Webinar: “The Dark Side of the Textile Trade: From the Silk Road to Today” with Dr. Louise Shelley, University Professor and Director, the Trans-National Crime and Corruption Center, Washington, d. c. Saturday, October 15, 2022: 10 am Pdt / 1 pm Edt / 6 pm Bst - London. Free Registration: https://tinyurl.com/TMADarkSideRgRbt Throughout history, textiles have always been one of the most valued components of international trade. Therefore, both individuals and states have sought to profit from this trade in both illegal and immoral ways. The problem of counterfeit products is not new, but was already an issue centuries ago, when British traders flooded the Venetian market with their products labelled "Made in Venice." When cochineal was the most valuable product out of the New World, many pirates and traders sought to acquire cochineal and break the Spanish monopoly. Dr. Shelley will reveal a largely unknown story of crime and often state-sponsored criminal trade. Her survey of illicit trade will discuss the abuses of the textile trade for both commercial and political objectives. She will trace the problem to the present with her prize-winning research on counterfeit medical masks during the covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Louise Shelley is a University Professor and the Omer l. and Nancy Hirst Endowed Chair at Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. She founded and directs the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (Tra Ccc). She is an author of numerous books, and appears frequently in the media, lectures widely at universities and multinational bodies and has testified repeatedy before Congress on financial crime and illicit flows, illicit trade, human trafficking, and the crime-terror relationship. Free Registration: https://tinyurl.com/TMADarkSideRgRbt See Tma Sc October Newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/TMADkSide92122Newsltr