Showing titles in Organized Crime

Brought to you by Penguin. When does a bandit become a monarch? When does a gang become a government? And is organised crime at the heart of every modern state? On a thrilling whistle-stop tour of how the world's criminal underbelly has shaped state-making, capitalism, globalisation and all...

The benefits of living in a digital, globalised society are enormous; so too are the dangers. The world has become a law enforcer’s nightmare and every criminal’s dream. We bank online, shop online, date, learn, work and live online. But have the institutions that keep us safe on the streets learned to protect us in the burgeoning digital world? Have we become complacent about our personal security – sharing our thoughts, beliefs and the details of our daily lives with anyone who cares to relieve us of them?

In July 2011, the oil tanker Brillante Virtuoso was drifting through the treacherous Gulf of Aden when a crew of pirates attacked and set her ablaze in a devastating explosion. But when David Mockett, a maritime surveyor working for Lloyd's of London, inspected the damaged vessel, he was left with more questions than answers. Soon after his inspection, he was murdered. Dead in the Water is a shocking expose of the criminal inner-workings of international shipping, an old-world industry at the backbone of our global economy.

Raised in a South Boston housing project, James "Whitey" Bulger became the most wanted fugitive of his generation. In this riveting story, rich with family ties and intrigue, award-winning Boston Globe reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy follow Whitey’s extraordinary criminal career - from teenage thievery to bank robberies to the building of his underworld empire and a string of brutal murders.

Author Jason Ryan takes us back to the heady days before drug smuggling was synonymous with deadly gunplay. During this golden age of marijuana trafficking, the country's most prominent kingpins were a group of wayward and fun-loving Southern gentlemen who forsook college educations to sail drug-laden luxury sailboats across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. Les Riley, Barry Foy, and their comrades eschewed violence as much as they loved pleasure, and it was greed, lust, and disaster at sea that ultimately caught up with them, along with the law.

To infiltrate international drug cartels, he had to become a player...‘Undercover’: The true story behind Operation Julie, one of Britain's largest drug busts and how the same detective infiltrated a cartel planning to smuggle cocaine into Britain. Forget ‘Breaking Bad’ this is the extraordinary story of the 1970s Welsh LSD ring that supplied the world, told by a cop in deepest cover on the case. In the dim chaos of a Liverpool nightclub, a sharp question cut through the noise: “Are you guys cops?” For Steve Jackson, the words chilled him to the bone.

Diego and his siblings live in desperate poverty, but nobody seems to notice or care as they come close to starving, scouring food banks to survive. But he’s wrong–someone has noticed him. County Lines gang members can see his vulnerability. With an absent father, alcoholic mother and dependent young siblings, Diego is the perfect mark.

When Manny McDonnell was twelve, he awoke to discover British troops surrounding his home in the toughest area of trouble-torn Belfast. Internment had begun and, encouraged by a fiercely Republican mother, he took to the streets with other school kids, throwing bricks, bottles and petrol bombs...

Previously published as The Girl for the Job Fast-paced and eye-opening, Undercover Copper is an exciting account of life as a covert investigator by Danni Brooke. For over a decade, Danni Brooke was one of the most effective female undercover cops in the UK, one of a very small number of women...

Bestselling authors Jonathan Levi and Emma French use their unrivalled access to the secret world of police protection officers as they tell the dramatic and astonishing stories of bravery, and the decisions that can change lives in a heartbeat. With the constant threats now posed by gangs...

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘If you think the UK isn't corrupt, you haven't looked hard enough … This terrifying book follows a global current of dirty money, and the murders and kidnappings required to sustain it’ GEORGE MONBIOT, GUARDIAN AN ECONOMIST AND WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020...

This is my account of life as a hitman from someone who has been doing it for years. Hitmen commit heinous crimes virtually every day of the week and, in most instances, we don't even realise. I've been a killer for hire for more than 20 years now, but life as a fulltime professional assassin has never been easy. There have been close calls, failed attempts and a lot of looking over my shoulder. And now, I've decided to come clean and seek atonement for my life as a murderer and one of the most covertly dangerous men alive. 

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER The Peaky Blinders as we know them, thanks to the hit TV series, are infused with drama and dread. Fashionably dressed, the charismatic but deeply flawed Shelby family blind enemies by slashing them with the disposable safety razor blades stitched in to the peaks of...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony M. DeStefano takes you inside John Gotti's inner circle to reveal the dark hearts and violent deeds of the most remorseless and cold-blooded characters in organized crime. Men so vicious even the other mafia families were terrified of them. Meet Gotti's Boys....  

'Exposes a dark and corrupt underworld in British football' Joao Castelo-Branco, ESPN 'Gritty, dark and inspiring - you won't have read a story like this before' Daniel Taylor, The Athletic and New York Times 'The descent from talented footballer to convicted criminal is shocking. The journey...

Joey "Crazy Joe" Gallo and his President Street mob waged a deadly Mafia civil war with the Colombo crime family, and in particular, Carmine "the Snake" Persico. And on that fateful night of April 7, 1972, in a Little Italy restaurant, Gallo was assassinated...by Carmine "Sonny" DiBiasi. This is the true story of who really whacked "Crazy Joe" Gallo on that fateful night of April 7, 1972.

From an award-winning investigative reporter: the shocking story of the mob killer who terrorized the streets of New York City for decades . . . while working for the FBI In Deal with the Devil, five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative reporter Peter Lance draws on three decades of...

The Profession of Violence pulls back the curtain on the rise and eventual fall of Ronnie and Reggie Kray, London's most infamous gangsters. Charting their transformation from East End boys to the ruling figures of London’s criminal underworld during the 1960s, John Pearson's vivid account shows how they ran an empire of organised crime the likes of which London had never seen. Built on lies, extortion, and extreme violence and murder, Pearson also shows the strange brotherly relationship that kept them bound in blood until their eventual downfall and imprisonment.

In 2004, the murder of a middle-aged couple in their village bungalow lifted the lid on the great untold story of British organized crime. The slaughter of Joan and John Stirland revealed an evil empire of powerful ganglords, contract killings, and police corruption. At its dark heart was the East Midlands city of Nottingham.

Conducted under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, intended to stem the flow of firearms to Mexico, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) ran a series of “gun walking” sting operations, including Operations Wide Receiver and Operation Fast & Furious. The government allowed licensed gun dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers so that they could continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels.