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WORK TITLE: Blood Profits
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1973?
WEBSITE: vanessaneumann.com
CITY: Washington
STATE: DC
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
Agent: Keith Korman, rainesson@aol.com; publicist: Sarah Becks, sarah.becks@stmartins.com; Licensing enquiries: Karen Wolny, karen.wolny@stmartins.com; divorced from Warren Cash; nicknamed “Cracker from Caracas” during relationship with Mick Jagger.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in 1972 in Caracas, Venezuela; married Warren Cash (divorced, 2010).
EDUCATION:Columbia University, B.A., 1994, M.A., 1998, M.Phil., 2000, Ph.D., 2004.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Political theorist, journalist, and writer. The Daily Journal, Caracas, Venezuela, journalist; Corimon, corporate planning and finance; Venezuelan embassy, Washington, DC, intern; Blue Channel Chemicals, purchasing agent; UNICEF, volunteer, 2001-04; Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Canberra, Australia, researcher, 2006; Hunter College, adjunct assistant professor; Diplomat, editor-at-large; Asymmetrica, president and consultant; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Advisory Group for the Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade.
MEMBER:Global Counter-Terrorism Research Network, United Nations Security Council.
AWARDS:Holds fellowships at Yale University, Columbia University, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, Daily Beast, (London) Sunday Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Weekly Standard, and Standpoint.
SIDELIGHTS
As president of Asymmetrica, Venezuelan-American businesswoman Vanessa Neumann offers consulting on strategies for corporate clients and governments to dismantle illicit trade. In 2017, she published Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists, which explores how drug cartels, smugglers, and terrorist organizations use illicit trade for financial gain. Neumann is also on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Advisory Group for the Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade. She is a consultant to United Nations Women on gender-based approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism. She lectures, publishes articles in The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, and appears on CNN and NTN24. She holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Columbia University.
In 2017, Neumann published Blood Profits, an examination of money raised by illicit trade of illegal goods that is funneled to terrorist groups around the world. She contends that the rise of illegal trade was born out of societal events such as the collapse of the Iron Curtain, out of work Soviet scientists and intelligence agents, regional trade pacts, and new-age technology that has made international organized crime and terrorists bolder and well-funded. Unsuspecting consumers may be purchasing fake products or goods obtained illegally that help these evil organizations.
Neumann describes specific illicit industries, such as cigarettes, oil, prostitution, fake drugs, and knock-off fashion, and how groups like Boko Haram and other terrorists responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack and Paris Bataclan and San Bernardino, California, shootings benefit. Neumann uses examples from her own experience as a consultant and researcher with the United Nations. In addition to illicit trade, terrorists and drug cartels rely on money collected from corrupt government officials, gambling, slave labor, and human trafficking for control around the world. She gives examples from Central America, to China’s Silk Road market, and a Hezbollah rally in Lebanon.
Acknowledging the serious nature of the subject matter, a reviewer in Publishers Weekly said: “Neumann rarely touches on how ordinary consumers can consciously opt out of supporting nefarious organizations.” The reviewer noted that ordinary people may not care that they are buying counterfeit handbags and illicit drugs, but does give Neumann credit for bringing attention to the problem and offering solutions. In Kirkus Reviews Online, a contributor noted Neumann’s alarming, and sometimes alarmist, message, adding that “the needless repetition of her message and the hard-to-follow organization of the chapters make much of the narrative a slog. An uneven treatment of a topic that merits further study.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, October 2, 2017, review of Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists, p. 127.
ONLINE
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (September 14, 2017), review of Blood Profits.
Vanessa Neumann Website, http://vanessaneumann.com (April 1, 2018), author profile.
DR. VANESSA NEUMANN is President of Asymmetrica, a consultancy on strategies for corporate clients and governments to dismantle illicit trade. Dr. Neumann is the OECD’s Advisory Group for the Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade, and holds fellowships at Yale University, Columbia University and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Her company Asymmetrica is a member of the Global Counter Terrorism Research Network (GCTRN) for the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), authorized to brief the UN Security Council directly. She is also a consultant to UN Women on gender-based approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism. A political philosopher with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, she is a vocal fighter for gender equality and the restoration of democracy and free markets in her native Venezuela.
Vanessa Neumann
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vanessa Neumann (born 1972) is a Venezuelan-American business owner, author and political theorist.[1][2] She is the president and founder of Asymmetrica,[3] a political risk research and consulting firm headquartered in Washington, DC. Neumann served for four years on the OECD's Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade,[4][5][6] and is a current consultant to UN Women on gender-based approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism. She is the author of the 2017 book Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists.
Contents [hide]
1 Early Life
2 Professional Career
3 Personal Life
4 Books
5 References
6 External links
Early Life[edit]
Vanessa Neumann was born in Caracas, Venezuela to Michal (Miguel) Neumann (1947-1992) and Antonia Donnelly (1947-2015). Miguel Neumann was the son of entrepreneurs Hans and Milada Neumann, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Venezuela in 1949. Antonia Donnelly de Neumann was an American of Irish and Italian descent. Neumann's grandfather, Hans Neumann, co-founded Corimon (Corporación Industrial Montana), which had its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange on March 23, 1993,[7] and Fundación Neumann, a philanthropic foundation with the twin missions of cultural education and poverty alleviation programs. They also established the Instituto de Diseño Neumann, and were co-founders of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofia Imber (es) and the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), which, under the guidance of Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, taught American business administration. For a quarter century, Hans Neumann was also the major shareholder of the Mustique Company,[8][9] which owns the island of Mustique.[10] He also owned two newspapers in Venezuela: the English-language The Daily Journal, and Tal Cual. Mila Neumann was given the Order of Francisco de Miranda. Miguel Neumann founded Intercomunica, which produced a television series interviewing political leaders on the world stage and a series of books on Venezuelan cinema and culture. Miguel Neumann also owned the Spanish winery Vega Sicilia.[11]
As a child in Caracas, Neumann was educated at the Santiago de León and then the Humboldt Schule, where she learned German.
Professional Career[edit]
Neumann received her B.A. (1994), M.A. (1998), M.Phil. (2000) and then Ph.D. (2004) from Columbia University, for her dissertation, "Autonomy and Legitimacy of States: A Critical Approach to Foreign Intervention,"[12] under the tutelage of Rawlsian scholar Thomas Pogge.
In the 1990s, Neumann worked as a journalist in Caracas for English-language newspaper The Daily Journal, and then in corporate planning and finance at Venezuelan petrochemicals conglomerate Corimon, the time of its ADR listing on the NYSE. After receiving her B.A.in 1994, she interned under Venezuela's Minister Counselor for Petroleum Affairs at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC, and was part of the team that brought the first case before the World Trade Organization.[13] She then returned to the private sector and New York City to work as a purchasing agent at Blue Channel Chemicals, which negotiated bulk purchases of raw materials for Corimon.
While pursuing her doctorate, she volunteered for UNICEF for four years, starting in 2001,[14][15] raising funds from individual and corporate donors and traveling to Tanzania to coordinate with the local health administration on tetanus vaccinations. At the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) in Canberra, Australia, in 2006, she supported Thomas Pogge's research into reform of the global institutional order for the alleviation of extreme poverty. While working as adjunct assistant professor of philosophy at Hunter College of The City University of New York, she was also an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, where she conducted research into Latin American security, particularly the role of Venezuela in providing haven and funding for the FARC narco-terrorist group. She became editor-at-large for Diplomat, a UK magazine on diplomacy in the UK and EU.[16] In 2009 - 2010, Neumann worked in the field in Colombia on the reintegration of paramilitaries. In 2013, the year Vanessa Neumann, Inc. became Asymmetrica, Neumann was the academic reviewer for the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) teaching text on counterinsurgency in Colombia.[17]
Neumann's academic talks are centered on three areas of research: Venezuela,[18][19][20][21] crime-terror pipelines,[22][23][24] and foreign investment (particularly from China) in the Latin American energy sector.[25][26] She is also a cited expert on illicit financial flows from Chinese counterfeiting.[27]
Neumann is a native Venezuelan commentator on politics and a vocal critic of the Chávez and Maduro regimes, and she cites organized crime conducted by them as a cause of oppression in her native Venezuela.[28] Her book Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists has drawn support from exiled Venezuelan opposition leaders[29] and she cites organized crime by the Maduro regime as a cause of the economic collapse and human rights violations in her native Venezuela. [30]
Neumann has published articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, The (London) Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Weekly Standard, Standpoint and many other publications. She appears regularly on CNN, CNNE, Fox Business, Al Jazeera, NTN24, GloboTV, and other networks. She is a regular guest on Varney & Co.. Her written work has been used by the Department of State[31] and the American Enterprise Institute[32]. Neumann's research on Venezuela and crime-terror pipelines has been cited in Matthew Levitt's book Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God (Washington, DC: Georgetown UP, 2013) and Louise Shelley's Dirty Entanglements: Corruption, Crime and Terrorism (New York: Cambridge UP, 2014), among other works.
Neumann founded Asymmetrica in New York in 2010 as Vanessa Neumann, Inc., a consultancy conducting research and government affairs to counter illicit trade and finance. It was renamed Asymmetrica Limited in 2013.[33] It is part of the research network for the UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate.[3] Asymmetrica has expanded to help private clients identify reliable partners and bridge relationships across Western Hemisphere industry and governments, and build detailed risk scenarios for investment funds totaling over $1 trillion AUM. In September 2017, Asymmetrica shifted its headquarters to Washington, DC.
Current affiliations
Global Counter-Terrorism Research Network (GCTRN), United Nations Security Council, New York, NY. Since 2015.
Fellow, Global Justice Program, Yale University; New Haven, CT. Since 2014.
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute; Philadelphia, PA. Since 2011.
Associate, University Seminar on Latin America, Columbia University; New York, NY. Since 2010.
Personal Life[edit]
Neumann dated Sir Michael Jagger in 1998. Their relationship ended in 2002. She was later engaged to Scottish landowner William Stirling. Neumann married William Cash, son of Sir William Cash, a British Conservative politician and Member of Parliament for Stone. They divorced in 2010.[34]
Vanessa Neumann is a passionate horseback rider and a certified open water, advanced deep water diver. In January 2014 she attained her PADI certification as an enriched air diver, known as nitrox diving.
Books[edit]
Neumann, Vanessa (2017). Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-08935-9.
Co-chair, Manhattan Initiative
Senior Fellow - Program on National Security
Senior Fellow - Center for the Study of Terrorism
Dr. Neumann is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center for the Study of Terrorism, where she specializes in Latin America and terrorism. She is also an Associate of the University Seminar on Latin America at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University, where she received her Ph.D. in political philosophy. Dr. Neumann runs her own political risk consulting and research firm, Asymmetrica, where she consults for government and private industry.
Dr. Neumann is a widely-sought analyst and commentator who has written for The (London) Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and Standpoint, and has been interviewed for The New York Times, the BBC, Fox News, ABC, NTN24 and Caracol radio, broadcasting to 13 countries, and is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard.
Previously, Dr. Neumann has worked as a journalist on three continents, been an Adjunct Assistant Professor of political philosophy at Hunter College of The City University of New York, and worked with the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) in Canberra, Australia. She has also worked in corporate planning and corporate finance in Caracas and, in diplomacy.
Dr. Neumann is fluent in English, Spanish, and French, and has a working knowledge of German, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese. She currently resides in New York City.
She has an upcoming book on the links between organized crime and terrorism.
DR. VANESSA NEUMANN is President of Asymmetrica, a consultancy on strategies for corporate clients and governments to dismantle illicit trade. Dr. Neumann is the OECD’s Advisory Group for the Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade, and holds fellowships at Yale University, Columbia University and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Her company Asymmetrica is a member of the Global Counter Terrorism Research Network (GCTRN) for the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), authorized to brief the UN Security Council directly.
Dr. Vanessa Neumann is President of Asymmetrica, a consultancy on political risk and strategies to dismantle illicit trade. Dr. Neumann has served four years on the OECD’s Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade, and holds fellowships at Yale University, Columbia University and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Her company Asymmetrica is a member of the Global Counter Terrorism Research Network (GCTRN) for the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). She is the author of “Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists.”
Dr. Vanessa Neumann
Dr. Neumann is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center for the Study of Terrorism, where she specializes in Latin America and terrorism. She is also an Associate of the University Seminar on Latin America at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University, where she received her Ph.D. in political philosophy. Dr. Neumann runs her own political risk consulting and research firm, Vanessa Neumann, Inc., where she consults for government and private industry.
Previously, Dr. Neumann has worked as a journalist on three continents, been an Adjunct Assistant Professor of political philosophy at Hunter College of The City University of New York, and worked with the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) in Canberra, Australia. She has also worked in corporate planning and corporate finance in Caracas and, in diplomacy.
International smuggling has exploded, deepening and accelerating the collaboration of transnational organized crime and terrorist groups. Attacks like the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan shootings in Paris, the kidnappings and murders by Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the San Bernardino shooting were partially funded by seemingly harmless illegal goods such as cheap cigarettes, smuggled oil, prostitution, fake Viagra, fake designer bags, and even bootleg DVDs.
But how can this be? In Blood Profits, Vanessa Neumann, an expert on dismantling illicit trade, explains how purchasing illegal goods translates to supporting organized crime and terrorists. Neumann shows how the effects of the collapsed Iron Curtain, USSR scientists and intelligence agents left without work, regional trade pacts, the dissipation of the East-versus-West mentality, and new-age technology have all led to an intricate network of illegal trade. She leads the reader through a variety of cases, both by geography and by industry (selecting industries where illicit trade is generally poorly understood), before extracting lessons learned into some policy recommendations that we can all embrace.
DR. VANESSA NEUMANN is President of Asymmetrica, a consultancy on strategies for corporate clients and governments to dismantle illicit trade. Dr. Neumann is the OECD’s Advisory Group for the Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade, and holds fellowships at Yale University, Columbia University and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Her company Asymmetrica is a member of the Global Counter Terrorism Research Network (GCTRN) for the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), authorized to brief the UN Security Council directly.
Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists
Publishers Weekly. 264.40 (Oct. 2, 2017): p127.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists
Vanessa Neumann. St. Martin's, $26.99
(320p) ISBN 978-1-250-08935-9
Neumann, a consultant who advises governments and companies on corruption and illicit trade, illuminates the strategies of drug cartels, smugglers, and terrorist organizations as they work in concert via a "crime-terror pipeline" for financial and ideological gains. A native of Venezuela, Neumann begins by offering her outspoken criticism of Hugo Chavez and his dealings with Colombian drug cartels before turning her eye globally. Her research takes her all over Central America, to China's Silk Road market, and to Lebanon, where she attends a chilling Hezbollah rally. Neumann explores how terrorists and cartels alike create false narratives about revolution and freedom from oppression, "manipulating fear, resentment, or other emotions of nationalism or group identity" to acquire money, recruits, and power. The result is seemingly endless "asymmetric warfare" between superpowers such as the U.S. and stateless entities such as ISIS. While this is fascinating, and certainly evidence of a very real problem, Neumann rarely touches on how ordinary consumers can consciously opt out of supporting nefarious organizations. Perhaps those seeking counterfeit designer handbags might have second thoughts, but most users of illicit drugs likely do not ask or care where their product comes from. These are thorny, multifaceted issues, however, and Neumann can't be blamed for not solving them here. Agent: Keith Korman, Raines & Raines Literary Representatives. (Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists." Publishers Weekly, 2 Oct. 2017, p. 127. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509728465/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=394a678c. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509728465
BLOOD PROFITS
How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists
by Vanessa Neumann
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KIRKUS REVIEW
An alarming, and often alarmist, survey of how spending by consumers might support terrorist organizations and organized crime enterprises, especially drug cartels.
Neumann, the president of Asymmetrica, a consultant group that advises governments and corporations about combating illicit trade, refers to Venezuela, where she was born, to demonstrate how a leftist government takeover can become just as easily mired in corruption as a rightist one. Throughout the book, the author relies on examples from her personal life, her work as a consultant, research studies (from the United Nations and other sources), and her deeply felt ideology. She warns that terrorist groups and drug cartels have learned to join forces to assist each other in their lethal activities, and such an unholy partnership sometimes depends on the corruption of government officials. However, a good portion of the financing for global criminal enterprises arises from individual consumers who purchase black market drugs and cigarettes and knockoff clothing and handbags produced by slave labor. Further funding comes from gambling on sporting events that might be fixed in advance as well as the sex trade, in which the money often flows to dangerous groups around the world. Neumann provides plenty of examples, some of them clearly delineated but others murky because her evidence is speculative. The author consistently mentions money laundering as a major part of corrupt cultures, but she doesn’t explain its mechanisms and processes until the last third of the book. She is persuasive in her contention that honest citizens unwittingly contribute to the budgets of criminal enterprises, but her alarmist tone might cause some readers to wonder whether Neumann is overstating the seriousness of the threat to global security. Furthermore, the needless repetition of her message and the hard-to-follow organization of the chapters make much of the narrative a slog.
An uneven treatment of a topic that merits further study.
Pub Date: Dec. 5th, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-08935-9
Page count: 320pp
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14th, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1st, 2017