by Moises Naim
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Product Description
A groundbreaking investigation of how illicit commerce is changing the world by transforming economies, reshaping politics, and capturing governments.
In this fascinating and comprehensive examination of the underside of globalization, Moises Naím 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. Naím reveals the inner workings of these amazingly efficient international organizations and shows why it is so hard — and so necessary to contain them. Riveting and deeply informed, Illicit will change how you see the world around you.
Amazon.com Review
Illicit activities are exploding worldwide. The onslaught of globalization has unleashed a tidal wave of bad stuff--everything from arms trafficking, human smuggling, and money laundering to music bootlegging. Here is the dark side of globalization: the mushrooming underground economy. Moisés Naím explores this murky world in his book Illicit. Naím is the editor of the relaunched magazine Foreign Policy and a former executive director of the World Bank and Minister of Trade and Industry of Venezuela. In Illicit, he unties the connections between the Colombian cocaine dealer, the New York banker steering money to offshore tax havens, the Albanian forcing women into prostitution, and the Chinese market stall-holder selling counterfeit DVDs. Naím reports that legitimate global trade has doubled since 1990 from $5 to $10 trillion. Meanwhile, money laundering has gone up tenfold, exceeding $1 trillion a year. Smuggling and money laundering have always existed, but Naím shows how they have increased at a staggering pace in the wake of globalization, despite new government controls since 9/11. The main culprits are the collapse of the Iron Curtain and state deregulation. As the reach of organized crime has expanded, governments have failed to keep up. Naím illustrates the problems with stories about A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb who sold nuclear technology to North Korea and Libya; Walter C. Anderson, an American who was accused of hiding $450 million in offshore accounts to evade taxes; and Vladimir Montesinos, the Peruvian intelligence czar who is on trial for trafficking drugs and arms. The book, while a little dry, will be interesting to policy buffs and aspiring crooks alike. --Alex Roslin
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Very good, 2008-08-03
This book gives you an insightful view of the new world (dis)order. Fact is stranger than fiction.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Dense expose of the dark side of globalization, 2008-05-27
This is a dense expose of the dark side of globalization. The depth and detail of topics seems out of place for a book that can fit in your pocket. Illicit reads like crime thriller or espionage novel but provides tangible facts that are useful for the professional and accessible to the layman. The most pivotal quote Naim's assertion that "illicit traffic is about transactions and not products." There is a solution within this quote, one that shifts enforcement resources to blocking the transfer of money and contraband rather than the contraband itself. Illicit is a modern handbook of global crime trends that will leave you alarmed, disgusted and enlightened.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 TheDon, 2007-07-16
Interesting, but presents very little information that is not already widely known. The author's recurring "everybody-does-it" theme seems to reject the possibility that some cultures are much more prone than others to problematic levels of illicit activity.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Any college-level holding strong in international studies, from business to social issues, must have this., 2007-02-09
Unlawful commerce is changing world economies, influencing international politics, and even undermining some of the foundations of society: this is the argument of ILLICIT: HOW SMUGGLERS, TRAFFICKERS, ARE HIJACKING THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. It's an essential discussion for modern times, surveying the links between seemingly-small illicit users around the world and how globalization is affected by their actions. Any college-level holding strong in international studies, from business to social issues, must have this.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
No Footnotes, 2006-09-22
I'm about a third of the way through the book; very provocative so far. Unfortunately, my copy has no footnotes. The notes are at the end of the chapters as you'd expect, but the numbers they reference are not in the text. Tends to complicate a serious academic reading.
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