New BBC series McMafia is currently drawing us in as we follow the fate of Alex Godman (played by James Norton), the English-raised son of Russian mafia exiles, trying and failing to escape the shadow of his family's dark past.  Although the series is fictionalised, it is based on the 2008 non-fiction book McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by journalist Misha Glenny.  Misha joined Ryan to talk about the book, series and how London had become an ideal base for organized crime.

"One of the best places you can launder money is through London property because London property has been rising at such a phenomenal rate over the past 30 years so you get great returns."

With good schools, plenty of entertainment and oodles of opportunity, London was the perfect location for the "transient oligarch" as Ryan put it.  The family in the TV series have lost a battle to a rival family and were forced to leave, something Mischa describes as quite common after Putin came to power.

"Quite a lot of the organized crime bosses who didn't conform to Putin's requirement were either imprisoned or they decided to leave the country voluntarily or under threat, so you had a big shift in around 2002 to2004 where beforehand in Russia it was the gangsters and the oligarchs who controlled everything."

It remains to be seen how Brexit will impact this new order and Mischa warns that the Irish border is an issue ripe for capitalisation by criminal organizations.

Something that Misha wants to stress is the human element behind both the true and fictionalised stories.   He says it's important to consider the motivations behind these criminal actions and the economic conditions that opened the way for these organizations to thrive.

"The rise of Russian organized crime in the last 30 years is not to do with the fact that suddenly there was a generation of Russians born who were inherently evil…  What I'm saying is there are specific economic and social circumstances to wit, in this case, the collapse of communism… which results in such severe disruption and an inability of the state to manage the new market economy that protection rackets and organized crime groups have to rise in order to regulate and moderate that economy."

Click here to listen to The Ryan Tubridy Show in full.

Photo: Cuba Productions – Photographer: Nick Wall