under severe strain. The ‘alternative economic system’, now operating as both gangsterdom and increasingly anarcho-capitalist trading across the internet, is simply no longer something that can be beaten like Hitler or Mussolini. It has to be adapted to. It has to be out-thought.

Why? Because it is not a perversion of humanity but the very essence of humanity – the seeking of trading advantage and arbitrage opportunities between sets of desire and want. It is the sclerotic state systems that originally unleashed this chaos by going for economic growth over social cohesion that are the perversion of humanity, still trying to contain and control what is essentially human for the sake of bureaucratic order.

It may not be an exaggeration to say that what we are seeing compressed (alongside the insurgencies that grow year on year, the collapse of small nation states such as Afghanistan and Syria under Western pressure, and the internal resentments and institutional cynicism within the West) into a relatively few years is a systemic breakdown like that of the late Roman Empire.

Once empires stop expanding, they freeze up and then they crumble. Mexican gangsters are now at the very gates of the American South West, insurgencies with criminal aspects spread from Mali to Central Asia, from Somalia to Southern Italy, and the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Congress is faced with direct challenges to its authority from PCN elements. We are only a few steps from warlordism.

So, despite the failures of analysis (or perhaps the lack of courage or interest in critiquing the analyses of his establishment sources), this book is an invaluable primer in how the world really works. And if the world does work like this (and we think it does), it merely confirms that we have been ruled by idiots for far longer than we all deserve. The gangsters are only half the problem – the other half is our less than competent political class.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm generally sceptical of books that purport to change one's view of the world, but when one of them does come along, its a welcome surprise. McMafia ranks one of the two best books I've read so far this year -- the other being Alan Weisman's The World Without Us -- in the very personal terms of having expanded my understanding of how the world works and the consequences of actions and events.

Glenny was the Guardian's and BBC's Central Europe correspondent. Realising how intertwined their ecnomies were with organised crime -- especially in the political and institutional vacuum post Soviet Union collapse -- he investigated further, and delves into what turns out a worldwide network with international markets and global supply chains. Thus the book jumps from country to country, explaining briefly the history and nature of the mafia therein and linking it with organizations in other localities.

There is too much detail to go into specifically. The violence and exploitation described is hugely disturbing, and the causes implied are provocative, making me consider seriously how, as an individual and citizen, to respond.

A first reaction is a rereading of Russia's contemporary history, at least at recorded in the Western press. Putin's seizure of assets from oligarchs used to strike me as horribly anti-freemarket and bad for the people, but I did not know that post-collapse, Russia liberalised the prices of most commodities but not -- inexplicably as Glenny says -- the price of energy. So the clever men who would become Russia's oligarchs manouvered themselves into positions to buy oil at state subsidized prices, and sell it at world prices, and pocket the margin. Previously, the state collected the margin, and despite the inefficiencies and corruption, some of it went back to the people. Under the oligarchs, it went entirely to private coffers, causing surging wealth disparities. In a way, though Glenny doesn't say it, one interpretation could be that Putin has merely reclaiming for the state what was annexed by the robber-barons.

There is a strong sense that much damage is caused by barriers to trade and labor. In the wake of the USSR's collapse, the Eastern European states were left without legit ways of self-financing, because they no longer had a parent, but could not gain access the EU markets due the the Common Agricultural Policy that prevented the import of non-EU fresh food. To finance themselves, the state was forced to accomodate drug exports, levying a tariff (in that sense) on the druglords. Because of the state's bankruptcy, the police could not function, leaving businesses to depend on, and pay for via a tax-like 10% protection fee, the mafia. Thus organised crime became entrenched in the social fabric.

A second immediate reaction is a further revulsion against the use of drugs and prostitutes. Not that there was any good reason to consume such in the first place, but even seemingly harmless, why-not-try-once college drugs like crack, are unavoidably tainted by their supply chains. Who knows whose blood was spilt to get you that shot? Organised crime -- at least in drugs and women -- was, and is, driven by the growing market for drugs and entertainment in the US, Europe, and even in high tech white collar classes (or rich kids) in Israel or India; in a way, I'm not at all upset that the financial crisis will put a lot of these potential consumers out of jobs.

But that's a problem with the simplistic response of revulsion. Economic growth enlarges the market, but also creates employment opportunities for those who would otherwise be led into this business. And one can't remain untouched. Good money mixes with bad extremely easily, as the chapter on money laundering points out. Drug or arms money flows into places like Dubai (I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it came through Singapore too), where it was invested in property, which, once flipped, provided a legitimate source for the cash -- i.e. it was clean and free to reenter the legit economy.

If you can't opt out, what can you do? I can't think of anything right now (except for being unimpressed if any young punk lawyer announces proudly they're moving to the Middle East for 5x more pay), but: I'm deeply impressed by George Soros' efforts (described in a separate biography) via the Open Society, to fund a range of projects, but including the strengthening of democratic institutions such as independent journalism and research institutes in emerging economies, including East Europe (he's Hungarian after all), Russia and China. Also incredibly important: primary education and healthcare, free trade and employment opportunity, etc. But perhaps the biggest, and most impossible, goal -- to help people learn how to live without being the massive over-consumers we are.

As a final aside, the book is doubly depressing, for the environmentalist in me, to think there is a sizeable chunk of people out there who don't give shit that the world is going to blow up, and because of this group, another, larger, chunk of people cannot afford to give a shit.

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe I spend too much time immersed in crime, maybe its the fact that this book is over a decade old bur really it didn't tell me anything new. The opening section was a less in depth version of Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism where the chaos that followed the fall of communism and the break up of the Balkans allowed organised crime to flourish.
He travels the world to uncover that every country has an underbelly of illicit activity and that often this is bolstered by easily bribed officials - I know, who'd have thunk it eh?
Despite adding nothing to the debate - unlike Klein he has no solutions and is just a documenter of what is going on- if you know little of the Yakuza, the Triads or Brazilian cyber crime then you could do worse than read this. Glenny explains complex organisations and networks clearly and has a personable persona, although this sometimes veers into News of the World territory with his 'I made my excuses and left' mantra each time he is in the vicinity of an escort, lap-dancer or the like, and he has a habit of repeating phrases that he is particularly proud of, at least twice describing gang killings as like, "...a Jacobean or Elizabethan revenge tragedy".

[Goan B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allereerst is het handig om te vermelden dat ik groot voorstander ben van de EU, Schengen en dat ik globalisering over het algemeen een best wel tof verschijnsel vind. Juist daarom heb ik besloten dit boek te lezen, om een beetje buiten mijn eigen bubbel te raken. Deels gelukt overigens, nog steeds Pro-Europa maar nu zie ik wel nog meer in dat de expansiedrift begin deze eeuw vrij ernstige gevolgen heeft gehad, maar ja.

McMaffia van Glenny behandelt de wereldwijde georganiseerde misdaad per regio. Van de Bulgaarse gangsters tot de Colombiaanse drugskartels, van de Canadese wiettelers tot de moorden in de Indiase onderwereld en van de Moldavische vrouwenhandelaren tot de Noord-Koreaanse namaakproducten. Enkele schetsende anekdotes laten zien hoe in de werkelijkheid gaat en hoe eigenlijk alles verweeft is met elkaar. Erg interessant dus!

Grootste nadeel is toch dat het allemaal soms vrij langdradig en droog is. En die namen onthouden, daar doe ik de moeite niet voor. Maakt niet uit hoeveel achternamen eindigend op 'ov' of 'ing' je op me afgooit, ik lees er gewoon over heen.

Nou, main takeaways: De War on Drugs (beleid, niet de band:p) is hopeloos mislukt. Je kan de aanbodkant aanpakken zoveel je wil, zolang de vraag-kant bestaat (en die blijft bestaan), zal er altijd wel een reden zijn om drugs te handelen. Legalisering of het gedogen van drugs zou de misdaad een flinke klap kunnen geven, aangezien 70% van de georganiseerde misdaad wordt gefinancierd door de handel van drugs. Laat mensen lekker hun wietje roken, laat mensen lekker een pilletje nemen op een feest en laat mensen lekker trippen ergens in een veilige omgeving.

Oja, en alvast sorry voor mijn toekomstige echtgenote, je krijgt geen diamanten ring. Diamantenhandel zuigt best wel hard. En bespaart weer geld.

[Walter U. · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've been sorely disappointed by a book. Unfortunately, this is one of those instances.

Don't get me wrong, the material is impeccably researched, and perhaps much of the fault lies with yours truly for expecting a different book at the outset without doing due diligence. What can I say? I live dangerously...

So let's start. I suppose the biggest issue I have with the book is the name, McMafia, which made it sound like it was going to be more along the lines of Narconomics or Freakonomics. What I got instead is a book that should have been named: "A Gestalt Study of the Rise and Development of Modern Organized Crime with Considerations for Geopolitical Pressures and Historical Conditions Resulting from the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Totalitarian Rule, and Incipient Globalization: In Four Parts and Fourteen Chapters." There.

Second, though Mr. Glenny would have you believe he is a journalist, he has a mean streak of "orator" running through him that makes his text read like a filibuster in front of a packed house at the UN, if such a thing existed. A bit dry, a tad dull, altogether hard to stomach for sustained periods.

Third, the individual stories and his subsequent tangents jump around so much that by the time you finish the chapter it's like you've...wait, did I leave the gas on?...

Last, and this is perhaps the most important measure, I am not sure I learned much aside from a few bits here and there. Overall, his exposition remained inaccesible due to his style, and that's a missed opportunity.

Cannot recommend if you read for pleasure and/or self-edification. But a must if you're in high school or college and are asked to hand in a term paper with enough pretentious asides to impress your blowhard professor.

[Jannelies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Misha Glenny is journalist en historicus. Hij schreef al eerder goed ontvangen boeken over de val van het communisme en de diverse Balkanoorlogen. En nu is er dan McMaffia.
McMaffia leest als de spreekwoordelijke trein. Glenny heeft genoeg onderzoek gedaan om een bibliotheek vol thrillers te schrijven... maar hij ziet kans om in dit niet eens zo dikke boek (ruim 400 pagina's) de lezer mee te nemen naar oorden in heel Europa, maar óók 'de eigen achtertuin'. Internationale criminaliteit is niet van deze tijd maar floreert wel sinds bepaalde grenzen open liggen en bepaalde oorlogen zijn gevoerd. Huiveringwekkend is bijvoorbeeld het hoofdstuk over vrouwenhandel, dat laat zien dat jonge meisjes van duizenden kilometers ver weg in de prostitutie belanden in bijvoorbeeld Engeland en Nederland.
Wie denkt dat al die 'enge criminelen' uit de Oostbloklanden komen, heeft het overigens helemaal mis. Zo verrast Glenny ons in het deel over drugs en cybercriminaliteit, met cijfers over de drugshandel in British Columbia, Canada. Per hoofd van de bevolking hebben ze daar de grootste concentratie van criminele organisaties. Miljarden gaan er om in het kweken van wiet. Wie zegt er nog iets over het bescheiden Nederland?
McMaffia is een bijzonder onthullend boek. Een groot voordeel is ook dat Glenny nergens belerend of saai wordt. Hij presenteert feiten en cijfers soepel en duidelijk en zijn stijl verveelt nergens. Ook een pluspunt is dat enkele pagina’s in McMaffia zijn ingeruimd voor foto’s waardoor het geheel een 'gezicht' krijgt. McMaffia is een goed geslaagd boek te noemen. Informatief en bijzonder spannend.

Noot: op de Hebban-pagina staat een verkeerde titel voor deze recensie. Dat is waarschijnlijk gekomen door het overzetten van het oude naar het nieuwe CMS destijds.

[Ericka · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my International Studies senior seminar we had to pick a book that dealt with globalization/globalism and present a project on it. Naturally, most people thought to pick the obvious such as The World is Flat. After a quick Amazon search this book popped up and I figured it had to be good because Glenny has always done an excellent job of writing about the Balkans (my love). He did not let me down!

McMafia reviews different aspects of organized crime and how it is spreading. He begins with the end of the Cold War, which marks the beginning of the underworld really becoming globalized. There were many great examples that I was able to take directly from the book and quote in my senior thesis and pretty much every student ended up buying a copy of this after our presentation.

[Bruce Hatton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book about twelve years ago. The author is an experienced investigative journalist and historian who was the Central European correspondent for the Guardian and the BBC.
This is a journey through the world of organised international crime since the break up of the Soviet Union, from gunrunners in the former Jugoslavia, money laundering in the Gulf States, drug syndicates in Canada and South America to people smuggling via Israel. The final chapters deal with the ever growing menace of cyber crime where China and Brazil seem to be at the forefront. In this reprinted edition there is an afterword called "Ten Years On" where the cyber crime element has grown exponentially. During the course of writing this book, the author interviewed countless gangsters, police officers and victims of organised crime as he explores the ferocious demand for drugs, trafficked women, illegal labour and arms across five continents.
A highly enlightening, yet frequently scary read.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of depressing look at the rise of the organized crime across the planet. Turns out "free trade" and "globalization" were the best things to happen to the world's mafias since the fall of Communism.

Also, did you know that Americans are bad? Well, they are. Just accept it. This author seems to think that no one else on the planet has to take responsibility for anything except Americans.

Sigh.

[James Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An incredible book to have read, but not the best book to read.

Glenny writes a brilliant and comprehensive overview of organised crime throughout his long and diverse career, but condensing all that into a single book leaves you with information overload. It reads a bit like that friend talking your ear off for hours on end at an afters; this is all fascinating mate, but I'm not going to remember any of it tomorrow.

I'd love to see this book slowed down, split into a few distinct books, allowing more time for the reader to get familiar with themes and characters.

That being said, I think the content is incredible, filled with fascinating insight. I have no problem recommending this book, really glad to have picker it up.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great exploration of the emergence of the modern criminal underworld that came about after the fall of the Soviet Union.

[Rita Costa (Lusitania Geek) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, when I saw this book on sale i was like, humm it’s my type of book I like to read. This book shows a reality check what is like organized crime, how it works and how it operates in the several countries. I see this book usefull and informative, if you like true crime, mafia and organized crime.
If I knew this book earlier, i would definitely buy it !

PS: By the way, there’s a mini serie with the same book title, yet diferent approach but still shows about organized crime in the russian mob and theIr mentality (isn’t documentary). I do Recommend! ☺️

5 ⭐️

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09l64j4

Description: With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the deregulation of international financial markets in 1989, governments and entrepreneurs alike became intoxicated by forecasts of limitless expansion into newly open markets. No one would foresee that the greatest success story to arise from these events would be the globalization of organized crime. Current estimates suggest that illegal trade accounts for nearly one-fifth of global GDP.

McMafia is a fearless, encompassing, wholly authoritative investigation of the now proven ability of organized crime worldwide to find and service markets driven by a seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares. Whether discussing the Russian mafia, Colombian drug cartels, or Chinese labor smugglers, Misha Glenny makes clear how organized crime feeds off the poverty of the developing world, how it exploits new technology in the forms of cybercrime and identity theft, and how both global crime and terror are fueled by an identical source: the triumphant material affluence of the West.

To trace the disparate strands of this hydra-like story, Glenny talked to police, victims, politicians, and members of the global underworld in eastern Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, China, Japan, and India.


1/8: After a tragic event, Russian exile Alex Godman is drawn into the murky world of global crime as he tries to protect his family from their dark past.

2/8: Semiyon convinces Alex into a venture designed to harm Vadim's business in Prague. Meanwhile, a young girl is taken on a very different journey.

3/8: A mysterious figure, who is not all he seems, reaches out to Alex. While Dmitri deals with grief, Oksana learns of a secret that could rock the family.

Alex unlocks a way to attack Benny Chopra and Vadim in Mumbai. He and Rebecca announce their engagement, but she starts to think he is hiding something.

5/8: Semiyon awakes to an awful accusation. Alex is convinced he's innocent and sets out to try to expose his accusers. Meanwhile, Katya unravels a shocking secret.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alex Godman has spent his life trying to avoid the shadow of his family's criminal past, but when tragedy strikes, he is drawn into the world of international crime.

Episode 1 of 8
After a tragic event, Russian exile Alex Godman is drawn into the murky world of global crime as he tries to protect his family from their dark past.

Episode 2 of 8
Semiyon convinces Alex into a venture designed to harm Vadim's business in Prague. Meanwhile, a young girl is taken on a very different journey.

Episode 3 of 8
A mysterious figure, who is not all he seems, reaches out to Alex. While Dmitri deals with grief, Oksana learns of a secret that could rock the family.

Episode 4 of 8
Alex unlocks a way to attack Benny Chopra and Vadim in Mumbai. He and Rebecca announce their engagement, but she starts to think he is hiding something.

Episode 5 of 8
Semiyon awakes to an awful accusation. Alex is convinced he's innocent and sets out to try to expose his accusers. Meanwhile, Katya unravels a shocking secret.

Episode 6 of 8
Alex fears Vadim's next move as he increases the family's security. Rebecca is torn and moves out as she struggles with Alex's choices.

Episode 7 of 8
Vadim is convinced to broker peace in Istanbul. Alex learns the dreadful price of his actions, and Dmitri makes a decision that endangers them all.

Episode 8 of 8
Alex flies to Moscow unaware of his father's actions, Vadim and Ilya are lying in wait for him. Alex has to draw on all his resources, will he survive?

[DaViD´82]

Čím je Savianova Gomora pro moderní italskou camorru, tak tím Glennyho McMafie není pro mafie vzešlé z Východního bloku. A přitom by mohla, protože autor na to má znalosti i talent. Je to však, bohužel, tak strašně letem světem (od východní Evropy přes Afriku, Indii či Japonsko až po Jižní Ameriku) a na malém prostoru, že se nedostává prostoru na nic více než pár (někdy doslova) nejzajímavějších příkladů vlivů a důsledků globalizace organizovaného zločinu po rozpadu Sovětského svazu. Potěší, že autor nepase jen po očividných důsledcích jako je korupce jdoucí ruku v ruce s politickou mocí, ale vybírá i méně očividné oblasti.

Je to tak trochu paradox; je to čtivé, neskonale zajímavé (jakkoli dnes již neaktuální, přeci jen organizovaný zločin je dnes ještě sofistikovanější než „tenkrát“ v devadesátkách a počátku tisíciletí), v příkladech které si to vybere nesporně investigativní, ale… Ale vždy když už si říkáte „chci vědět víc, podrobněji a do hloubky“, tak se uhne k něčemu zcela jinému a jde se o světadíl dál. Takže na jednu stranu to nelze nedoporučit (speciálně pak u nás, kde jsme si všemi těmi ruskými a albánskými mafiemi, Mrázky, Babiši apod. také prošli; resp. procházíme), protože to je zajímavé i kvalitně napsané, ovšem na druhou stranu zůstává určitá pachuť, že je to sice dobré, ale v konceptu nedotažené, že se honí příliš zajíců a že méně je někdy více.

[Will James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very accessible, yet at times needlessly journalistic, look at organised crime since the dawn of globalisation in the 1980s and 1990s. From an IR perspective, it really drives home how important the role this 'shadow economy' plays in global finance and economics, and the pernicious and overwhelming influence organised crime plays in the international economy. Glenny does a great job of reminding the reader that organised crime is not simply a criminal justice issue, but a phenomenon that should underpin our discussions on a much broader set of socio-economic topics.

The book's focus on eastern Europe and the fall of Yugoslavia are its strongest passages, not surprising considering the author's past experience in the area. However, some of the later chapters, such as on the rise of cyber crime and developments in China seemed rushed and didn't piece together as well as the rest of the book. Nonetheless, each page seemed to illuminate with another set of draw dropping examples of the all-embracing effects that organised crime has on modern life, whether we like it or not.

[Brandon Forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

MCMAFIA is almost too much of a good thing. This is a book that feels like 5 or 6 books, there's so much information and so many interesting people contained within. This is first-class reporting with a knowing wink, very much in a John le Carré or (perhaps more appropriately) Graham Greene style. There are sections that feel dated, but on the whole the book seems to have aged remarkably well, especially with topics like the negative effects of globalization and the criminality of the Russian state still very much in the headlines. As a tour of how we got to this geopolitical moment, I can't think of a better tour guide then Misha Glenny- the entire book will either have you shaking your head at his access to these criminals, or at the cunning insight he's able to draw from that access. Just be prepared for a bit of jet lag as you try to keep up with him!

[Alberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aproximadamente se estima que el 20 % del PIB global es dinero negro. Este libro te da una visión global de las actividades delictivas en cada zona, como están relacionadas entre si y la manera de lavar el dinero negro. Los y actividades delictivas a su vez están íntimamente relacionadas con la historia de cada país. Por ejemplo, la caída de los regímenes comunistas y las guerras de los Balcanes supusieron la base de lo que son los principales grupos mafiosos actualmente en Europa. Como curiosidad el comportamiento de los grupos mafiosos de los países de la ex Yugoslavia, que estaban asociados en sus operaciones independientemente de que sus países estuvieran en guerra.
En la cadena delictiva actúan números actores desde políticos, hasta empresarios supuestamente respetables, funcionarios, etc. Los tentáculos de la mafia están por todos sitios, hasta donde menos te lo esperas.

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though a bit short on analysis, and long on descriptive anecdotes, this book presents a thorough and sturdy survey of transnational crime as of c. 2009.

The problem is that the picture has changed dramatically since 2014, when transnational crime merged with political Putinism in Russia, and with the Russian-besotted euro-neofascists taking power throughout Eastern Europe — and elsewhere (the Putin/Russian Mob/Orbán/Duterte) model, and which has morphed yet again in 2016 as the neofascist/Mob/Putinist alliance has now seized power in the US (the Trumpists WH) and Britain (Farage and Leave).

So we are desperately in need of a new book which puts all of the new pieces together. This one, while interesting, is thus slightly dated — as I feared when I began it.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book grabbed me from the beginning due to my obsession with all things Eastern European. I learned of a "country" that doesn't really exist (Transnistria, a breakaway of Moldova) Lots about how criminals that you think don't like each other actually use those "hatreds" as excuses to work together (Serbs and Croats and Bosnians, anyone?)

Also, how war on drugs actually keeps organized crime flowing. If it were legal, nearly 60% of organized crime's income would be taken away. Yet another reason to legalize it.

In the end, however, I wasn't clear on the overarching theme of the book. Lots of cool anecdones, but to what end? I'm not sure......

[Alex Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This account of organised crime is a treasure and a great overview of global criminal networks and operations. Although an accessible read, it took a while to get through because the account is so rich with detail that you want to savour every chapter to properly digest what you have just read.

The baseline of this book is that the shadow economy is not just intertwined with the licit economy and political system, but in some ways they exist as mutually inclusive systems. Although in some ways the organised criminal networks and operations described in the book are unsurprising (we have all seen American gangster movies or at least heard of their themes) it was the primary source material that shocked me and made this book so engaging, hearing individual accounts of victims of organised crimes and “mafia”-members alike from the world over.

Glenny’s account begins in Europe at the fall of Communism in the USSR and guides you on a tour of the reverberations caused by this catastrophic change in economic system, exploring autocratic-capitalist endeavours as trade routes are established and globalisation ensues. We then see like-situations in other parts of the world where individual greed rots economic systems but is perpetuated by partnerships with the state across the globe.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how the world really works or is in the mood for a fantastic non-fiction.

[Cressida McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and terrifying in equal measure.

[Lu Red · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tres y medio. Algunos capítulos más interesantes que otros pero muy bien documentado.

[Adrian Fingleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, exhaustive (and somewhat exhausting) trawl through recently-emerged criminal gangs in countries all around the world. It's quite dense, but leavened somewhat by interviews with various protagonists. I found the section on Eastern Europe and post CCCP Russia to be particularly engaging. Recommended.

[Gergely · Rating 2 out of 5]

McMafia is certainly an apt title for this book; written in an easy-to-consume style, this book munches it's way through global organised crime networks at such a high pace you'll be suffering from indigestion before you've reached the fiftieth page.

Glenny does succeed, as I had hoped before opening the book, in illuminating some of the fascinating, charasmatic and plain scary people behind the world's extraordinary shadow economy. And yet, frustratingly, the book never quite manages to settle enough to allow the reader to get a feel for any one of the characters. It's rip-roaring style should have worked well for a book with such a vast scope, but in it's over indulgence of mafia crime bosses from Mumbai to Moscow to Cape Town, one soon gets the feeling that less would, in fact, have been more.

At the same time, there are some very interesting and valid observations underlying his story, including the way that criminal underworlds are so successfully piggy-backing on the wider globalisation of the economy, and that the fact that the prohibition of narcotics is the single biggest shot in the foot for the worlds' governments in tackling globally organised criminals.

[David Canford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this as I had noticed the fictional BBC TV series, though I haven’t seen that, wanting to read the book first. The book isn’t, in fact, a novel but factual. I was disappointed by that until I started to read it. The author knows his stuff and brings the reader a great, though sobering, expose of how organised crime plays such a large part in the world’s economy. For example, I had no idea just how powerful the Yakuza were in Japan. Ultimately it is all a terrible tragedy, especially for those who are trafficked or otherwise ruthlessly exploited by criminal gangs and many governments turn a blind eye as it suits them to do so. Well worth reading. A real eye-opener.

[Peter Ellwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to confess I didn't finish it. It does exactly what it says on the tin - examines the way in which crime and corruption have been globalised in exactly the same way as trade - but I guess I was looking for something else. In the end, it is little more than a series of loosely-connected/loosely-disconnected articles about how there are nasty people almost everywhere, an inventory of bad guys. Clearly it's great if you're looking to write a BBC thriller based on reality; but I found it tiring in the end.