Drug Traffic, Al McCoy’s magisterial history of Australian organised crime from the beginning, concluded in 1980. Smack Express (2009) by Small and Gilling took the story through to the end of the century.
Blood Money (2010) to some extent overlaps the period covered by the previous book, although at times it brings the story forward. Its main focus is the Lebanese crime gangs that have had such an enormous impact on the Sydney underworld, since the 1990s in particular. Subjects include Frank Hakim, the Bayehs and the Ibrahims, and the Darwiche-Razzack gang war. It concludes with a chapter on the overlap between some Lebanese criminals and terrorism.
Clive Small is a former detective and assistant commissioner, whose successes included the arrest of Ivan Milat. Tom Gilling is a novelist and Small’s literary collaborator.
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