Bertrand Monnet has been forced to snort cocaine and had a gun held to his head. Sean O’Neill meets the university tutor on a mission to understand the criminal economy.

Bertrand Monnet has a ready supply of war stories: he has been held hostage by the Brazilian mafia, threatened by a machete-waving pirate in the Niger Delta and had guns drawn on him after his driver got lost on the back roads of Sinaloa, Mexico.

Brazil was the really scary one, the moment that made him scroll back through his life because he thought he was about to be murdered. The Frenchman was tied up, beaten with clubs and knives, had a gun held to his head and was forced to take cocaine as his captors tried to make him admit to being a cop.

Except Monnet, 49, is not a cop. Nor is he a journalist or a special forces operative or a thrill seeking adventurer. He is a business studies lecturer, albeit a rather unique one.

Read more: thetimes.co.uk

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