The Merger: How Organized Crime is Taking Over the World

In the spring of 1990 some twenty men of different nationalities met for the first time in a massive hotel and leisure complex called The City Club on the outskirts of Vienna. The purpose of their meeting? They told hotel management that they were members of an organization called "The Italian Association" and that the subject of their meeting was how European countries could help South American countries develop their economies in Europe....International crime has been the top headline grabber in recent months, and this is the only book that tells the inside story that until now only top CIA, Interpol, and other global crime fighters knew. In The Merger international crime expert and author of The Laundrymen Jeffrey Robinson uncovers the intricate network of connections between such infamous organized crime rings as the Sicilian Mafiosi, the Camorra from Naples, the Ndrangheta from Calabria, the Chinese Triads, the Russian, Hungarian, and Czech Republic "maffiyas," and organized crime groups from Columbia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Vietnam--just to name a few. In this meticulously researched book, Robinson pinpoints the factors that led to these global crime cartels--digital communication, world markets, the internet--and reveals how they have changed the face of crime forever.Praise for The Laundrymen:"A textbook on the transformation of ill-gotten gains, usually in cash, into seemingly legal currency. . .Although the situation is portrayed as nearly hopeless, the reader is saved from despair by Robinson's wry, witty writing and the fast-paced quality of his story."--USA Today Read more