Although of an earlier vintage, the scene is reminiscent of one of the final scenes in Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street, in which the FBI agent sits alone on a sad subway ride home. A shallow read of this type of scene describes it as a glorification of the life of the criminal: as if to say you'll find real family there, not in the hollow accolades and awards that come alongside a life of privation. Of course, a more fictional portrayal of an undercover operation, The Departed, makes no effort to be ambivalent on the nature of membership in a criminal organization.

Transnational organized crime generates $2 trillion in revenue per year globally, roughly the size of Britain’s economy, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Wonder how much money those fake Luis Vuitton handbags and DVDs of the latest Hollywood hits bring in? At $654 billion annually, counterfeiting and intellectual property piracy tops the global list of most lucrative illicit activities.