Black Market Resources

Listed below are books and other research  materials on the global black market and criminal activities.

Updated: November 11, 2013.

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Black Market (General):

• Custom Search Engine – Havocscope’s custom search engine that filters results to only include news and research organization.

•  Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21st Century

• llicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Counterfeiters are Hijacking the Global Economy Great book that will give you a fundamental understanding of the global black market and how it affects governments, society and national security.

• McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld

•  Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict Offers a critical take on the various estimates about human trafficking, illegal drugs and other global crime figures released by law enforcement.

•  Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America

Arms Trafficking:

•  AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War

•  Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

•  The Outlaws Inc.: Under the Radar and on the Black Market with the World’s Most Dangerous Smugglers

•  The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

Art Theft:

•  Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures

•  Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World

•  The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece

Cybercrime:

• Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Online: A Strategic Assessment-Prepared by the European Cybercrime Centre-Europol (PDF) Report discusses the online black market in child sexual abuse images. Highlights of the report was covered by Havocscope here.

• Cybercrime Exposed: Cybercrime-as-a-service-McAfee (PDF)

Drug Trafficking:

•  El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency

•  The Last Narco: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo, the World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord Meet the boss of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel and a man who was once listed on Forbes Billionaire List.

•  Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords And Their Godfathers The author is living under protection after receiving numerous death threats from drug cartels in Mexico. According to the Guardian, traffickers have left the heads of decapitated animals on her doorsteps as the results of her investigations.

• 2013 World Drug Report- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (PDF)

•  Seeds of Terror: How Drugs, Thugs, and Crime Are Reshaping the Afghan War

Human Smuggling:

•  The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream

•  Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West

Human Trafficking:

•  The Natashas: The Horrific Inside Story of Slavery, Rape, and Murder in the Global Sex Trade

•  A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery

•  Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

•  Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal

•  Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade–and How We Can Fight It

•  The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today

•  Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy

Organ Trafficking and Body Parts:

•  Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts

•  The International Trafficking of Human Organs: A Multidisciplinary Perspective (Advances in Police Theory and Practice)

•  Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains [Paperback] [2007] (Author) Annie Cheney

Organized Crime:

•  Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System The author is currently living under police protection as the Mafia has placed a contract hit on his life due to writing this book.

•  Gomorrah (The Criterion Collection) Movie based on the above book.

•  Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld One of the best books about Japanese organized crime. Offers a great explanation about the relationships and structure of the Yakuza.

•  Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Author Jake Adelstein is a US reporter who covers the Yakuza beat in Japan. This memoir of his work will be made into a movie in 2014.

•  Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires

Piracy:

• Pirate Trails: Tracking the Illicit Financial Flows from Piracy off the Horn of Africa (PDF)

Prostitution:

•  Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business

•  Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery While focusing on unsolved murders of prostitutes hired through Craigslist, the book also examines the prostitution trade over the Internet.

•  Sex For Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry

Wildlife Trafficking:

•  Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia Heartbreaking pictures of animals being trafficked for sale. Highly recommend this book.

•  Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery

• Sold into Extinction: The Global Trade in Endangered Species (Global Crime and Justice)