Smack Express: How Organised Crime Got Hooked On Drugs

by Clive Small, Tom Gilling

Organized crime in Australia doesn't just exist on television screens. The real world of serious crime operates every day and in every state of the country. It is a multi-billion dollar business and at its core are the drug trade and a world of secrecy and self-protection where intimidation and violence are used as the first and only resort. Smack Express takes us deep into this world and unravels the web of criminal connections that are at the heart of the Australian underworld. It is about stand over merchants, big time drug dealers and small time crimes, politicians, corrupt police, informants, undercover cops, contract killers, criminal gangs, and lawyers and accountants operating on the edge of the law. It is also about the Calabrian Mafia, triads, and an international milieu that has connections across Southeast Asia and into Columbia. Authoritative and meticulously researched, Clive Small and Tom Gilling fit together all the pieces of this frightening and fascinating puzzle. Theirs is the book on organized crime for this generation.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Clive Small is a former detective and Assistant Commissioner of the The New South Wales Police Force, the primary law enforcement agency of the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Reviews

[Liz Barr · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the actual writing was smooth and clear, this badly needed some editing to fix up the structure and narrative flow. As it is, it read like a series of disjointed anecdotes, and doesn't in any way discuss the reasons or events around the growing significance of drugs in Australian organised crime.

[Cate · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is ok - charts organised crime's moved into drugs culminating in Cabramatta. Interesting.