Race Against Evil: The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals A Real-life Drama

Like some of the other reviewers, I consumed this book in about two sittings. Dr. Bannon's narrative is tight, fast moving and draws the reader into a shady world most of us would rather not know about. There seems to be some controversy as to whether or not this book is a work of non-fiction. I would obviously have no way of knowing the answer to this. However, I have no trouble believing that international traffic in child exploitation is a big business, that most members of the international law enforcement community are rightly outraged by it, and that a covert "carve-out" organization could be quietly created and run within a legitimate law enforcement agency to deal with this problem. In fact, I did not find anything in Dr. Bannon's book implausible. An excellent read...I wish him success with the book!

Excellent read, you won’t put it down.

David Race Bannon: The spy who never wasDavid Race Bannon, who claims to have worked for Interpol as a hit man, was arrested for criminal impersonation - after for years possibly serving as an expert witness in courts and on news channelsTuesday, January 31, 2006by Robert DuncanCall him the spy who never came in from the cold - or better yet, the spy who never was.David Race Bannon, 42, of Charlotte, North Carolina, claims to have worked for Interpol as a hit man, was arrested Friday, Jan. 27, in Boulder, Colo. for criminal impersonation. Various websites (including a cached version of his website) claim that Bannon has served as an expert witness in U.S. federal appellate court, and appeared on the Discovery Channel, Fox News Channel, A&E, The History Channel, TechTV and National Public Radio.Jefferson County district attorney spokesman Carl Blesch said in a statement that Bannon didn't resist his arrest Friday at a Boulder restaurant. According to the Rocky Mountain News, Bannon was in Colorado "meeting with a group that was sponsoring his planned appearance today in Boulder." That same article said CBI agents described Bannon as "'dumbfounded' when he was taken into custody." Bannon is scheduled for his first district court appearance on Feb. 2. Bond was set at $5,000. Bannon is the author of "Race Against Evil -- The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals.''A press statement for Bannon's "Race Against Evil" book, claims that "at age 18, the American youth is recruited by Interpol after he is caught in a deadly riot in South Korea. Over the next 15 years, Bannon is trained to work in the darkest regions of humanity, to deny societal inhibitors against killing and embrace the agency's role as deliverer of grim justice to evildoers beyond the reach of the law. His missions take him from investigating the bombing of KAL 858 and infiltrating prisons in Korea to the disappearance of London's most notorious child pornographer and searching out terrorists and criminals in the United States."It appears even Bannon's name is in question."The former David Wayne Dilley changed his name to Bannon in Spokane, Washington, in 1990, choosing the name because of the character Race Bannon in the classic Hanna-Barbera adventure cartoon 'Jonny Quest,'" according to the Mainichi Daily News. Despite the similarity between Bannon's name and that of a cartoon character from Johnny Quest - specifically the trusty friend of Dr. Quest is called Race Bannon - his book has received support from some fringe groups. "I wish more people would bring this tragic occurance to light. As a mother and a youth leader, I had no idea how much of this was going on in the world. I knew about child abduction and child abuse and have tryed educating parents and teens about safety," reads one reviewer, while another at the same website wrote "This is a fascinating, hair-raising, sometimes hilarious and sometimes tragic account of the brave men and women who went behind the lines in child sex slavery rings." Both those reviewers were anonymous.But as far back as 2004 Interpol has been saying that Bannon's history is fiction.Working in collaboration with the U.S. National Central Bureau of Interpol, the Interpol General Secretariat (Lyon, France), and other Interpol member countries, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said Bannon's credentials are bogus and his efforts to profit from the deception to be illegal. He is charged with criminal impersonation, computer crime and attempted theft. "Interpol's General Secretariat in Lyon has no record of David Race Bannon having been employed and no knowledge of individuals mentioned in Mr. Bannon's book. Interpol exists to facilitate the exchange of information between the world's law enforcement agencies and to provide analysis of criminal data and other services. Accordingly, the claims in Mr. Bannon's book can only be seen as deceptive and irresponsible fantasy,'' the Interpol General Secretariat said in a 2004 statement.Using his alleged background as an Interpol agent and expert in human trafficking, Bannon is compensated for speaking engagements and subject-matter training courses. The Colorado Department of Public Safety confirmed that Bannon had solicited fees in excess of $3,000 for a two-day training course on human trafficking. It is reported that the affidavit also calls into question Bannon's doctorate from a Korean university.As well as being an alternative radio personality, one website claims that Bannon holds a "Doctorate degree in Asian History form Seoul National University, a Master's degree in Computer Science, and he is fluent in Korean and Japanese. He has published several books on political and military history of the region, as well as a martial arts encyclopedia and computer text books. Bannon has appeared on the Discovery Channel, A & E, and The History Channel. He has also spoken on International security at world conferences from Berlin to Tokyo to Washington."There has been no explanation regarding how Bannon could have fooled people, including possibly members of Interpol - if they were indeed members of the organization. In April 2003 the Kungfu magazine interviewed Bannon along with somebody identified as Interpol Commissioner Jacques Defferre, and who was said at that time to be Bannon's retired superior at Interpol. That interview was said to have been granted so the two ex-spies could explain "their motives for working in Archangel (the operation Bannon names in his book). Sitting in a coffee shop in Charlotte, NC, the two plainly described how the underground kiddie porn industry is used to fund terrorist cells, and of the vast international networks of kidnappers and pornographers who continue to earn 'billions of dollars' working above the law."Other websites, including an Amazon reviewer who says he is an former intelligence officer and goes by the name of Geoffrey Ries claims, that Jacques Defferre was a French-born spy, to whom Interpol gave the code name Archie, "who died this year (2003) at age 67 in Marseilles, France. Protean in his exploits, Defferre served as a commissioner in Interpol. During the Vietnam War, Jacques Defferre set up Interpol's spy operations in Asia and coordinated the exchange of intelligence between France and South Korea."(...)

I have recently read this book and I could not put it down. It was sensitive to this graphic material and every detail was very well written. The sad thing was these child molestors got away with such monstrous acts for so long. This is a very good read I would recommend this book to everyone. This book gives you nightmares but well worth the read. This is the sort of book that you do and don't want to read. The details can put a bad picure in your mind which makes you want to put it down but it is a definite page turner. How the book is written makes you feel sorry for David Bannon but does not excuse his participation in Interpol in any way. If you like criminology, this is a definite.

Since I came to work for Homeland Security, I have the job of writing for the Secretary about international crime and especially crime that crosses borders of other countries. This is a true story, and one that should alarm all who care about Modern Slavery and want to end it forever.

Race Against Evil is a fascinating, highly readable and weighty addition to the relatively small number of worthwhile books about Interpol. It is a remarkable achievement that any student of the intelligence community should read.Often regarded as a mystery, Interpol (the world association of national police forces for mutual assistance in the fight against international crimes and criminal conspiracies) is analysed and exposed in this book by a retired officer of the organisation, and its inner workings scrutinized. Untold tales of undercover work, conspiracies and outstanding bravery constitute Bannon's personal account, in which he avoids more than a brief description of Interpol in the 1930s and the murky years when it fell into the hands of the Gestapo, focusing instead on its renaissance in the 1980s.Interpol is one of the world's most elusive organisations. Its operations remain veiled from scrutiny and to write about Interpol risks harassment and prosecution, as former members and current commentators know to their cost. Like Britain's most celebrated spymaster, William Stephenson (known by the telegraphic address, Intrepid, used for the British Security Coordination (BSC) office he ran in New York), David Bannon has been taking flak for his autobiography, Race Against Evil. But the life of the professional spy is by nature one of secret accomplishment and shadowy triumph. Trying to shine a light into this world, especially twenty years on, is a daunting exercise. If it accomplishes nothing else, it should serve to remind us of the dark world faced by such individuals.Like so many Interpol agents, Bannon contributed silently, exercising his skills behind the scenes. The nature of the business is that he and his colleagues went largely unsung. It's part of the mythology. Efforts to emerge from the shadows naturally engender scepticism. Large, reliable news services have validated many of the facts presented in the book. Only one source - a small weekly (circ. 9,000) in the southern United States - questioned Bannon's intelligence adventures, doing so without interviews, research or qualified reportage and therefore it is irrelevant to an educated discussion of the verifiable facts presented in the book.There is little question that Bannon has an honourable record and that he served Interpol admirably. His publications in Asian affairs and many translations - he read history at Seoul National University - are easy for any competent researcher to confirm. The larger question relates to the substance of his clandestine career. In this, the enigmatic nature of Interpol has pretty well doomed Bannon from the start. The fact that Interpol is still shrouded in public contradictions and official secrecy makes for a challenging research environment. To this day, many of the people from Bannon's Interpol circle cling tenaciously to their code of secrecy. It is very difficult to pry information from them.Of great interest are Bannon's personal details of French-born master spy Jacques H. Defferre, to whom Interpol gave the code name Archie, who died this year at age 67 in Marseilles, France. Protean in his exploits, Defferre served as a commissioner in Interpol. During the Vietnam War, Jacques Defferre set up Interpol's spy operations in Asia and coordinated the exchange of intelligence between France and South Korea. In this capacity, he also served as a trusted and confidential intermediary between South Korea's President Park Chunghee and Interpol. Defferre's influence extended to helping shape Interpol intelligence and special operations capabilities, namely the investigative branch Rosetta and its enforcement arm, Archangel, both assigned to investigate international child traffic. Among the operations undertaken by Defferre as head of the Rosetta Division at his La Verpillere based operation was assassination of slavers. Accounts of his division's successes helped inspire awareness of the child sex trade at international conferences. A full accounting of Defferre's service has proven elusive: a reflection of the trade of intelligence and the personality of those with a vocation for it. I suspect Defferre was amused by all the controversy surrounding him. That he seems to have taken many of his secrets safely to the grave is the spy's ultimate achievement.Epitomised in the public imagination by James Bond, Interpol's svelte and glamorous image has been peeled away by Bannon's searching revelations to reveal a less savoury truth. Here is the story of Interpol's recruitment of former criminals during the 1980s; campaigns against child sex rings in Europe and Asia; Operation Archangel; and many other little-known operations. The dealings of the Belgian Beast Marc Dutroux, the Wonderland Club, and North Korean labour camps, among others, are also fully explained, as are the many tensions that have existed and to some extent still exist between Interpol and its sister intelligence organisations especially in contentious areas such as Thailand and South Korea.It is impossible, under the laws presently shielding Interpol, to write about its daily activities. But Interpol has a history, and this book reveals a great deal. Here for the first time is an operational history of Interpol's activities and attitudes. Bannon's is a searching story of the characters and situations in which the games have been played, and of twenty years of international political intriguing, spying and thuggery - all in the name of intelligence.By Geoffrey Ries, a former intelligence officer.

This is fiction not real life story