The crime of the century by TERRY MURDEN
THEIR trade may be the stuff of legend and Hollywood glamour, but the smugglers, counterfeiters and traffickers who deal in anything from crudely copied machine components to spare body parts and Kalashnikovs have become part of a monstrous phenomenon that is threatening the global economy and the lives of millions. Illicit trade has always existed, right back to ancient times, but it is flourishing like never before, aided by the technological revolution of the 1990s - electronic money transfer, the internet and mobile phones - and globalisation, which has opened up the market to stateless, and often anonymous, criminals able to switch from product to product, sometimes using their dealings to support terrorism, but most often simply to make money.
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