TEDGlobal 2009
Misha Glenny: The real story of McMafia -- how global crime networks work
Filmed:
Readability: 4.8
1,063,383 views
Journalist Misha Glenny spent several years in a courageous investigation of organized crime networks, which have grown to an estimated 15% of the global economy. From the Russian mafia to the giant drug cartels, his sources include not just intelligence and law enforcement officials but criminal insiders.
Misha Glenny - Underworld investigator
Journalist Misha Glenny leaves no stone unturned (and no failed state unexamined) in his excavation of criminal globalization. Full bio
Journalist Misha Glenny leaves no stone unturned (and no failed state unexamined) in his excavation of criminal globalization. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
These are grim economic times,
0
0
3000
00:15
fellow TEDsters, grim economic times indeed.
1
3000
3000
00:18
And so, I would like to cheer you up
2
6000
3000
00:21
with one of the great, albeit largely unknown,
3
9000
3000
00:24
commercial success stories
4
12000
2000
00:26
of the past 20 years.
5
14000
2000
00:28
Comparable, in its own very peculiar way,
6
16000
3000
00:31
to the achievements of Microsoft or Google.
7
19000
3000
00:34
And it's an industry which has bucked the current recession
8
22000
3000
00:37
with equanimity.
9
25000
2000
00:39
I refer to organized crime.
10
27000
3000
00:42
Now organized crime has been around
11
30000
2000
00:44
for a very long time, I hear you say,
12
32000
3000
00:47
and these would be wise words, indeed.
13
35000
2000
00:49
But in the last two decades,
14
37000
3000
00:52
it has experienced an unprecedented expansion,
15
40000
3000
00:55
now accounting for roughly 15 percent
16
43000
4000
00:59
of the world's GDP.
17
47000
2000
01:01
I like to call it the Global Shadow Economy,
18
49000
3000
01:04
or McMafia, for short.
19
52000
3000
01:07
So what triggered this extraordinary growth
20
55000
3000
01:10
in cross-border crime?
21
58000
2000
01:12
Well, of course, there is globalization,
22
60000
2000
01:14
technology, communications, all that stuff,
23
62000
3000
01:17
which we'll talk about a little bit later.
24
65000
3000
01:20
But first, I would like to take you back
25
68000
3000
01:23
to this event:
26
71000
2000
01:25
the collapse of communism.
27
73000
2000
01:27
All across Eastern Europe, a most momentous episode
28
75000
4000
01:31
in our post-war history.
29
79000
2000
01:33
Now it's time for full disclosure.
30
81000
3000
01:36
This event meant a great deal to me personally.
31
84000
3000
01:39
I had started smuggling books across the Iron Curtain
32
87000
4000
01:43
to Democratic opposition groups in Eastern Europe,
33
91000
2000
01:45
like Solidarity in Poland,
34
93000
2000
01:47
when I was in my teens.
35
95000
2000
01:49
I then started writing about Eastern Europe,
36
97000
4000
01:53
and eventually I became the BBC's chief correspondent for the region,
37
101000
4000
01:57
which is what I was doing in 1989.
38
105000
4000
02:01
And so when 425 million people
39
109000
4000
02:05
finally won the right
40
113000
2000
02:07
to choose their own governments,
41
115000
2000
02:09
I was ecstatic,
42
117000
3000
02:12
but I was also a touch worried
43
120000
2000
02:14
about some of the nastier things
44
122000
2000
02:16
lurking behind the wall.
45
124000
2000
02:18
It wasn't long, for example,
46
126000
2000
02:20
before ethnic nationalism
47
128000
2000
02:22
reared its bloody head
48
130000
2000
02:24
in Yugoslavia.
49
132000
2000
02:26
And amongst the chaos,
50
134000
2000
02:28
amidst the euphoria,
51
136000
2000
02:30
it took me a little while to understand
52
138000
2000
02:32
that some of the people who had wielded power
53
140000
3000
02:35
before 1989, in Eastern Europe,
54
143000
4000
02:39
continued to do so after the revolutions there.
55
147000
4000
02:43
Obviously there were characters like this.
56
151000
4000
02:47
But there were also some more unexpected people
57
155000
4000
02:51
who played a critical role in what was going on in Eastern Europe.
58
159000
4000
02:55
Like this character. Remember these guys?
59
163000
3000
02:58
They used to win the gold medals in weightlifting
60
166000
2000
03:00
and wrestling, every four years in the Olympics,
61
168000
3000
03:03
and they were the great celebrities of communism,
62
171000
3000
03:06
with a fabulous lifestyle to go with it.
63
174000
3000
03:09
They used to get great apartments in the center of town,
64
177000
2000
03:11
casual sex on tap,
65
179000
2000
03:13
and they could travel to the West very freely,
66
181000
3000
03:16
which was a great luxury at the time.
67
184000
3000
03:19
It may come as a surprise, but they played a critical role
68
187000
4000
03:23
in the emergence of the market economy
69
191000
2000
03:25
in Eastern Europe.
70
193000
2000
03:27
Or as I like to call them, they are
71
195000
2000
03:29
the midwives of capitalism.
72
197000
2000
03:31
Here are some of those same weightlifters
73
199000
3000
03:34
after their 1989 makeover.
74
202000
3000
03:37
Now in Bulgaria --
75
205000
3000
03:40
this photograph was taken in Bulgaria --
76
208000
2000
03:42
when communism collapsed all over Eastern Europe,
77
210000
3000
03:45
it wasn't just communism;
78
213000
2000
03:47
it was the state that collapsed as well.
79
215000
2000
03:49
That means your police force wasn't working.
80
217000
2000
03:51
The court system wasn't functioning properly.
81
219000
3000
03:54
So what was a business man in the brave new world
82
222000
5000
03:59
of East European capitalism going to do
83
227000
2000
04:01
to make sure that his contracts would be honored?
84
229000
4000
04:05
Well, he would turn to people who were called, rather prosaically
85
233000
3000
04:08
by sociologists, privatized law enforcement agencies.
86
236000
4000
04:12
We prefer to know them as the mafia.
87
240000
4000
04:16
And in Bulgaria, the mafia was soon joined
88
244000
3000
04:19
with 14,000 people
89
247000
2000
04:21
who were sacked from their jobs in the security services
90
249000
4000
04:25
between 1989 and 1991.
91
253000
2000
04:27
Now, when your state is collapsing,
92
255000
4000
04:31
your economy is heading south at a rate of knots,
93
259000
3000
04:34
the last people you want coming on to the labor market
94
262000
3000
04:37
are 14,000 men and women whose chief skills
95
265000
3000
04:40
are surveillance,
96
268000
2000
04:42
are smuggling, building underground networks
97
270000
3000
04:45
and killing people.
98
273000
3000
04:48
But that's what happened all over Eastern Europe.
99
276000
3000
04:51
Now, when I was working in the 1990s,
100
279000
5000
04:56
I spent most of the time covering
101
284000
3000
04:59
the appalling conflict in Yugoslavia.
102
287000
3000
05:02
And I couldn't help notice
103
290000
2000
05:04
that the people who were perpetrating the appalling atrocities,
104
292000
4000
05:08
the paramilitary organizations,
105
296000
3000
05:11
were actually the same people running
106
299000
2000
05:13
the organized criminal syndicates.
107
301000
3000
05:16
And I came to think that behind the violence
108
304000
4000
05:20
lay a sinister criminal enterprise.
109
308000
3000
05:23
And so I resolved to travel around the world
110
311000
4000
05:27
examining this global criminal underworld
111
315000
3000
05:30
by talking to policemen,
112
318000
2000
05:32
by talking to victims, by talking to consumers
113
320000
3000
05:35
of illicit goods and services.
114
323000
2000
05:37
But above all else, by talking to the gangsters themselves.
115
325000
5000
05:42
And the Balkans was a fabulous place to start.
116
330000
3000
05:45
Why? Well of course
117
333000
2000
05:47
there was the issue of law and order collapsing,
118
335000
2000
05:49
but also, as they say in the retail trade,
119
337000
2000
05:51
it's location, location, location.
120
339000
4000
05:55
And what I noticed at the beginning of my research
121
343000
2000
05:57
that the Balkans had turned into a vast transit zone
122
345000
5000
06:02
for illicit goods and services coming from all over the world.
123
350000
3000
06:05
Heroin, cocaine,
124
353000
2000
06:07
women being trafficked into prostitution
125
355000
3000
06:10
and precious minerals.
126
358000
2000
06:12
And where were they heading?
127
360000
2000
06:14
The European Union, which by now
128
362000
2000
06:16
was beginning to reap the benefits of globalization,
129
364000
4000
06:20
transforming it into
130
368000
2000
06:22
the most affluent consumer market in history,
131
370000
3000
06:25
eventually comprising some 500 million people.
132
373000
3000
06:28
And a significant minority
133
376000
3000
06:31
of those 500 million people
134
379000
2000
06:33
like to spend some of their leisure time and spare cash
135
381000
3000
06:36
sleeping with prostitutes,
136
384000
2000
06:38
sticking 50 Euro notes up their nose
137
386000
3000
06:41
and employing illegal migrant laborers.
138
389000
3000
06:44
Now, organized crime in a globalizing world
139
392000
4000
06:48
operates in the same way as any other business.
140
396000
2000
06:50
It has zones of production,
141
398000
3000
06:53
like Afghanistan and Columbia.
142
401000
3000
06:56
It has zones of distribution,
143
404000
2000
06:58
like Mexico and the Balkans.
144
406000
3000
07:01
And then, of course, it has zones of consumption,
145
409000
4000
07:05
like the European Union, Japan
146
413000
2000
07:07
and of course, the United States.
147
415000
3000
07:10
The zones of production and distribution
148
418000
3000
07:13
tend to lie in the developing world,
149
421000
3000
07:16
and they are often threatened by appalling violence
150
424000
4000
07:20
and bloodshed.
151
428000
2000
07:22
Take Mexico, for example.
152
430000
2000
07:24
Six thousand people killed there in the last 18 months
153
432000
4000
07:28
as a direct consequence of the cocaine trade.
154
436000
4000
07:32
But what about the Democratic Republic of Congo?
155
440000
4000
07:36
Since 1998, five million people have died there.
156
444000
6000
07:42
It's not a conflict you read about much in the newspapers,
157
450000
2000
07:44
but it's the biggest conflict on this planet
158
452000
3000
07:47
since the Second World War.
159
455000
2000
07:49
And why is it? Because mafias from all around the world
160
457000
3000
07:52
cooperate with local paramilitaries
161
460000
3000
07:55
in order to seize the supplies
162
463000
3000
07:58
of the rich mineral resources
163
466000
2000
08:00
of the region.
164
468000
2000
08:02
In the year 2000, 80 percent of the world's coltan
165
470000
4000
08:06
was sourced to the killing fields
166
474000
2000
08:08
of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
167
476000
4000
08:12
Now, coltan you will find in almost every mobile phone,
168
480000
4000
08:16
in almost every laptop
169
484000
2000
08:18
and games console.
170
486000
2000
08:20
The Congolese war lords were selling this stuff to the mafia
171
488000
3000
08:23
in exchange for weapons,
172
491000
2000
08:25
and the mafia would then sell it on to Western markets.
173
493000
4000
08:29
And it is this Western desire
174
497000
2000
08:31
to consume
175
499000
2000
08:33
that is the primary driver
176
501000
3000
08:36
of international organized crime.
177
504000
3000
08:39
Now, let me show you some of my friends in action,
178
507000
4000
08:43
caught conveniently on film by the Italian police,
179
511000
3000
08:46
and smuggling duty-not-paid cigarettes.
180
514000
3000
08:49
Now, cigarettes out the factory gate are very cheap.
181
517000
3000
08:52
The European Union then imposes the highest taxes on them in the world.
182
520000
4000
08:56
So if you can smuggle them into the E.U.,
183
524000
3000
08:59
there are very handsome profits to be made,
184
527000
3000
09:02
and I want to show you this to demonstrate
185
530000
2000
09:04
the type of resources available to these groups.
186
532000
3000
09:07
This boat is worth one million Euros when it's new.
187
535000
4000
09:11
And it's the fastest thing on European waters.
188
539000
4000
09:15
From 1994, for seven years,
189
543000
3000
09:18
20 of these boats
190
546000
2000
09:20
made the trip across the Adriatic,
191
548000
3000
09:23
from Montenegro to Italy, every single night.
192
551000
3000
09:26
And as a consequence of this trade,
193
554000
2000
09:28
Britain alone lost eight billion dollars in revenue.
194
556000
5000
09:33
And instead that money went to underwrite the wars in Yugoslavia
195
561000
4000
09:37
and line the pockets of unscrupulous individuals.
196
565000
4000
09:41
Now Italian police, when this trade started,
197
569000
3000
09:44
had just two boats which could go at the same speed.
198
572000
4000
09:48
And this is very important, because the only way you can catch these guys
199
576000
2000
09:50
is if they run out of gas.
200
578000
3000
09:53
Sometimes the gangsters would bring with them
201
581000
2000
09:55
women being trafficked into prostitution,
202
583000
3000
09:58
and if the police intervened, they would hurl
203
586000
2000
10:00
the women into the sea
204
588000
3000
10:03
so that the police had to go and save them from drowning,
205
591000
2000
10:05
rather than chasing the bad guys.
206
593000
4000
10:09
So I have shown you this to demonstrate
207
597000
3000
10:12
how many boats, how many vessels it takes
208
600000
2000
10:14
to catch one of these guys.
209
602000
2000
10:16
And the answer is six vessels.
210
604000
2000
10:18
And remember, 20 of these speed boats
211
606000
3000
10:21
were coming across the Adriatic
212
609000
2000
10:23
every single night.
213
611000
2000
10:25
So what were these guys doing with all the money they were making?
214
613000
4000
10:29
Well, this is where we come to globalization,
215
617000
4000
10:33
because that was not just the deregulation of global trade.
216
621000
3000
10:36
It was the liberalization of international financial markets.
217
624000
3000
10:39
And boy, did that make it easy
218
627000
3000
10:42
for the money launderers.
219
630000
2000
10:44
The last two decades have been the champagne era
220
632000
3000
10:47
for dirty lucre.
221
635000
2000
10:49
In the 1990s, we saw financial centers around the world
222
637000
4000
10:53
competing for their business,
223
641000
3000
10:56
and there was simply no effective mechanism
224
644000
2000
10:58
to prevent money laundering.
225
646000
2000
11:00
And a lot of licit banks were also happy
226
648000
3000
11:03
to accept deposits
227
651000
3000
11:06
from very dubious sources
228
654000
2000
11:08
without questions being asked.
229
656000
3000
11:11
But at the heart of this, is the offshore banking network.
230
659000
4000
11:15
Now these things
231
663000
3000
11:18
are an essential part of the money laundering parade,
232
666000
3000
11:21
and if you want to do something about illegal tax evasion
233
669000
4000
11:25
and transnational organized crime, money laundering,
234
673000
4000
11:29
you have to get rid of them.
235
677000
2000
11:31
On a positive note, we at last have someone in the White House
236
679000
3000
11:34
who has consistently spoken out
237
682000
3000
11:37
against these corrosive entities.
238
685000
3000
11:40
And if anyone is concerned about what I believe
239
688000
4000
11:44
is the necessity for
240
692000
3000
11:47
new legislation, regulation, effective regulation,
241
695000
3000
11:50
I say, let's take a look at Bernie Madoff,
242
698000
4000
11:54
who is now going to be spending the rest of his life in jail.
243
702000
4000
11:58
Bernie Madoff stole 65 billion dollars.
244
706000
6000
12:04
That puts him up there on the Olympus of gangsters
245
712000
3000
12:07
with the Colombian cartels
246
715000
2000
12:09
and the major Russian crime syndicates,
247
717000
3000
12:12
but he did this for decades
248
720000
2000
12:14
in the very heart of Wall Street,
249
722000
2000
12:16
and no regulator picked up on it.
250
724000
3000
12:19
So how many other Madoffs are there on Wall Street
251
727000
3000
12:22
or in the city of London,
252
730000
2000
12:24
fleecing ordinary folk
253
732000
2000
12:26
and money laundering?
254
734000
2000
12:28
Well I can tell you, it's quite a few of them.
255
736000
4000
12:32
Let me go on to the 101 of international organized crime now.
256
740000
4000
12:36
And that is narcotics. Our second marijuana farm photograph for the morning.
257
744000
4000
12:40
This one, however, is in central British Columbia
258
748000
3000
12:43
where I photographed it.
259
751000
2000
12:45
It's one of the tens of thousands
260
753000
2000
12:47
of mom-and-pop grow-ops in B.C.
261
755000
3000
12:50
which ensure that over five percent
262
758000
3000
12:53
of the province's GDP is accounted for by this trade.
263
761000
4000
12:57
Now, I was taken by inspector Brian Cantera,
264
765000
5000
13:02
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
265
770000
2000
13:04
to a cavernous warehouse east of Vancouver
266
772000
2000
13:06
to see some of the goods which are regularly confiscated
267
774000
4000
13:10
by the RCMP
268
778000
2000
13:12
from the smugglers who are sending it,
269
780000
2000
13:14
of course, down south to the United States
270
782000
3000
13:17
where there is an insatiable market
271
785000
2000
13:19
for B.C. Bud, as it's called,
272
787000
3000
13:22
in part because it's marketed as organic,
273
790000
2000
13:24
which of course goes down very well in California.
274
792000
4000
13:28
(Laughter)
275
796000
2000
13:30
(Applause)
276
798000
1000
13:31
Now, even by the police's admission,
277
799000
3000
13:34
this makes not a dent in the profits, really,
278
802000
5000
13:39
of the major exporters.
279
807000
2000
13:41
Since the beginning of globalization,
280
809000
2000
13:43
the global narcotics market has expanded enormously.
281
811000
4000
13:47
There has, however, been no concomitant increase
282
815000
3000
13:50
in the resources available
283
818000
3000
13:53
to police forces.
284
821000
2000
13:55
This, however, may all be about to change,
285
823000
5000
14:00
because something very strange is going on.
286
828000
2000
14:02
The United Nations recognized
287
830000
2000
14:04
earlier this -- it was last month actually --
288
832000
3000
14:07
that Canada has become a key area of distribution and production
289
835000
6000
14:13
of ecstasy and other synthetic drugs.
290
841000
4000
14:17
Interestingly, the market share
291
845000
2000
14:19
of heroin and cocaine is going down,
292
847000
3000
14:22
because the pills are getting ever better at reproducing their highs.
293
850000
5000
14:27
Now that is a game changer,
294
855000
4000
14:31
because it shifts production away from the developing world
295
859000
4000
14:35
and into the Western world.
296
863000
4000
14:39
When that happens, it is a trend
297
867000
2000
14:41
which is set to overwhelm our policing capacity in the West.
298
869000
4000
14:45
The drugs policy which we've had in place for 40 years
299
873000
4000
14:49
is long overdue for a very serious rethink,
300
877000
5000
14:54
in my opinion.
301
882000
2000
14:56
Now, the recession.
302
884000
2000
14:58
Well, organized crime has already adapted
303
886000
2000
15:00
very well to the recession.
304
888000
2000
15:02
Not surprising, the most opportunistic industry
305
890000
2000
15:04
in the whole world.
306
892000
2000
15:06
And it has no rules to its regulatory system.
307
894000
4000
15:10
Except, of course, it has two business risks:
308
898000
4000
15:14
arrest by law enforcement,
309
902000
2000
15:16
which is, frankly, the least of their worries,
310
904000
2000
15:18
and competition from other groups,
311
906000
3000
15:21
i.e. a bullet in the back of the head.
312
909000
2000
15:23
What they've done is they've shifted their operations.
313
911000
3000
15:26
People don't smoke as much dope, or visit prostitutes quite so frequently
314
914000
4000
15:30
during a recession.
315
918000
2000
15:32
And so instead, they have invaded financial
316
920000
2000
15:34
and corporate crime in a big way,
317
922000
2000
15:36
but above all, two sectors,
318
924000
2000
15:38
and that is counterfeit goods
319
926000
3000
15:41
and cybercrime.
320
929000
2000
15:43
And it's been terribly successful.
321
931000
2000
15:45
I would like to introduce you to Mr. Pringle.
322
933000
3000
15:48
Or perhaps I should say, more accurately, Señor Pringle.
323
936000
4000
15:52
I was introduced to this bit of kit by a Brazilian cybercriminal.
324
940000
4000
15:56
We sat in a car on the Avenue Paulista
325
944000
2000
15:58
in São Paulo, together.
326
946000
2000
16:00
Hooked it up to my laptop,
327
948000
2000
16:02
and within about five minutes he had penetrated
328
950000
3000
16:05
the computer security system
329
953000
2000
16:07
of a major Brazilian bank.
330
955000
3000
16:10
It's really not that difficult.
331
958000
2000
16:12
And it's actually much easier because
332
960000
3000
16:15
the fascinating thing about cybercrime
333
963000
2000
16:17
is that it's not so much the technology.
334
965000
4000
16:21
The key to cybercrime is what we call social engineering.
335
969000
4000
16:25
Or to use the technical term for it,
336
973000
2000
16:27
there's one born every minute.
337
975000
3000
16:30
You would not believe how easy it is
338
978000
3000
16:33
to persuade people to do things with their computers
339
981000
3000
16:36
which are objectively not in their interest.
340
984000
3000
16:39
And it was very soon
341
987000
2000
16:41
when the cybercriminals learned that the quickest way to do this,
342
989000
2000
16:43
of course, the quickest way to a person's wallet
343
991000
4000
16:47
is through the promise of sex and love.
344
995000
3000
16:50
I expect some of you remember the ILOVEYOU virus,
345
998000
3000
16:53
one of the very great worldwide viruses that came.
346
1001000
4000
16:57
I was very fortunate when the ILOVEYOU virus came out,
347
1005000
3000
17:00
because the first person I received it from
348
1008000
3000
17:03
was an ex-girlfriend of mine.
349
1011000
2000
17:05
Now, she harbored all sorts of sentiments and emotions towards me at the time,
350
1013000
5000
17:10
but love was not amongst them.
351
1018000
2000
17:12
(Laughter)
352
1020000
2000
17:14
And so as soon as I saw this drop into my inbox,
353
1022000
4000
17:18
I dispatched it hastily to the recycle bin
354
1026000
3000
17:21
and spared myself a very nasty infection.
355
1029000
5000
17:26
So, cybercrime, do watch out for it.
356
1034000
4000
17:30
One thing that we do know that the Internet is doing
357
1038000
2000
17:32
is the Internet is assisting these guys.
358
1040000
3000
17:35
These are mosquitos who carry the malarial parasite
359
1043000
3000
17:38
which infests our blood when the mosy has had a free meal
360
1046000
4000
17:42
at our expense.
361
1050000
2000
17:44
Now, Artesunate is a very effective drug
362
1052000
3000
17:47
at destroying the parasite in the early days
363
1055000
3000
17:50
of infection.
364
1058000
2000
17:52
But over the past year or so,
365
1060000
2000
17:54
researchers in Cambodia have discovered
366
1062000
3000
17:57
that what's happening is
367
1065000
3000
18:00
the malarial parasite is developing a resistance.
368
1068000
3000
18:03
And they fear that the reason why it's developing a resistance
369
1071000
3000
18:06
is because Cambodians can't afford the drugs on the commercial market,
370
1074000
4000
18:10
and so they buy it from the Internet.
371
1078000
3000
18:13
And these pills contain only low doses
372
1081000
2000
18:15
of the active ingredient.
373
1083000
2000
18:17
Which is why
374
1085000
2000
18:19
the parasite is beginning to develop a resistance.
375
1087000
4000
18:23
The reason I say this
376
1091000
2000
18:25
is because we have to know
377
1093000
2000
18:27
that organized crime
378
1095000
2000
18:29
impacts all sorts of areas of our lives.
379
1097000
3000
18:32
You don't have to sleep with prostitutes
380
1100000
3000
18:35
or take drugs
381
1103000
2000
18:37
in order to have a relationship with organized crime.
382
1105000
2000
18:39
They affect our bank accounts.
383
1107000
2000
18:41
They affect our communications, our pension funds.
384
1109000
2000
18:43
They even affect the food that we eat
385
1111000
4000
18:47
and our governments.
386
1115000
2000
18:49
This is no longer an issue
387
1117000
3000
18:52
of Sicilians from Palermo and New York.
388
1120000
3000
18:55
There is no romance involved with gangsters
389
1123000
3000
18:58
in the 21st Century.
390
1126000
2000
19:00
This is a mighty industry,
391
1128000
3000
19:03
and it creates instability and violence
392
1131000
3000
19:06
wherever it goes.
393
1134000
2000
19:08
It is a major economic force
394
1136000
2000
19:10
and we need to take it very, very seriously.
395
1138000
4000
19:14
It's been a privilege talking to you.
396
1142000
2000
19:16
Thank you very much.
397
1144000
2000
19:18
(Applause)
398
1146000
3000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Misha Glenny - Underworld investigatorJournalist Misha Glenny leaves no stone unturned (and no failed state unexamined) in his excavation of criminal globalization.
Why you should listen
In minute detail, Misha Glenny's 2008 book McMafia illuminates the byzantine outlines of global organized crime. Whether it's pot smugglers in British Columbia, oil/weapons/people traffickers in Eastern Europe, Japanese yakuza or Nigerian scammers, to research this magisterial work Glenny penetrated the convoluted, globalized and franchised modern underworld -- often at considerable personal risk.
The book that resulted is an exhaustive look at an unseen industry that Glenny believes may account for 15% of the world's GDP.
Legal society ignores this world at its peril, but Glenny suggests that conventional law enforcement might not be able to combat a problem whose roots lie in global instability.
While covering the Central Europe beat for the Guardian and the BBC, Glenny wrote several acclaimed books on the fall of Yugoslavia and the rise of the Balkan nations. He's researching a new book on cybercrime, of which he says: "The key to cybercrime is what we call social engineering. Or to use the technical term for it, there's one born every minute."
Watch TED's exclusive video Q&A with Glenny: "Behind the Scenes of McMafia" >>
Misha Glenny | Speaker | TED.com