Title: McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime
Author: Misha Glenny
Year: 2004
Genre: True Crime, History
McMafia by Misha Glenny takes the reader on a journey into international crime, from the Balkans through Dubai & into South America & Asia. The book was selected by my local book shop, Blue Sheep Books, to be this months True Crime read.
I had first heard of this book through the TV series that starred James Norton and though I watched the first episode I remember finding it hard to follow so didn’t see the rest. I soon realised it was based on a non-fiction book which I had on my radar to read at some point so I was glad that this book was chosen.
The best synopsis I can give is really the one from the back of the book which is as follows:
“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.”
Through fourteen chapters, Glenny exposes us to the dark world of international crime, it’s tentacles reaching every country in the world in a number of different ways. Using the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 as a launchpad, Glenny takes us to countries from the gangster killings and drug and sex trafficking in the Balkans and India, to money laundering in Dubai, to the drug cartels of South America and Canada and lastly explores the new era of cyber crime and counterfeiting in China and South East Asia.
Unfortunately whilst this and the synopsis sounds very exciting, I have to admit I found the book overall quite dull and depressing in it’s presentation of the topic. It is clear that Glenny is an expert in the field of international crime and the book is definitely well researched.
However the way it is written makes the book quite dense and I felt at times as if I was reading a history textbook from when I was in school, especially the early chapters covering the Balkans and the collapse of the Soviet Union. This section has a lot of exposition on the political history of the U.S.S.R, it’s governmental bodies and how they changed post-1991 which though relevant to explain the rise of corruption and crime in former Soviet states, it makes for a very complex and not particularly interesting read and I did struggle to get to the end and contemplated giving it up at one point (which would have made the book a 1 star DNF).
I also felt the chapters were way to long for the amount of information given in each one, with a chapter taking around an hour to complete and it would definitely have benefited from being broken down further into smaller sections.
The book does have some thought-provoking ideas which I can see Glenny was trying to get across, particularly the connection between the amount of corruption in a nationals political establishment to how much organised crime occurs there. Also that the criminal underworld is far more connected than we as ordinary citizens realise, often viewing things such as Colombian drug distinct when in actuality they are more intimately linked then we realise, it’s just the way it is presented I found it quite difficult to get through.
Glenny also makes a clear argument when discussing drug smuggling and America’s War on Drugs that it is somewhat futile and that perhaps a policy of legalizing but heavily taxing illegal drugs would work better than allowing the drug to be sold through illegal means, with drugs being used to fund far more heinous crimes which is an interesting viewpoint to discuss.
I also found the chapters discussing the rise of Dubai as a financial centre (both for llicit and illicit means) and the chapter on China and cyber crime a little bit more interesting, probably due to my background of working in IT.
Overall I find this book quite hard to recommend due to it’s writing style and presentation but if you have read McMafia and disagree with my thoughts then please let me know in the comments down below what you think.
