I subscribe to the notion that criminology needs to seek information about crime from successful criminals. Alohan is a Malaysian, ethnic Chinese, Triad member, businessman and police informer who also kidnaps people for ransom. He is a serious offender who has, so far, escaped conviction for kidnap, which is a capital offence in Malaysia. This thesis seeks to understand the factors underpinning Alohan’s lengthy and apparently successful criminal career but is subject to   methodological constraints imposed by ethical and safety concerns. With methods such as participant observation ruled out, the research is based on a series of life history, narrative interviews, conducted with Alohan in a secure location. These are supplemented by semistructured interviews with: officers from Royal  Malaysian Customs; officers from the Specialist Police Kidnap Unit of the Royal Malaysian Police, and ethnic Chinese businessmen. Alohan provides an account that can be examined and compared against influential strands of criminological thought in such areas as criminal careers, cultural criminology, subcultural tolerance of deviance and techniques of neutralisation. Alohan’s story reveals the highly culturally specific nature of most influential criminological theorising, which has almost exclusively been generated from a ‘western’ perspective. It uncovers the need for more comparative research in order to fill gaps and correct faulty assumptions that have arisen from the fairly narrow world-view that currently informs the field