News: Japanese Manga comic takes on ‘Outlaws Inc.’
This knocked me for six: news that Japanese magazine Courrier Japon has just adapted Outlaws Inc. to Manga comic strip form. The adaptation published this month, is true to the book’s narrative and journalism – but supercharges it with some fantastic graphic novel-style visual storytelling. I love the portrayal of Mickey. Though the…
News: Outlaws Inc published in Finland this week
This week saw the publication of Salainen Lasti in Finland. The Finnish-language version of Outlaws Inc means ‘Secret Cargo’, and weighs in at 477 pages, including new material on the conviction in Manhattan of ‘Merchant of Death’ Viktor Bout, and a whole chapter drawn from the secret DEA tapes of his sting and arrest…
Free-Market Mercenaries: Matt speaking at Swansea University on 28th February
Matt will be talking transnational crime, Russian gunrunners and the deadly compromises between narco-mafias, FTSE 100 businesses, terrorists, ‘big aid’ and our own government at Swansea University on 28th February. The event, titled ‘Free market mercenaries: Cocaine traffickers, Somali pirates, and how the Soviet Union won the Cold War’ is organised by Swansea University’s Research…
News: Outlaws Inc. published in a new edition… complete with secret CIA tapes
An updated, expanded edition of Outlaws Inc. is published in paperback by Pan Macmillan in March. The new edition contains explosive new material – including full coverage of the recent high-profile trial of the infamous Merchant of Death in Manhattan, and never-before-published material from the CIA’s secret files on the infamous gunrunner, real…
Video: “Cocaine coffee tables?!” CNN bosses, the craziest cop in Brazil, and me
It started perfectly innocently. I was out with a friend on Thursday, and the phone rang. I didn’t pick up – it was ten o’clock, and I’d worked my way through six large glasses of what I remember being an increasingly smooth Italian red, and a couple of bottles of Grolsch for good measure.…
Review download: ‘Outlaws Inc.’ launches in Germany, gets full-page rave in The Literary Review!
Thanks to Britain’s leading literary magazine, The Literary Review, for their full-page write-up on Outlaws Inc. this month, by veteran BBC man John Sweeney. You can read the review by clicking on the scan above to enlarge – but suffice to say, I’m framing it and the cover. Coming on the heels of the Washington…
Report: Smuggling, security & the power of cheap – speaking at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs
On 22nd September, I was honoured to be invited to discuss the links between big business, mercenary airmen and terrorist groups at a special event presented by the Transnational Security Committee of NYU’s Center for Global Affairs. The conversation that followed, moderated by CGA Academic Chair Dr Mark Galeotti, took in the disintegrating Soviet Union,…
Extract: Colombia, cocaine and the coastal paradise on a US blacklist
Today, the US finally blacklisted Belize and El Salvador for being major narcotics transhipment hubs – mainly for Colombian cocaine. Anyone who’s been to the former British Honduras, a tiny little country on the Central American coastline, will already know very well how much of it goes down there. Indeed, most are probably wondering, like…
Free audio download: Matt talks 9/11’s unreported aftermath on the Rick & Donna Martinez Show
Listen to Matt on WPTF with Rick and Donna Martinez: Matt’s guest appearance on WPTF’s Rick and Donna Martinez show yesterday kicked off the show’s coverage of some of the more unheralded players in 9/11 and its global aftermath. Matt and Donna discussed the dirty deals our governments make with phantom carriers – in Iraq,…
Comment: “A chilling indictment of worldwide regulatory failure” – or, the book beneath the book
Five newspapers in the UK have given a unanimous four-star thumbs-up to Outlaws Inc. – and with some hearteningly perceptive reviews that took me a little by surprise. The Liverpool Echo, Edinburgh Evening News and Yorkshire Post among others, and especially this review (below), from the Manchester Evening News, hit the nail on the head…