Author's Note

This book is a work of nonfiction. It is based on more than four years of reporting, including hundreds of interviews, hundreds of thousands of pages of law enforcement reports, government databases, court documents, and internal communications from a criminal organization that involved thousands of people and con- ducted business on six continents. I have worked to corroborate every fact found in these pages, and to speak with as many par- ticipants as possible. Unfortunately, I couldn't speak to them all. Some are dead, murdered because of what they knew. Others de- clined to talk to me, out of a fear that they might meet the same fate. Still others are in prison and desperate to avoid the percep- tion that they have turned on their compatriots. A few are in hid- ing, running from prosecution or vengeance, real or imagined.

But dozens of the people involved did share their stories with me, at risk of physical danger, legal jeopardy, or professional con- sequences. In three cases, specified in the source notes, I have al- tered subjects' names. I did so because they feared for their safety and that of their families, because they were never prosecuted for