Word: underworld
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...produce for at least some of their earnings. The government pays $5 a pound, though many growers sell part or all of their crops on the black market for as much as five times the official price. (Pure heroin sells for at least $8,000 a pound in the underworld.) In 1968, the U.S. gave Turkey $3,000,000 to curtail opium production, half of which was used for additional enforcement and the rest to develop substitute crops. By the end of this year opium growing will be legal in only seven of the 21 provinces (out of a total...
...ransomed for $250,000 in Geneva by masked bandits who said it was for "our brethren in Winterthur." Last week British newspapers printed accounts of an Arab plot to kidnap wealthy British Jews for ransom. According to the reports, representatives of Al-Fatah hired members of the London underworld to drug the victims and smuggle them out of Britain to the Middle East. The list of proposed victims included Charles Clore, chairman of Selfridge's department store, and Lord Sieff, president of Marks & Spencer, a large retail chain. Fantastic? Perhaps, but many Britons recalled that last summer minor bomb...
...Prohibition days, when Abner ("Longie") Zwillman used the state as the base for 40% of the nation's bootlegging operations. Aside from Newark and Jersey City, much of the state retained a rural character until the opening of the George Washington Bridge in 1931. New Jersey suited the underworld's needs perfectly. The Hudson River separated its members from the tough law enforcement of New York racketbusters like Fiorello La Guardia, Thomas Dewey and, more recently, Frank Hogan. Neither police forces nor local government had caught up with the state's sudden population growth. To make matters...
...from London's Wandsworth prison cost $112,000 for a furniture van fitted with a sliding roof and hydraulic lift, two getaway cars and a crew to operate them. Because nearly $110,000 of his swag was in traceable notes, he had to dispose of them in the underworld at a 50% discount. Escaping from England cost him $45,000 for a small boat, hiding places on either side of the Channel and escorts. Abroad he visited a plastic surgeon for expensive ($7,000) alterations to his face and fingertips. He spent 15 months in hiding, then bought...
...unless, of course, he happens to be real. Then nobody likes him or his dirty work, and fewer still want to tell about it. Partly as a result, James Bond is a household word while practically nobody knows the names and numbers of the actual players in the cold underworld of international espionage. A journalist-author named Andrew Tully airs this situation in a provocative and detailed new book that claims to reveal a dark cloakful of hitherto secret tales of derring...