Reasoning by analogy with Prohibition-era American, popular 'true crime' histories argue wartime rationing modernised the British underworld by encouraging criminals to organise to meet black-market demand. Its continuance into the 1950s made postwar Britain a villains' paradise. Their illicit profits would bankroll Swinging London before drugs revolutionised the underworld once more. But was this the case? Did a wartime boom in illegal gambling, prostitution and black marketeering lead to syndication on American lines as criminologists like Dick Hobbs and true crime writers like James Morton suggest? This paper challenges this account before briefly considering two other periods that might mark syndicated crime's take-off. It ends by questioning the value of focusing on criminal entrepreneurs and their firms rather than illegal markets they organised to supply.