A Raging Bull Market in Organized Crime
“The Mafia isn’t part of the past, it’s part of the future.”
– Roberto Scarpinato, Sicilian prosecutor
Just how heavy is a million dollars cash?
If you’re trying to smuggle that kind of dough in old-school 0 bills, you’ll be lugging a little over 22 pounds. But if you’re rolling with banded, manicured bundles of the highest denomination euro notes (a cool €500), then the same amount only weighs you down by 3.5 pounds – and takes up a lot less space.
This is the kind of thing it’s good to know when you’re in the most profitable business in the world.
Ask a Wall Streeter to name a line of business that produces endless gushers of cash, and big oil probably comes to mind. The oil majors have certainly been known for record-busting profits these past few years. But the mafia’s profits are far bigger.
The mighty Exxon Mobil, for example, booked a profit of a little over billion last year. That’s a whopping billion per quarter or more. And yet, in comparison, the top three organized crime outfits in Italy – just the top three, mind you – more than doubled Exxon’s profit for the same calendar year.
And of course, where Exxon has to pay taxes, the mafia mostly avoids such hassles. So when you take the tax-free aspect into account, the mafia leaves big oil in the dust. And of course, the “big three” in Italy are just the tip of the iceberg. The powerful tentacles of organized crime extend all over the world…
Meet the Octopus
During my time at Oxford University in the mid-1990s, one of the best things about the experience was the speakers who came and talked to us. The Oxford Student Union (which has nothing