'McMAFIA'

CRIME show's tentacles go global.........

''The Thesis of the book is that gangs have become like corporations,'' Mr. Amini said .

''And the gangsters can be transporters, politicians, businessmen, work for intelligence agencies - The lines between the underworld and the overworld have become quiet blurred.''

The cast of  'McMafia' crosses borders, much like the ambitious series.

The British actor James Norton stood outside a sea-fronted modernist villa here which last June was standing in for a lavish Tel Aviv party in the new series McMafia.

In a nearby car sat the Israeli actor Oshri Cohen, accompanied by the Russian actor Oshri Cohen, accompanied by the Russian actress Sofya Lebedeva.

It was the final day of the 27-week shoot of this ambitious and risky coproduction of the BBC and  AMC about global organized crime and its unusual international flavor was on full display.

The eight-part ''McMafia'' which premiered in the United States on Feb 26, is unusual mainstream television making in having a cast of  international actors in major roles, often speaking in their own languages.

Many are famous in their own countries, but little known to English-speaking audiences.

With the exception of  the American actor David Strathairn, who plays a  shadowy Israeli mogul, Russians [and one Georgian} play Russians, Israelis play Israelis, Indians play Indians, and the British play the British.

''McMafia'' created by Hossein Amini [''The wings of the Dove''] and James Watkins {The woman in Black} was inspired by Musha Glenny's 2008 nonfiction book of the same name.

It revolves around Mr. Norton's character, Alex Godman, the British-educated son of a Russian mafia exiles, whom we first meet as an upstanding fund manager with an  ethical banking activist girl friend [Juliet Rylance].

A false rumor and a brutal killing draw draw Alex into interconnected, international network of  money laundering, heroin smuggling, sex trafficking and counterfeit goods.

!WOW! Recommends *McMafia* for learning and understanding