cover image Thieves' World: The Threat of the New Global Network of Organized Crime

Thieves' World: The Threat of the New Global Network of Organized Crime

Claire Sterling. Simon & Schuster, $22.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-671-74997-2

Sterling already had a controversial reputation as an expert on international crime with books like Octopus and The Terror Network , but this bombshell is her most terrifying and significant work. Here she shows how the Sicilian and American Mafias, Colombian drug cartels, Chinese Triads and Japanese Yakuza have joined with Russian organized crime to mount a full-scale attack on all of Europe and Russia to plunder both--and are succeeding. This consortium manipulates national currencies, buys into legitimate businesses and corrupts government officials at all levels. The nations of Western Europe, according to Sterling, are so concerned with individual liberties that a huge body of law makes it impossible for them to fight organized crime effectively, while the political and economic chaos in Eastern Europe and the former U.S.S.R. has made these areas prey for worldwide gangsterism. Nothing will stop this increasing danger, Sterling warns, except close international cooperation and quick action. First serial to the New Republic. (June)