Awards

• Winner of Outstanding Publication Award, International Association for the Study of Organized Crime 2012

Overview

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As Federico Varese explains in this compelling and daring book, the truth is more complicated. Varese has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. Varese spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity.In a series of matched comparisons, Varese charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. He explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. In a pioneering chapter on China, he examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. Based on ground-breaking field work and filled with dramatic stories, this book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.

Full Product Details

9780691128559

Table of Contents

Reviews

[Varese] is careful, painstaking, willing and able to pore through police, local authority and parliamentary files in search of hard facts. Yet he is as reckless as a freelance reporter out to make his name in the global badlands--trekking about the tougher areas of his native Italy, delving into the vicious gangs that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union and patiently acquiring on-the-ground knowledge of the Chinese crime world, growing at the same breakneck speed as the economy it both assists and corrupts. -- John Lloyd, Financial Times

[Varese] is careful, painstaking, willing and able to pore through police, local authority and parliamentary files in search of hard facts. Yet he is as reckless as a freelance reporter out to make his name in the global badlands--trekking about the tougher areas of his native Italy, delving into the vicious gangs that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union and patiently acquiring on-the-ground knowledge of the Chinese crime world, growing at the same breakneck speed as the economy it both assists and corrupts. -- John Lloyd, Financial Times Mr. Varese's quest leads him from Prohibition-era Manhattan to mid-century Italy to modern-day China... [Mafias on the Move] tells a compelling story that is as much about politics as crime. -- Wall Street Journal

Author Information

Federico Varese is professor of criminology at the University of Oxford. He is the author of The Russian Mafia and editor of Organized Crime.

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