When Great Britain took the moral high ground and banned its lucrative export of opium from Imperial India to China, it unleashed a century of criminality. Where America's misguided Prohibition of alcohol made illicit fortunes for the Mafia, across the pond the organised criminals within the British Empire grew rich on their trade in illegal narcotics in the 20th century. _Empire of Crime_ is the first book to reveal the full extent and variety of organised crime within the British Empire in the 20th century. By delving into British colonial archives, Newark has discovered breath-taking truths about organised crime inside the British Empire. This book unravels how gangsters exploited its global trade routes to establish a new age of criminal networks that spanned the world.