Misha Glenny is steeped in the ways of a dangerous world. His book McMafia has been turned into a rip-roaring, quality BBC series but this isn’t fiction. He’s an investigative reporter and his thesis is that organised crime is a greater threat to the world than terrorism and now accounts for 15 per cent of the world’s economy. He said in a Times interview: “The McMafia culture has broken out of the confines of crime to politics and the whole super-rich culture. Leaders everywhere — Putin, Erdogan, Trump, the entire elite of Brazil — are engaged in financial dealings and activities which are absolutely outrageous but seen as the way of the world. Enron . . . was organised crime on a grand scale. What was going on in Fifa was mafia-style behaviour.”
He is convinced Russia interfered with both the US election and the Brexit referendum in order to spread chaos, especially in the EU, which is Putin’s greatest economic fear.
Born 25 April 1958 in London with a Russia studies academic father, he became a war reporter, covering the Yugoslav Wars, before turning his focus onto crime. After his McMafia book was published he advised several European governments on policy issues and has written another book, DarkMarket, on cyber criminals.
He’s a stalwart Sun Taurus opposition Neptune and trine Pluto in late Leo, so has that Neptune Pluto instinct for ambitions which hit the zeitgeist and in this instance also hook into Neptune Pluto’s propensity for scandal. He has a tough-minded Saturn in philosophical Sagittarius trine Pluto and more significantly Pluto opposition Mars in uncompromising Aquarius. Mars Pluto if mishandled could have sent him walking down a very dark road. But he chose to live out its ruthless energies in observing a brutal war at first hand; and then moved on to focus on the scary world of ferocious criminal masterminds.
I wonder how his chart compares to that of Roberto Saviano. Saviano wrote his “Gomorrah” over a decade ago, when he was in his late 20’s. He was under police protection for years. The bookhas turned into a fairly loyal, but somehow clinical movie interpretation and an independent TV series that’s truly remarkable.