THE UNDERGROUND EMPIRE: Where Crime and Governments Embrace

by James Mills ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1986

A massive (1320 pages!), deeply disturbing exposÉ of the international narcotics trade and the secret government agency dedicated to its downfall, presented in horrifying close-up by journalist and novelist (Report to the Commissioner) Mills. This is a morality play, nothing less than a battle of Good vs. Evil. On the side of darkness: the narcotics underground, ""sovereign, proud, expansionist,"" with ""its own armies, diplomats, intelligence services, banks, merchant fleets, and airlines,"" grossing one-half trillion dollars a year. Pitted against it, the forces of light: an American governmental agency known as Centac, the ""most unorthodox, effective, and least known international police organization in the world,"" led by a former concert violinist. For five years, Mills followed Centac's campaign against three narcotics kingpins: Alberto Sicilia-Falcon, a homicidal, devil-worshipping Cuban, ruler of the Mexican drug trade; David Steinberg, a charming young American entrepreneur who, at the age of 30, was earning a million dollars a day as ""the Henry Ford of the international marijuana industry""; and Lu Hsu-shui, a top Chinese heroin dealer. Centac didn't always nab its target; while Falcon and Steinberg stew behind bars, Lu Hsu-shui still runs his gigantic operation in Asia and California. But win or lose, the agency's labyrinthine maneuvers make for hair-raising adventure. Not the least of the tension springs from fear over Mills' own safety when he travels to Hong Kong to meet an opium lord, or when he unexpectedly encounters one ""Michael Decker,"" a former CIA assassin now working for Sicilia-Falcon. One wonders, too, how narcotics traffickers will stomach Mills' revelations, the most sobering being that high officials of a number of countries including Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Thailand, Bolivia, Burma, Haiti, and Nicaragua are regularly involved in drug deals. A few tantalizing details: two former presidents of Mexico are explicitly named as participants in the narcotics trade; Sicilia-Falcon played a role in Somoza's assassination and conducted arms deals with the CIA; Hsu-shui planned at one time to build a city in California complete with its own (friendly) police force. Centac no longer exists, a victim of jealousy on the part of powerful officials at rival agencies. Meanwhile, of course, the Underground Empire still thrives--and will do so, according to Mills, as long as America's anticommunist allies continue to profit from narcotics. It's a grim, dark, frightening situation, courageously illuminated by Mills in this bulky fireball of a book.

Pub Date: June 13, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1986

Categories: NONFICTION