Showing results for "the world" in Organised Crime

On a thrilling whistle-stop tour of how the world's criminal underbelly has shaped state-making, capitalism, globalisation and all forms of so-called legitimate power, Homo Criminalis shows the emergence of modern society through the evolution of the underworld and its crimes. From Chinese banditry and eighteenth-century English tea smuggling to today's cocaine submarines and the high-tech crimes of tomorrow, this book shows us how the world's dark underbelly shapes us, no matter how we try to outpace it.

In this disturbing exposé, journalist Paul L. Williams describes a secret alliance forged at the close of World War II by the CIA, the Sicilian and US mafias, and the Vatican to thwart the possibility of a Communist invasion of Europe. Williams presents evidence suggesting the existence, in many European countries, of "stay-behind" units consisting of 5,000 to 15,000 military operatives.

"We are the people our parents warned us about" is the motto of the Bandidos, one of the world's most feared outlaw motorcycle gangs. For ten years, Steve Utah was a Bandidos insider. He arranged the security of their clubhouses. He 'cooked' ecstasy and ice for them. He was at meetings where interstate and overseas drug and weapons smuggling was planned. He saw stolen military weapons being sold. He witnessed vicious beatings, helped dump corpses.It all became too much and, in an attempt to regain control of his life, Utah resorted to the unthinkable....

In July 2011, the oil tanker Brillante Virtuoso was drifting through the treacherous Gulf of Aden when a crew of pirates attacked and set her ablaze in a devastating explosion. But when David Mockett, a maritime surveyor working for Lloyd's of London, inspected the damaged vessel, he was left with more questions than answers. Soon after his inspection, he was murdered. Dead in the Water is a shocking expose of the criminal inner-workings of international shipping, an old-world industry at the backbone of our global economy.

Incarceration has a long and inglorious history, from dungeons in the bowels of castles to oppressive penal colonies in Australia. Karen Farrington brings this history up to the 21st century, exploring some of the world's worst prisons, from Alcatraz to Pollsmoor, and the unending battles that rage between convicts and warders. Inside the prison walls, gangs rule, guards devise sadistic punishments, and newcomers suffer abuse at the hands of experienced tormentors.

Dirty cops, trafficking rings, globe-spanning, nail-biting undercover detective work and the biggest takedown of the online narcotics market in the history of the internet. This is the story of how a single innovation has fuelled the world's criminal financial markets, and unleashed a cat-and mouse game like no other. Lords of Crypto Crime is the gripping, insider story of how a brilliant group of investigators took down the biggest kingpins of the dark web.

On June 15, 1862, a gang of bushrangers held up a gold escort at Eugowra, just east of Forbes, NSW. They escaped with a pile of cash and 77 kilograms of gold, worth about $10 million today. It remains the largest gold robbery in Australian history. In this riveting recreation of the events, James Phelps finally tells the full story of how Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall, John O'Meally, Johnny Gilbert, Henry Manns, Alexander Fordyce, John Bow and Dan Charters planned and executed the robbery - and what happened to all that gold.

When the cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar escaped his lavish, custom built prison in Colombia, the fallout drove the nation to the brink of chaos. In Killing Pablo, acclaimed journalist Mark Bowden tells the story of the US military’s fifteen-month mission to find him. Drawing on unprecedented access to the soldiers, field agents, and officials involved in the chase, as well as hundreds of pages of top-secret documents and transcripts of Escobar’s intercepted phone conversations, Bowden creates a narrative that reads as if it were torn from the pages of a Tom Clancy thriller.

Sailing instructor Donald MacNeil was delighted when he was hired to skipper a yacht across the Mediterranean. The pay was good, and the work was easy - or so he thought. He had to sail to South America to collect one of the biggest shipments of cocaine ever bound for the UK. Refusal was not an option. There followed a harrowing journey to Venezuela, where almost £50 million of coke was waiting. But someone had tipped off the authorities. Donald and his fellow crewman were arrested, convicted of drug smuggling, and sentenced to six years in the notorious island prison of San Antonio.

We live in their buildings, work in their companies, shop in their stores, eat in their restaurants and elect politicians they fund. Founded more than 150 years ago by shepherding families in the toe of Italy, the 'Ndrangheta is today the world's most powerful mafia, with a crushing presence in Southern Italy, a market-moving size in global finance and a reach that extends to 50 countries around the world. And yet, remarkably, few of us have ever heard of it.

Unlock the cultural obsession with high-stakes robberies in Heist, a collection of the world's greatest real-life break-ins. From the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's famous art heist to the disappearance of the Marie Antoinette watch, these 100% true stories will have you on the edge of your seat--and double checking the locks on your doors!

Murderer, philanthropist, drug dealer, politician, devil, saint: many words have been used to describe Pablo Escobar, but one is irrefutable - legend. For the poor of Colombia, he was their Robin Hood, a man whose greatness lay not in his crimes, but in his charity; for the Colombian rich, he was just a bloodthirsty gangster, a Bogie Man used to scare children in their beds; for the rest of the world flush with his imported cocaine, he was public enemy number one.

In the late 2000s, Molly Bloom, a 20-something petite brunette from Loveland, Colorado, ran the highest stakes, most exclusive poker game in existence. Hundreds of millions of dollars were won and lost at her table. Molly's game became the game for those in the know - celebrities, business moguls and millionaires. Molly staged her games in palatial suites with beautiful views and exquisite amenities. She flew privately, dined at exquisite restaurants, hobnobbed with the heads of Hollywood studios, was courted by handsome leading men....

In 1942, a rational fear was mounting that New York Harbor was vulnerable to sabotage. If the waterfront was infested with German and Italian agents then the US Navy needed a recourse just as insidious to secure it. Naval intelligence officer Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden had the solution: recruit as his own spies, members of La Cosa Nostra. Pier to pier, no one terrified the longshoremen, stevedores, shopkeepers, and boat captains along the harbor better than the Mafia gangs of New York, who controlled the docks in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Step into the gripping, electrifying narrative of 3X World Champ, the true story of a three-time kickboxing champion whose life took a wild turn into the shadowy world of marijuana smuggling. Set against the backdrop of 1980s Miami—a time of glitz, glamour, and organized crime—this memoir unveils the astonishing career of Thaddeus J. "Ted" Pryor.

This is the untold story of the American federal agent who captured the world's most wanted drug lord. Every generation has its larger-than-life criminal legend living beyond the reach of the law: Billy the Kid, Al Capone, Ronnie Biggs, Pablo Escobar. But for every one of these criminals, there's a Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett or Slipper of the Yard. For Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán-Loera, aka 'El Chapo' - the 21st century's most notorious criminal - that man is DEA Special Agent Cole Merrell.

This is the unbelievable, unforgettable, unparalleled story of an ordinary guy whose attempts to become famous doing the thing he wanted most—become a world class race car driver—devolved into a you-can’t-make-this-up tale of one of the biggest crime rings and drug scandals of the 1980s. Now, with the help of New York Times bestselling author A.J. Baime, Randy tells the whole truth for the first time ever, a gripping narrative unlike any other, a sports story for the ages, and shocking a true crime epic.

Three years after undercover agent Robert Mazur infiltrated Pablo Escobar's Medellín drug cartel, he re-emerged, a half-million-dollar bounty still on his head, with a new identity for a risky new sting. Deployed to Panama, he worked, travelled, partied and washed millions with Central America's criminal elite. Partnered with a DEA task force agent, Mazur slipped effortlessly into Colombia's notorious Cali drug cartel. Robert Mazur's riveting true story exposes the corruption at the heart of one of the most explosive undercover missions of his career.

Shaun Attwood, former ecstasy kingpin in Arizona turned author and podcast-host, has gained a reputation for earning the trust of some of the world's most dangerous people, including gangsters, serial killers, and mafia enforcers. Drawing on his many hours of interview material, along with new content exclusive to the book, Shaun collates a collection of hard-hitting conversations with ten of the most dangerous murderers he's ever met.

In 1945, US intelligence officers in Manila discovered that the Japanese had hidden large quantities of gold bullion and other looted treasure in the Philippines. President Truman decided to recover the gold but to keep its riches secret. These, combined with Japanese treasure recovered during the US occupation, and with recovered Nazi loot, would create a worldwide American political action fund to fight communism.