2.4 Major Organized Criminal Groups

The classic catalogue (the world's faces): the Mafia families (the Sicilian-and-American lore); the Yakuza (Japan's semi-open world); the Triads (the Chinese diaspora's societies); the Cartels (the Latin American drug world — the Colombian-and-Mexican lines); the 'Ndrangheta (the Calabrian reach); the Russian-and-Eurasian networks (the post-Soviet transition's world); the South Asian faces — the smuggling-and-trafficking networks, the counterfeit economies, the hawala systems' underworld uses. The South Asian corridor's geography: the drug routes (the golden- crescent-and-golden-triangle flows), the trafficking corridors, the informal remittance systems' abuse. The Nepal faces: the transit-and-destination position (the drugs' transit, the trafficking's origin); the counterfeit-and-smuggling economies; the local protection rackets-and-the-extortion faces (the violence-for-hire world).