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McMafia
- A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's summary
Misha Glenny's groundbreaking study of global organized crime is now the inspiration for an eight-part AMC crime drama starring James Norton (War and Peace), Juliet Rylance, and David Strathairn.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the deregulation of international financial markets in 1989, governments and entrepreneurs alike became intoxicated by dreams of newly opened markets. But no one could have foreseen that the greatest success story to arise from these events would be the worldwide rise of organized crime. Today, it is estimated that illegal trade accounts for one-fifth of the global GDP.
In this fearless and wholly authoritative investigation of the seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares, veteran reporter Misha Glenny travels across five continents to speak with participants from every level of the global underworld - police, victims, politicians, and even the criminals themselves. What follows is a groundbreaking, propulsive look at an unprecedented phenomenon from a savvy, street-wise guide.
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Great
- By Kelli Sladick on 06-19-18
By: Mark Galeotti
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Narconomics
- How to Run a Drug Cartel
- By: Tom Wainwright
- Narrated by: Brian Hutchison
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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What drug lords learned from big business. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the $300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.
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Worthy book in the "economics explains X" genre
- By A reader on 04-11-16
By: Tom Wainwright
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Illicit
- How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy
- By: Moisés Naím
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fascinating and comprehensive examination of the underside of globalization, Moises Naim illuminates the struggle between traffickers and the hamstrung bureaucracies trying to control them. From illegal migrants to drugs to weapons to laundered money to counterfeit goods, the black market produces enormous profits that are reinvested to create new businesses, enable terrorists, and even to take over governments. Naim reveals the inner workings of these amazingly efficient international organizations and shows why it is so hard - and so necessary - to contain them.
By: Moisés Naím
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The Corporation
- An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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By the mid 1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic polyglot; one of the most powerful illicit organizations was none other than the Cuban mob. Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation", the Cuban mob's power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida's exile community - those who had been chased from the island by Castro's revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.
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uncle joey approved
- By Anonymous User on 04-14-18
By: T. J. English
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The Mob and the City
- The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York
- By: C. Alexander Hortis
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Forget what you think you know about the Mafia. After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime. Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s.
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Hard one to rate....
- By Jeffery D. Giuliani on 09-24-20
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Kings of Cocaine
- Inside the Medellin Cartel - An Astonishing True Story of Murder Money and International Corruption
- By: Guy Gugliotta, Jeff Leen
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of the most successful cocaine dealers in the world: Pablo Escobar Gaviria, Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, Carlos Lehder Rivas, and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. In the 1980s, they controlled more than 50 percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States. The cocaine trade is capitalism on overdrive - supply meeting demand on exponential levels. Here you'll find the story of how the modern cocaine business started and how it turned a ragtag group of hippies and sociopaths into regal kings.
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Almost Perfect.
- By Nick on 10-31-18
By: Guy Gugliotta, and others
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Kleptopia
- How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World
- By: Tom Burgis
- Narrated by: Tom Burgis
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption. Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.
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Lazy Journalism in long narrative form
- By Jeremy on 02-14-21
By: Tom Burgis
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The Mastermind
- Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal.
- By: Evan Ratliff
- Narrated by: Evan Ratliff
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux - the creator of a frighteningly powerful internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
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Being too reliant on consensus backfires occasiona
- By El Alamein on 07-17-19
By: Evan Ratliff
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Blood Brotherhoods
- A History of Italy's Three Mafias
- By: John Dickie
- Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Sicilian mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, is far from being Italy's only dangerous criminal fraternity. The country hosts two other major mafias: the Camorra from Naples; and, from the poor and isolated region of Calabria, the mysterious 'Ndrangheta, which has now risen to become the most powerful mob group active today. Blood Brotherhoods is an audiobook of breathtaking ambition, tracing for the first time the interlocking story of all three mafias from their origins to the present day.
By: John Dickie
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We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
- Stories from Rwanda
- By: Philip Gourevitch
- Narrated by: Philip Gourevitch
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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An unforgettable firsthand account of a people's response to genocide and what it tells us about humanity. This remarkable audiobook chronicles what has happened in Rwanda and neighboring states since 1994, when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority.
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Things you'd never imagine
- By LEE on 12-27-19
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Five Families
- The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires
- By: Selwyn Raab
- Narrated by: Paul Costanzo
- Length: 33 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits.
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7326451
- By Mark on 10-13-16
By: Selwyn Raab
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The Life We Chose
- William “Big Billy” D’Elia and the Last Secrets of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family
- By: Matt Birkbeck
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The “adopted” son of legendary organized crime boss Russell Bufalino, for decades D’Elia had unequaled access to the man the FBI and US Justice Department considered one of the leading organized crime figures in the United States. But the government had no real idea as to the breadth of Bufalino’s power and influence—or that it was Bufalino, from his bucolic home base in Pittston, Pennsylvania, who reigned over the five families in New York and other organized crime families throughout the country.
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Incredible story from start to finish!
- By Evan on 03-13-24
By: Matt Birkbeck
What listeners say about McMafia
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Roy
- 05-14-10
Worthwhile Overview
Misha Glenny, in McMAfia, provides a general overview of the rise of organized crime over the past twenty years. She covers every point of the globe, inserting historical background, economic context, and sociological insights. The book will be an eye opener to those who have yet to be introduced to the dark side as Glenny presents it. The book is well written, very informative and aptly read by John Lee.
Other books available through Audible which I have heard and which flesh out topics covered by Glenny might be of additional interest.
The Informant by Kurt Eichewald - an abridgement telling the story of one person's experience as a whistle blower and the ADM price fixing scandle.
Ivory Ghosts - The story of the ivory trade historically and in contemporary context.
Snakehead - the smuggling of undocumented native Chinese from Fujian province into New York city in the 1980s and 1990s.
Havana Nocturne - English's tale of the mob in pre-Castro Cuba.
Gomorrah - Saviano's gripping account of Naples and the rule of the Cammora crime network. Don't miss this one.
Murder City - Charles Bowden - the decay of Ciudad Juarez and mob activity.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Joshua Kim
- 06-10-12
McDisturbing
Did you know that organized crime is responsible for an estimated 15 to 20% of the world GDP (counting tax evasion)? Or that narcotics accounts for about 70% of criminal profits, with energy, guns, prostitution, and gambling making up the bulk of the rest? I didn't know any of this - and I'm not sure I'll be able to think about "the economy" ever again in the same way. Written by a journalist, but with an insiders perspective and a novelists sense of character and pacing, McMafia is one of the best books I read in 2008.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Andy
- 04-26-13
Excellent overview of global organized crime
This is a well-written, exhaustively-reported book that takes you in-depth to all parts of global organized crime. I found the section on the Balkans and Russia to be particularly enlightening, not just about the mafia but also in how Glenny explains the overall history of these regions through the lens of lawlessness. I feel like I finally understand what a Russian oligarch actually is.
If anything, the book gets a bit dull towards the end due to the repetiveness of each national history. The same story seems to unfold everywhere, but I only really got bored in the book's final sections.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Not so slimm shady
- 04-11-12
Starts off great and veers off track and off topic
What disappointed you about McMafia?
It started off as an impressive investigative work. Reader's accent adds personality to characters and author's interviews and personal accounts are quite interesting. However, the second part of the unabridged audiobook ends up on a seemingly irrelevant rant about the United States government being corrupt, incompetent, racist and outright combative towards other countries and their treatment of drug offenses.
While I disagree, I think the author is more than entitled to express his views about the United States and any of its policies that he takes issue with, but not in a book about organized crime (Unless it directly relates to the material, which in this case, it did not).
After spending 2 credits and being very excited about listening to this piece, I found myself annoyed at the fact that 1 of those credits was entirely wasted.
Another reviewer suggested some other organized crime audiobooks which I will be purchasing, I suggest you do the same and pick up a cheap copy of this book on amazon so you can stop reading when all the nonsense starts and only spend a fraction of what I spent.
Would you ever listen to anything by Misha Glenny again?
No
What about John Lee’s performance did you like?
He added great character to the many different personalities explored.
What character would you cut from McMafia?
The author
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2 people found this helpful
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- Doksooli
- 09-28-19
Excellent book - good for repeated listening
You might not want to listen to this if you're involved with marketing illegal drugs to teenagers, but there are only one or two chapters which discuss the complete and utter failure of our government organizations to protect us from illegal drugs. This is hardly a radical notion and if you don't know someone whose life has been ruined by illegal drugs despite the fact that they're not supposed to be available for purchase, you've been very fortunate. The reviewer who stopped listening halfway through missed some excellent chapters on organized crime in Asia, btw. Those who prefer to live in denial should give this one the swerve. However, if you're interested in the topic and you're already somewhat familiar with the fact that corruption might exist in your home country too, then this is probably the book for you. I'm glad I didn't listen to some of the more negative reviews.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jose
- 04-28-18
Cool Rundown of Global Organized Crime
You get great detail on Russia, the Caucuses, and much detail on the Chinese criminal organizations. The story could just be Russia and that would be great. The rest is a bit sappy. The USA stuff is weak-sauce.
The details on human trafficking are very sad. The women that are processed in the system are poor people that are used and abused by a very cruel system. Much detail on the trafficking of women to Israel.
There are some bad chapters too. There is a weird and wasted chapter on US crime. The author gets into US punishment for drug offenses. Decides to take a racialist angle, it's stupid. There is no mention of USA meth culture or black tar heroin. Some people die and some people just go to jail.
After Russia, the book is really not that great.
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1 person found this helpful
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- matthew
- 07-26-13
Depressing and confusing
I thought this would be a great way to understand global politics. Instead it is chock full of characters and places that are not explained in a simply way. Perhaps I am not intelligent enough to follow this seemingly endless unwinding of globalization since the fall of the Berlin wall. John Lee is a great narrator,but the topic is too depressing and confusing to the lay person to bring out his brilliance. I gave up at chapter 4 and asked for a refund. Give this one a pass;unless you are already steeped in global politics thoroughly.
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1 person found this helpful
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- john
- 05-09-23
Great book
Those who criticized the book for criticizing US policy under Bush 2 clearly weren’t listening or understanding how short sighted his policies were.
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- Amazon Customer TY
- 07-07-21
Deep Insight
This was a great book and EXTREMELY insightful into a world that only gets a iceberg tip worth of coverage as most shows and news tends to cover. I honestly hope for a second book.
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- Alessandro Pesa
- 03-21-21
Brilliant
Simply brilliant..a must read. You will see every business from a different perspective after reading this book.
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