Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia

by Bertil Lintner

From pirates singing Ricky Martin to mob hits carried out with samurai swords, Bertil Lintner offers a fascinating look at organized crime in the Asia Pacific. Both Western and Asian pundits assert that shady deals are an Asian way of life. Some argue that corruption and illicit business ventures--gambling, prostitution, drug trafficking, gun running, oil smuggling--are entrenched parts of the Asian value system. Yet many Asian leaders maintain that their cities are safer than Sydney, Amsterdam, New York, and Los Angeles. Making use of expertise gained from twenty years of living in Asia, Lintner exposes the role crime plays in the countries of the Far East. In Blood Brothers , he takes you inside the criminal fraternities of Asia, examining these networks and their past histories in order to answer one How are civil societies all over the world to be protected from the worst excesses of increasingly globalized mobsters?

Genres: History, Crime, Nonfiction, China, Sociology

464 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jeff Frane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent and superbly-researched account of the intertwining of government, business and gangsters in Asia, including China, Japan, Thailand, Burma, Russia and others. Ultimately I found the massive level of detail to be too much to slog through but it speaks to Lintner's credibility. He made his point well enough half way through the book and the last few chapters were just too much.

[Ikhlas Tawazun · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive deep dive into the affair between criminality, business, and politics in Asia—including Indonesia. This book is really not short of interesting and jaw-dropping facts, which is why it can serve a lot of interests: history geeks, crime enthusiasts, politics readers, etc.

The book primarily concerns organized crime in the form of mafias, thugs, and secret societies, but it touches a lot on business and politics subjects as well. While it does not give an explicit conclusion, the book broadly tells us about the nature of criminality that must operate on at least some level of collusion with politics and/or businesses.

Might have to work more on the sources though, albeit the limitations in this field are very understandable.

[Pelaut · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book.
Bertil Lintner has written a very informative, detailed,
and well documented book here.

[Win · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too shallow. This book tries to include as many figures as possible, without sufficient data. Sometimes it feels like reading a short news in a newspaper.

[Ardita · Rating 2 out of 5]

The criminal and illegal business conduits of Asia underbelly was slit and exposed in Lintner book.

But do not expect to read anything about the dark side of Thailand, Burma, Vietnam and Singapore. Lintner used Chinese-origin practioners on the deeper shade of charcoal gray business to slit open, though not really dissect, the shady business in China, Japan, Cambodia, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, Macau and some parts of the US.

I sat with a bowl of noodle soup for a quick lunch and went through the chapter on Indonesia called "The pirate republic", which started off as a chit-chat with a local voter during the 1999 referendum for independence in Timor Leste, onto the roles of local gang called Aitarak and its relation with Indonesian generals, going back to the history of "vrijman" (thugs or "preman" in Indonesian) during the Dutch era in Batavia, then leaped forward to Liem Soei Liong and Mochtar Riady period and ended with illegal handling of Afghani, Iranian and Iraqi refugees by Jakarta-based Pakistani middlemen.

Man, I should have stayed with "Bangkok Days" by Miss Lalant (a nickname to Lawrence Osborne, the writer; given by some woman in his cockroach-laden apartment) and be loyal to Sonchai Jitpleecheep in "Bangkok Haunts" :D

I didn't read the other chapters anyways.