A powerful and sophisticated underground business delivers thousands of refugees a day all along the Mediterranean coasts of Europe. The new breed of criminals that controls it has risen out of the political chaos of post-9/11 Western foreign policy and the fiasco of the Arab Spring. These merchants of men are intertwined with jihadist armed organizations such as al Qaeda in the Maghreb. They have prospered smuggling cocaine from West Africa and kidnapping Westerners. More recently, the destabilization of Syria and Iraq coupled with the rise of ISIS offered them new business opportunities in the Middle East, from selling Western hostages to jihadist groups to trafficking in refugees numbering in the millions. Overall, the kidnapping industry today is bigger than the illegal drug trade and worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Merchants of Men is based on exclusive access to hostage negotiators actively involved in ransom negotiations and rescue missions, counter-terrorism experts, members of security services, and former hostages, among many others. The reader will discover that the protocols of prevention and rescue change according to the type of abduction and the designated targets, and will come to know first hand the range of experiences of kidnapping victims. Will the West once again reap the benefits of the political chaos it has sown in its own backyard? From colonization to the advent of "friendly" dictatorial regimes, today's fast-aging European nations are buyers on the refugee market. New workers are needed, and the merchants of men are supplying them. But only skilled, highly educated refugees are wanted. As a tsunami of migrants and refugees floods Europe, new questions almost too numerous to count must be answered.

The compelling and highly-informed account of one of the world's darkest and most lucrative new businesses - human trafficking. Every day, a powerful and sophisticated underground business delivers thousands of refugees along the Mediterranean coasts of Europe. A new breed of criminals, risen from the political chaos of post-9/11 Western foreign policy and the fiasco of the Arab Spring, controls it. In the early 2000s these merchants of men prospered by smuggling cocaine from West Africa and kidnapping westerners to sell to jihadist organisations like al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. More recently, the destabilisation of Syria and Iraq coupled with the rise of ISIS offered them new business opportunities in the Middle East, from selling western hostages to trafficking millions of refugees...Overall in these regions, the kidnapping and trafficking industries are bigger than the illegal drug trade and are worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Merchants of Men is based on exclusive access to those involved in kidnapping and trafficking - hostage negotiators, counterterrorism experts, members of the security services, former hostages, traffickers and refugees. In a gripping narrative it will describe the brutal processes of kidnapping and human trafficking from a personal and global level, and the shocking economic interdependency of their business models...

A groundbreaking exploration of the new breed of criminals who control both the refugee pipelines and the kidnapping of Westerners to fund terrorist activities in the Middle East. Every day, a powerful and sophisticated underground business delivers thousands of refugees along the Mediterranean coasts of Europe. A new breed of criminals, risen from the post-9/11 political chaos and the fiasco of the Arab Spring, coupled with the destabilization of Syria and Iraq and the rise of ISIS, controls it. The ever-increasing political volatility has offered them new business opportunities, from trafficking millions of refugees to selling Western hostages to jihadist groups. The kidnapping industry in the Middle East is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Loretta Napoleoni's exclusive and meticulous research into the business of kidnap and ransom, and its link to terrorist activity, is based on first-hand accounts - from interviews with hostage negotiators to the experiences of former hostages themselves. Merchants of Men is a fascinating and eye-opening exploration of this most shocking of financial interdependencies.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1866 Edition.

Excerpt from The Men of the Merchant Service: Being the Polity of the Mercantile Marine for 'Longshore Readers Care has been taken to avoid, as far as possible, all technical treatment of the subject. I have not assumed the possession of too much nautical knowledge on the part of my prospective readers; not nearly as much, for instance, as would be permissible in a work of fiction. Having before me, too, the h0pe that sons as well as parents will be able to read and enjoy, as well as thoroughly grasp the meaning of this book, I have aimed at making it entertaining, giving a plentiful supply of anecdotes as well to illustrate as to lighten what might easily become rather stodgy. Finally, I feel constrained to add that, even if my friends are wrong, and there are works with which they. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.