In the early hours of 8 August 1963, a crime took place which simultaneously captured the imagination of the general public, and shook the British Establishment to the core, in a way that no criminal event had ever done before. The Great Train Robbery, as it subsequently became known, involved the audacious high-jacking of one of Her Majesty's mail trains, netting the sixteen strong gang over GBP2.6 million, equivalent to almost GBP50 million in 2016. One by one, thanks to the tenacity of the Scotland Yard Flying Squad officers charged with bringing the perpetrators to justice, all known members of the gang were brought to trial and, with one exception, were subsequently convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. However, there was a great deal of public outrage at the length of the some of the sentences handed out by the trial judge, with many of the gang facing the prospect of up to 30 years in prison. Yet, for many of those involved both directly and indirectly in the Great Train Robbery, the story does not end there. Over the coming years, a series of tragedies, misfortunes, illnesses and downright bad luck were to blight the lives of a significant number of the guilty and the innocent. The Curse of the Great Train Robbery tells the thrilling story of the robbery and reveals the series of subsequent events which will leave readers to ponder whether this was a crime which was both cursed and doomed to fail from the very outset.

This book examines the rules and mechanisms of international law relevant to the suppression of state organized crime, and provides a normative justification for developing international legal mechanisms specifically designed to address this phenomenon. State organized crime refers to the use by senior state officials of the resources of the state to facilitate or participate in organized crime, in pursuit of policy objectives or personal profit. This concept covers diverse forms of government misconduct, including strategic partnerships with drug traffickers, the plundering of a country's resources by kleptocrats, and high-level corruption schemes. The book identifies the distinctive criminological characteristics of state organized crime, and analyses the applicability, potential, and limits of the norms and mechanisms of international law relevant to the suppression of state organized crime. In particular, it discusses whether the involvement of state organs or agents in organized crime may amount to an internationally wrongful act giving rise to the international responsibility of the state, and highlights a number of practical and normative shortcomings of the legal framework established by relevant crime-suppression conventions. The book also sketches proposals to develop an international legal framework designed to hold perpetrators of state organized crime accountable. It presents a normative justification for criminalizing and suppressing state organized crime at the international level, proposes draft provisions for an international convention for the suppression of state organized crime, and discusses the potential role of the UN Security Council and of international criminal courts and tribunals, respectively, in holding perpetrators accountable. Providing the first comprehensive analysis, from the perspective of international law, of a phenomenon so far mainly studied by criminologists, this study would appeal to researchers, social activists, and policy makers alike.

The story of Irish-American racketeer Danny Greene and his war with the Mafia. Basis for the film Kill the Irishman starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, with Val Kilmer and Christopher Walken.