Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

December 12, 2005Andrea G

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Carnegie's President Jessica T. Mathews led a conversation between the audience and Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím, SAIS Professor Francis Fukuyama, and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on the main thesis of Naím's important new book Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy. Naím argues that traffickers are changing the world—transforming economies, reshaping politics, and capturing governments. In his view the pursuit of illicit profits is as powerful a driver of political upheaval and international instability as terrorism, and black-market networks are stealthily transforming global politics and economies.