Free stuff! Download a free e-book on organized retail crime

For those of you with Kindles or other e-reading devices, I just discovered that Amazon is offering Black Market Billions: How Organized Retail Crime Funds Global Terrorists as a free Kindle book.

I'm not sure if this is book is always free, or if this is a freebie for a limited time only. In any case, here's the link to download the book for free. It was published in November.

I only downloaded it this morning, but the book's author, Hitha Prabhakar, seems well qualified to tackle the subject of ORC. She is a New York-based reporter for Bloomberg Television who covers business news and financial markets with a particular focus on retail. Here's the book's summary from the Amazon page:

"From piracy to counterfeiting to cargo theft, organized retail crime has exploded into a $38 billion industry. Synchronized global teams of thieves are pilfering immense volumes of high-value products, counterfeiting even more--and using the profits to support the world’s most vicious terrorists and criminal gangs.

In this eye-opening piece of investigative journalism, top business reporter Hitha Prabhakar connects the dots and follows the money deep into the world’s fastest-growing criminal industry. You'll learn how the Internet, social media, and disposable cell phones have opened the floodgates for a new generation of criminals--and how buying something as innocent as a counterfeit handbag or discounted cigarettes actually funds terrorist groups from Al-Qaeda to Central America’s drug lords.

Black Market Billions draws on extensive first person interviews with law enforcement, industry, and the criminals themselves to reveal how retail crime rings impact the security in every country in which they operate. Prabhakar goes "inside" to reveal why the piracy economy has exploded...why preventive measures have failed...and what to expect next, as organized retail crime reaches a terrifying critical mass."

I plan to read it on my iPhone, and will write a follow-up once I do. If anyone reads it, please let me know what they think. Again, here's the link.

-Whit Richardson