Bøger udgivet af Strategic Media Books

Sergeant Smack chronicles the story of North Carolina's Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, an adventurer, gambler and one of U.S. history's most original gangsters. Under the cover of the Vietnam War and through the use of the U.S. military infrastructure, Atkinson masterminded an enterprising group of family members and former African American GIs that the DEA identified as one of history's ten top drug trafficking rings. Ike's organization moved heroin from Thailand to North Carolina and beyond. According to law enforcement sources, 1,000 pounds is a conservative estimate of the amount of heroin the ring transported annually from Bangkok, Thailand, through U.S. military bases, into the U.S. during its period of operation from 1968 to 1975. That amount translates to about $400 million worth of illegal drug sales during that period. Born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Ike Atkinson is a charismatic former U.S. Army Master Sergeant, career drug smuggler, scam artist, card shark and doting family man whom law enforcement nick-named Sergeant Smack. He was never known to carry a gun, and today many retired law enforcement officials who had put him in jail refer to him as a "gentleman." Sergeant Smack's criminal activities sparked the creation of a special DEA unit code named CENTAC 9, which conducted an intensive three-year investigation across three continents. Sergeant Smack was elusive, but the discovery of his palm print on a kilo of heroin finally took him down. In 1987, Ike tried to revive his drug ring from Otisville Federal Penitentiary, but the Feds discovered the plot and set up a sting. The events that follow seem like the narrative for a Robert Ludlum novel. Atkinson was convicted again and nine years added to his sentence. Ike was released from prison in 2006 after serving a 31-year jail sentence. Atkinson's story is controversial because his ring has been accused of smuggling heroin to the U.S. in the coffins and/or cadavers of dead American GIs. As this book shows, the accusation is completely false. The recent movie, "American Gangster," which depicted the criminal career of Frank Lucas, distorted Atkinson's historical role in the international drug trade. Sergeant Smack exposes the lies about the Ike Atkinson-Frank Lucas relationship and documents how Ike, not Lucas, pioneered the Asian heroin connection. "Drug kingpin Ike Atkinson, is the real deal, and not the stuff of Hollywood legend. The author delivers an eminently readable book about a genuine Mr Big who knows that no fictional makeover is required for his compelling story - the truth is more than enough." -Steve Morris, Publisher, New Criminologist "Sergeant Smack is meticulously researched and its prodding for the truth by author Ron Chepesiuk makes it an excellent non-fiction crime story. Along with a compelling history of Ike Atkinson's life and criminal career in drug smuggling, the author has managed to put the truth to numerous falsehoods contained in the major movie, American Gangster, about the life of Frank Lucas." -Jack Toal, retired DEA agent who worked the investigation of Frank Lucas "Finally, the real story. I've waited 40 years for this book." -Marc Levin, Director of the documentary, "Mr. Untouchable" "Ron Chepesiuk has gone from publishing the Black gangster classics, Gangsters of Harlem and Black Gangsters of Chicago, to crafting Sergeant Smack, an astonishing masterpiece." -David "Pop" Whetstone, Owner, Black Star Music and Video "Sergeant Smack forcefully debunks the urban legend of Black family groups smuggling heroin from Southeast Asia in the bodies of dead GI soldiers while recounting the colorful saga of the authentic American gangster. Highly recommended." -Gary Taylor, journalist and author of the award-winning true crime

"When popular First Lady Rose Gannon dies suddenly (and mysteriously) during an interview with White House correspondent Lark Chadwick, Lark is thrust into the midst of a media-bashing frenzy. Lark, still reeling from the death of her photographer boyfriend, finds herself covering a grieving president struggling with his pain while trying to defuse a looming nuclear war. In the era of "fake news," when all "facts" are suspect (and reporters are targets), Lark tries to discover the truth while also under personal attack. FAKE is author John DeDakis's most important and perhaps most controversial book to date. In FAKE, DeDakis, a former White House correspondent, and former CNN Senior Copy Editor, offers a real-life look behind-the-scenes at the ethical struggles of a female journalist in a #MeToo world. Protagonist Lark Chadwick is a strong-willed, strong-minded twenty-something trying to walk the line between personal feelings and dispassionate objectivity - trying to discern the difference between what's real . . . and what's fake."--Publisher's description.

Now a summer 2023 ViX Original series based on this book by Ron Chepesiuk. Carlos Lehder is one of the most important and fascinating individuals in the history of drug trafficking and the U.S. War on Drugs. Lehder was the drug kingpin who developed the transportation system that helped flood the flood the U.S. with drugs from Latin America. This is the first biography of Lehder. Born in 1949, Carlo Lehder rose from a struggling, small time pot dealer to become a major godfather in the Medellin cartel, the crime syndicate largely responsible for initiating the cocaine epidemic plaguing American society since the late 1970s. Federal U.S. prosecutor Robert Merkle, who successfully prosecuted Lehder in 1988, said that the drug lord "was to cocaine transportation what Henry Ford was to automobiles" because he was the mastermind behind the transportation network that revolutionized the international drug trade. Lehder's genius was to devise a sophisticated transportation system that allowed the Medellin cartel to transport huge quantities of cocaine from Colombia, the source country, to the U.S., the world's major illegal drug market. By 1987, the DEA and the Colombian government had put Lehder's net wealth at more than $3 billion. A great admirer of both Nazi icon Adolph Hitler and Marxist Che Guevara, Lehder hated the U.S. and viewed cocaine as a kind of atomic bomb that could destroy Uncle Sam from within. Lehder got the nickname, "Crazy Charlie," because of his bizarre and often unpredictable behavior.

Murder Inc. is the fascinating story of La Cosa Nostras most ruthless hit squad. When the Big Four of crime Charles Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Benjamin Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello - essentially reshaped the structure of the New York underworld in 1931 a new era of mobster was born. Organized, disciplined and having no mercy for those that would jeopardize the ultimate goalearning illicit money. IN order to enforce the rules of conduct and further protect the hierarchy of gangland leadership an arm of the mob was created to carry out a very special brand of justice. Culled from the Jewish and Italian sections of Brooklyns Brownsville and Ocean Hill sections, these specialists within the underworld came to be known as the boys from Murder Incorporated.

This is a different kind of book about doing business in China, and it is done with humour. The Chinese command one of the world's largest economies yet routinely baffle foreigners who try to do business with them. Trying to drink a woman under the table is one of the MANY ways you can blow it when doing business with Asians. You can also get grey hair waiting for your menu to come at a banquet in a Chinese restaurant's private room. And do you really have to eat the ox tongue and tripe with roasted chili-garlic black beans? And why can't you get a glass of cold water? Richard Bradspies spent more than a decade as the Bank of China's top American in the US. He and PR pro J D Fox have authored a book about understanding the Chinese and other Asians in a business and cultural context.

Spook War gives a glimpse and a tour into the primary and collateral events triggered when the Reagan Administration abruptly shifted three decades of American foreign policy to favor the interests of the Arab States to the detriment of our traditional Middle East allies, the Israelis. Have you ever wondered about the real story behind the blaring headlines of that era? Count Alexandre de Marenches, longtime chief of the Service de Documentation Exterieure de Contre-Espionnage, the primary Intelligence Agency of France, described it as two sorts of historythe known and the unknown. This book describes some of those unknowns. Welcome to the Spook War.

Winston Churchill's description of Stalinist Russia in 1939 -- he called it a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma -- easily could have been said about the case of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the U.S. Naval Intelligence analyst who, in March of 1987, received a mystifying life sentence for passing classified secrets to an American ally; Israel. Now, twenty five years later, the debate over America's most controversial spy has apparently once again been rekindled. This is an attempt to shed a bright light over a dark stain on both the American judicial system and our intelligence community, while, at the same time, solve a decades old puzzle -- knowing that, for way too long, the truth surrounding the most gut wrenching spy cases has remained hidden, blurred and obscured.

This is the true story of Detroits most dangerous enforcer. On 6 February 1975, a near collision between Chester Wheeler Campbells Oldsmobile and an on-duty Keego Harbor patrolmans car cracked open the unbelievable tale of the eras most dangerous enforcer to the drug lords and mob factions of Detroit. Murder, corruption, espionage and courtroom drama would ensue for two decades, with hit man for hire Chester Wheeler Campbell at the centre of it all. This is the true, untold story of Motor Citys most dangerous enforcer. Through never-before seen photographs, letters, evidence files and expert commentary, readers will enter a time and place where organised crime was in transition, as to who would be in control of the biggest source of illicit cash -- heroin and cocaine. Experience the people, places and things that create an environment where a man like Campbell could exist. Learn the strengths, weaknesses and mindset of Chester Wheeler Campbell. He was a master manipulator, a narcissist, a spy, a courier, a dealer, strong-arm thug, a ladys man, and of course -- a hit man.