Click to listen to Misha Glenny talk about McMafia and why organised crime is a bigger threat than terrorism

LUDMILLA BALBINOVA is not her real name. But Misha Glenny's story of how a young Moldovan woman was duped, then forced into a life of prostitution by Russian mafia bosses is a genuine shocker. The exploitation of Ludmilla may be as old as the profession to which she was enslaved. Yet it is still mortifying in an age that purports to be civilised.

“Women are an attractive entry-level commodity for criminals,” writes Glenny, deploying words that mock business-school jargon while they drip with disgust. But all varieties of nefarious trade, and some ostensibly respectable ones, stand accused in this expansive survey of the world of organised crime.

Glenny delves into black economies and dark societies. The collapse of the Soviet Union, he says, unleashed pent-up Russian energies and fuelled the globalisation of exploitation and extortion. He tells us that mafiosi tentacles are everywhere: from the backwoods of British Columbia to the mountains of Afghanistan; from Colombian jungles to the chrome and glass veneers of Dubai; from the “sewers of Nigeria's corruptocracy” to the pachinko-playing denizens of Tokyo; from the favelas of São Paulo to the Morecambe Bay cockle beds.

Glenny quotes research undertaken by the United Nations suggesting that 70 per cent of the financial resources available to organised crime are derived from drugs. He does not quote Commander Sharon Kerr, from the Specialist Crime Directorate of the Metropolitan Police, but her recent comments show that the growth and globalisation of organised crime is far from being just a good idea for a book. Commander Kerr told a Liverpool conference audience including Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary: “We have an exponential growth in serious and organised crime - manifesting itself in all kinds of ways; from Chinese DVD sellers, which can involve murders, trafficking and kidnap - to Romanian gangs of bag snatchers using young children trafficked into the United Kingdom.”

There is a fine line between drama and melodrama. Anyone tackling a hard, factual subject will be tempted to ham up heart-rending human interest stories to invigorate an account that might otherwise descend into a lifeless tale of cold, miserable analysis. Glenny admits that Ludmilla Balbinova's home, in the Republic of Moldovan Transnistria, is the perfect setting for a Tintin adventure. Its name, and nether Caucasian location close to Odessa, the Ukrainian city that lent its name to the Frederick Forsyth thriller, heightens the drama. Elsewehere, Glenny invokes Star Trek and James Bond to spice up his tales. Good job too. Without the human interest, the bigger themes might remain largely ignored on the awkward fringes of awareness.

Glenny does little to chart the mundane expanses that separate the occasional moments of adrenalin-filled excitement. The black economy involves ordinary people sustaining unremarkable existences by completing an endless number of small acts that combine to make economics. Just as they do in the spheres of legitimate trade.

The author's eagerness to tell human stories punctuates the otherwise absorbing narrative with some unwelcome jolts. Yet even this is a reminder of the way that so many people's lives - here and overseas - are broken by organised criminals. And Glenny, best known for his reporting of the Balkan war for The Guardian and the BBC, does not allow his journalistic imagination to run out of control. “This is a conspiracy too far,” he writes, responding to the notion that US drug enforcement policy, which attacks small-time suppliers in run-down neighbourhoods and skirts the suburbs where marijuana and cocaine are consumed, is designed to limit the social and economic opportunities of African and Hispanic Americans.

Efficiency is one of the hallmarks of a well-respected business enterprise. Largely thanks to its lust for violence, organised crime makes itself ruthlessly effective in bypassing legal process, regulation, social obligation, compassion - and all the associated costs. The absence of physical abuse and violence separates the legitimate marketplace from its illegitimate shadow. But even the naive will struggle to say that accredited commerce does not engage in coercion. Employees work in stifling conditions for a pittance of pay. Nasty nicotine, alcohol and gambling habits are freely fed and widely advertised.

Glenny leaves readers in little doubt about his view that the world needs more robust regulation. But he also suggests that a sober policy of accommodation and treatment of drug abuse might go a lot farther than one defined by punishment and the aim of forced eradication.

McMafia is not a manifesto. But readers will be prompted to think hard about boundaries. What is the difference between a bribe, a commission and an administration fee? Where does trafficking in human labour end and economic migration - motivated by the honourable desire to improve their lot and support poor relatives back home - begin? Freedom fighters, guerrillas and terrorists are separated by one's point of view. Is authorised law enforcement, replete with armed police and chameleon lawyers, any more than a mature protection racket?

“As consumers, we are all involved - often unwittingly - in the shadowy world of trans-national organised crime,” writes Glenny. Included are those who might see the damage they do themselves, and more especially others, by succumbing to the temptation of a recreational line of cocaine or a cheap weekend of sex tourism dressed up as a stag-night lark. Ludmilla Balbinova, whatever her real name, is still paying the price.

Misha Glenny will discuss McMafia at Blackheath Halls, London SE3, on Tuesday at 8pm, £8 (020 8463 0100; www.blackheathhalls.com)

McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers by Misha Glenny
Bodley Head, £20; 432pp

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