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Serious Problems Ahead
| Article
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17501 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1990 |
1,983 Words |
| Author
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Joseph D. Douglass, Jr.
Joseph D. Douglass is a national security consultant. His
latest book, America the Vulnerable (Lexington Books, 1987),
presents a detailed account of the threat of chemical and
biological welfare. |
Claire Sterling's Octopus: The Long Reach of the International Sicilian Mafia is one of several excellent studies of the drug problem published within the last year or so. Three others are Desperados by Elaine Shannon, which focuses on the corruption of Mexican officials and their role in the murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena; Kings of Cocaine by Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen, which examines the growth of Colombia's Medellin cartel and the cocaine epidemic; and Deep Cover by Michael Levine, which is an inside account of DEA mismanagement and the lack of serious Washington interest in winning the war on drugs. Sterling's book differs from the others because she draws attention to the worldwide reach of organized international crime.
Confused Accounts
Among international criminals, Sterling maintains, the Sicilian Mafia is on the top of the heap. Other criminal organizations, such as Colombia's Medellin cartel, the American Mafia, the Turkish Arms-Drugs Mafia, the Chinese Triads, and the Japanese Yakuza, do business with the Sicilians and defer to them in certain key areas. Indeed, only the Sicilians network is capable of moving both heroin and cocaine in massive quantities across oceans and continents.
While the roots of the Sicilian Mafia extend back over a hundred years, Sterling explains, the major international growth of the organization, which parallels its rise to dominance in heroin trafficking, began in October 1957, when Sicilian and U.S. Mafia heroin operations were coordinated at a meeting held in Palermo, Sicily. The Sicilian Mafia's overseas expansion into the United States and Latin America - especially Venezuela but
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