
Merchants of Men
How Jihadists and ISIS Turned Kidnapping and Refugee Trafficking into a Multi-Billion Dollar Business
Loretta Napoleoni(Author)
Seven Stories Press,U.S.
Published on 30. August 2016
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-60980-708-5 (ISBN)
Description
A powerful and sophisticated underground business delivers thousands of refugees a day all along the Mediterranean coasts of Europe. The new breed of criminals that controls it has risen out of the political chaos of post-9/11 Western foreign policy and the fiasco of the Arab Spring. These merchants of men are intertwined with jihadist armed organizations such as al Qaeda in the Maghreb. They have prospered smuggling cocaine from West Africa and kidnapping Westerners. More recently, the destabilization of Syria and Iraq coupled with the rise of ISIS offered them new business opportunities in the Middle East, from selling Western hostages to jihadist groups to trafficking in refugees numbering in the millions.
Overall, the kidnapping industry today is bigger than the illegal drug trade and worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Merchants of Men is based on exclusive access to hostage negotiators actively involved in ransom negotiations and rescue missions, counter-terrorism experts, members of security services, and former hostages, among many others. The reader will discover that the protocols of prevention and rescue change according to the type of abduction and the designated targets, and will come to know first hand the range of experiences of kidnapping victims.
Will the West once again reap the benefits of the political chaos it has sown in its own backyard? From colonization to the advent of "friendly" dictatorial regimes, today's fast-aging European nations are buyers on the refugee market. New workers are needed, and the merchants of men are supplying them. But only skilled, highly educated refugees are wanted. As a tsunami of migrants and refugees floods Europe, new questions almost too numerous to count must be answered.
Overall, the kidnapping industry today is bigger than the illegal drug trade and worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Merchants of Men is based on exclusive access to hostage negotiators actively involved in ransom negotiations and rescue missions, counter-terrorism experts, members of security services, and former hostages, among many others. The reader will discover that the protocols of prevention and rescue change according to the type of abduction and the designated targets, and will come to know first hand the range of experiences of kidnapping victims.
Will the West once again reap the benefits of the political chaos it has sown in its own backyard? From colonization to the advent of "friendly" dictatorial regimes, today's fast-aging European nations are buyers on the refugee market. New workers are needed, and the merchants of men are supplying them. But only skilled, highly educated refugees are wanted. As a tsunami of migrants and refugees floods Europe, new questions almost too numerous to count must be answered.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 208 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
431 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-60980-708-5 (9781609807085)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Loretta Napoleoni
Merchants of Men
How Jihadists and ISIS Turned Kidnapping and Refugee Trafficking into a Multi-Billion Dollar Business
E-Book
08/2016
Seven Stories Press
€18.49
Available for download
Person
Loretta Napoleoni