Global Cactus Traffickers Are Cleaning Out the Deserts
A recent raid in Italy involving rare Chilean species highlights the growing scale of a black market in the thorny plants.
Black Market
Bad Birds in Quarantine
Struggling to go legal in the underworld of finch smuggling.
"State Capture": How the Gupta Brothers Hijacked South Africa Using Bribes Instead of Bullets
It started with black market rations and ended with “the wedding of the century.”
The Inside Story of the Great Silicon Heist
The material powers solar panels and microchips. In Alabama, two thieves cashed in.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "The Sell"
Shady security dealings in Iran.
Inside the Underground Economy Propping Up New York City's Food Carts
The hot dog black market and the immigrants it exploits.
The Deadly Global War for Sand
Paleram Chauhan, a 52-year-old Indian farmer, was shot dead during the summer of 2013. The reason: his opposition to a gang of criminals stealing his village’s sand to sell on the black market.
Welcome to the Malware-Industrial Complex
How governments and private companies have engaged in digital arms trading by building a global black market for ‘zero day’ hacks.
China’s Black Market City
In mountainous Wenzhou “the emperor is far away” and the freest of markets reign.
The Shadow Superpower
The world’s fastest growing economy isn’t China; it’s the “unheralded alternative economic universe of System D” aka the $10 trillion global black market.
