Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive Review of Organized Crime
Review: 'The Merger' is the most comprehensive book on international crime.The theme is how various gangs and mafias from different nations are cooperating versus competing. This game of cooperation enables each criminal organization to focus on a core competency to increase efficiency. These gangs are no longer disorganized but operate in ways similar to corporations, and are often more knowledgeable & advanced than the 'good guys'. The other main focus of this book is how these same organizations are using the limitations of police jurisdiction to their advantage. One way they utilize jurisdiction to their advantage is by meeting in one country, such as Vienna, Austria. There the Russians, Sicilians, Italians, and other gangs stage conferences discussing expansion. They intentionally commit no crime in Austria. Since no crime is committed the police cannot arrest them. They go there as businessmen and behave themselves. Other means of using jurisdictions to their advantage is to facilitate money laundering. They register multiple shell companies in countries with strict banking privacy laws such as Panama & the Cayman Islands. They also use Indian reservations to move drugs, contraband alcohol & cigarettes amongst other things. These Indian reservations are constantly seeking more territory supposedly to protect their land, when in truth it usually involves a while man pulling strings as to gain more territory to smuggle drugs. They then wash the proceeds through casinos, and finally launder the money in some offshore banks. Russians extorting other Russians, Nigerians scamming Europeans & North Americans, it's all covered in this book. Learn about how one organization attempted to buy an old military submarine to smuggle drugs into the USA, meanwhile they were doing this while under surveillance. This is very well researched & is probably the best book on the market in its category.
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Summary: Great introduction to Different Ethnic Crime Groups
Review: A clearly written introduction to all of the various ethnic organized crime groups in the world and descriptions of the different types of crime they specialize in. This book also contains useful information about money laundering.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Book
Review: I found "The Merger" to be an outstanding book, easy to read and filled with unforgettable characters. In fact, it reads like a novel. What's more, the author offers some serious suggestions about how to diminish the influence of international organized crime. I never realized just how dangerous the world had become, and how dangerous the future will be, unless we do something soon. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to know the truth behind the headlines!
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Summary: Truly frightening!
Review: I loved The Laundrymen and couldn't wait to see this. But whereas The Laundrymen worried me, this is truly frightening. Robinson isn't talking about some monolithic international crime syndicate, the picture he paints is of ruthless, professional opportunists who understand that big business today must think global. And these opportunists run very big businesses. The Merger is the single best book I've ever read on transnational organized crime, and should serve as a warning to all of us that the war on crime is, like the business of crime, global. Until governments equip law enforcement to fight this war properly, globally, it is a war we will lose.
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Summary: Organized Crime Encyclopedia
Review: If you really want to know about the various different gangs, what their business is in, how they operate and where, then you will want this book. The author goes into details of operations used to capture, and at times not capture various transnational organized gangs. On the flip side he also describes how the gangs operate to circumvent the law, including names of major players and which cities they are located in. Ironically when I finished reading one of the chapters on Russian Maffiya there was an article in the newpaper concerning a front company that I had read about in the book. The book covered a lot of information to the extent that when I read the article I was thinking that there was a lot missing that they either don't know about or don't want to print. Check out YBM Magnetics, read this book and find out what they don't tell you.
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Summary: In The Aftermath Of 9-11, A Must Read
Review: It's all here. The history of organized crime and the future, too. Don't believe other reviewers who say it's difficult to follow. The book reads very well as the author, in full command of the situation, explains how and why transnational organized criminals have become the most powerful special interest group on the planet. This isn't his opinion, the facts are fully documented. What's more, organized crime's links with global terrorists are here, as well, which, in the aftermath of 9-11 makes this a must read.
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Summary: This book could have been more concise
Review: Jeffrey Robinson successfully makes an argument and provides evidence to give that argument credibility. In this way he has succeeded. However, most of the evidence he provides is relayed in such a way that it seems more that he is telling you a story of an experience in his past. Kind of a like a crime thriller without the suspense fiction brings. Another critique I have is that the author draws on so many different crime families/groups, etc., all the while referring to them by name only throughout the rest of the text), that it becomes fairly confusing to keep track of who's who, until you just stop caring. If i had extensive knowledge of the subject matter prior to having read the book this may have been different (perhaps that is the target audience). His main point is that Organized Crime has changed immensely in nature since its beginnings some 40 or so years ago, and that it has grown to a point where Organized Crime Synidacates have moved from trafficking conventional arms and drugs to fissile material. The book is worth reading if you don't get bogged down in the details and focus on this point. Overall a good read. This is not an oft discussed subject and is something that should be given greater consideration. Four stars for concepts, 2 stars for delivery.
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Summary: Fascinating read about organized crime going global
Review: The author from the best selling Laundrymen comes back with another great book detailing the organized crime syndicates growth and globalization. The facts presented draws a very frightening picture of the skills and powers of the different mafias and how much they have accomplished, and also takes a look at their bold new plans for the future. Ranging from Italian, Russian, Columbian, Mexican to Asian organizations, the book shows how they have managed to outrun the police due to operating truly global utilizing each others skills to operate at maximum profitability and minimizing risk and exposure (that would make any legal company proud). The book reads like a novel, and is full of fascinating, menacing and colorful characters that you rather only read about than meet. Although, this is key knowledge to understand the world we live in and what goes on around us in these changing times -- it's not all pretty. This is a must read for anybody interested in global crime and the different cultural aspects of the development of society.
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Summary: Biased, outdated, inaccurate, and full of grammatical errors
Review: This book is a big disappointment. Buy this book and you will regret it. First, the writer is biased. Second, the book is outdated. Third, there are MANY things that are inaccurate (short of fiction). Also the book is full of grammatical errors.
[...] Whatever privileges they enjoy, they EARNED them through decades of suffering.
Rating: 
Summary: Not So Bad, Not So Good
Review: well, this book certainly is well researched, but the author needs to decide- is it a solid work of unbiased fact, or is it a liberally laced opinion piece? He seems to come down somewhere between the two, which leads the reader (well, that's me in this case) wondering how much is true, and how much is speculation and wish.
Lots of names being dropped and used, and if I truly wanted to take the time and learn what EXACTLY was going on in these crime organizations, I would need to keep a small notepad next to me so I could swiftly recollect each character everytime he was named.
An OK overall summary of the past 30 years in organized crime, but if you want to truly understand the inner machinations of these globe-spanning organizations, look elsewhere.
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