Organized crime

Organized crime or 'criminal organizations are groups or operations run by criminals, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit.

Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are politically motivated. Mafias are criminal organizations whose primary motivation is profit. Gangs sometimes become "disciplined" enough to be considered "organized." An organized gang or criminal set can also be referred to as a mob. Organized crime, however defined, is characterized by a few basic qualities including durability over time, diversified interests, hierarchical structure, capital accumulation, reinvestment, access to political protection and the use of violence to protect interests.

Organized Crime Activities

Organized crime theft and fraud activities often victimize businesses, by hijacking cargo trucks, robbing goods, committing bankruptcy fraud (also known as "bust-out"), insurance fraud or stock fraud (inside trading). Organized crime groups also victimize individuals by car theft (either for dismantling at "Chop shops" or for export), burglary, credit card fraud, and stock fraud ("pump and dump" scam). Some organized crime groups defraud national, state, or local governments by bid-rigging public projects, counterfeiting money, smuggling or manufacturing untaxed alcohol (bootlegging) or cigarettes (buttlegging), and providing immigrant workers to avoid taxes.

Organized crime groups also provide a range of illegal services and goods, such as loansharking of money at very high interest rates, bookmaking and gambling, prostitution, drug trafficking, gunrunning, providing murder for hire, illegal dumping of toxic waste, people smuggling and trafficking in human beings . Organized crime groups also do a range of business and labor racketeering activities, such as casino skimming, Insider trading, setting up monopolies in industries such as garbage collecting and cement pouring, bid rigging, getting "no-show" and "no-work" jobs, using non-union labor and pocketing the wage difference, money laundering, political corruption, and bullying.

In addition to what is considered traditional organized crime involving direct crimes of fraud swindles, scams, racketeering and other RICO predicate acts motivated for the accumulation of monetary gain, there is also non-traditional organized crime which is engaged in for political or ideological gain or acceptance. Such crime groups are often labeled terrorist organizations and include such groups as Al Qaeda.

Organizational Aspects

Criminal organizations keep illegal actions secret, and members communicate by word of mouth, telephone, or Internet. Many organized crime operations have legal fronts, such as licensed gambling, building construction, and trash hauling, or which operate in parallel with and provide cover for drug trafficking, money laundering, prostitution, extortion, murder for hire, hijacking, fraud, and insider trading. Other criminal operations engage in human trafficking, political corruption, black marketeering, political violence, racist and religiously motivated violence, terrorism, and crimes against humanity.

In order for a criminal organization to prosper, some degree of support is required from the society in which it lives. Thus, it is often necessary to corrupt some of its respected members, most commonly achieved through bribery, blackmail, and the establishment of symbiotic relationships with legitimate businesses. Judicial and police officers and legislators are especially targeted for control by organized crime via bribes, threats, or a combination.

Financing is made easier by the development of a customer base inside or outside the local population, as occurs for instance in the case of drug trafficking.

In addition, criminal organizations also benefit if there is social distrust of the government or the police. As a consequence, criminal organizations sometimes arise in closely-knit immigrant groups who do not trust the local police. Conversely, as an immigrant group begins to integrate into the wider society, this generally causes the organized crime group to weaken.

Lacking much of the paperwork that is common to legitimate organizations, criminal organizations can usually evolve and reorganize much more quickly when the need arises. They are quick to capitalize on newly-opened markets, and quick to rebuild themselves under another guise when caught by authorities.

Globalization occurs in crime as much as it does in business. Criminal organizations easily cross boundaries between countries. This is especially true of organized groups that engage in human trafficking.

The newest growth sectors for organized crime are identity theft and online extortion. These activities are troubling because they discourage consumers from using the Internet for e-commerce. E-commerce was supposed to level the playing ground between small and large businesses, but the growth of online organized crime is leading to the opposite effect; large businesses are able to afford more bandwidth (to resist denial-of-service attacks) and superior security. Furthermore, organized crime using the Internet is much harder to trace down for the police (even though they increasingly deploy cybercops) since police forces and law enforcement agencies in general operate on a national level while the Internet makes it even more simple for criminal organizations to cross boundaries and even to operate completely remotely.

In the past criminal organizations have naturally limited themselves by their need to expand. This has put them in competition with each other. This competition, often leading to violence, uses valuable resources such as manpower (either killed or sent to prison), equipment and finances. The Irish Mob boss of the Winter Hill Gang (in the 1980s) turned informant for the FBI. He used this position to eliminate competition and consolidate power within the city of Boston which led to the imprisonment of several senior organized crime figures including Gennaro "Jerry" Anguilo underboss of the Patriarca crime family. Infighting sometimes occurs within an organization, such as the Castellamarese war of 1930-31 and the Irish Mob Wars of the 1960s and 70s.

In Law

The Organized Crime Control Act (U.S., 1970) defines organized crime as "The unlawful activities of ... a highly organized, disciplined association...." The act of engaging in criminal activity as a structured group is referred to in the United States as racketeering. In the U.S., organized crime is often prosecuted federally under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), Statute.

Another use of the term "criminal organization" exists in human rights law and refers to an organization which has been found guilty of crimes against humanity. Once an organization has been determined to be a criminal organization, one must only demonstrate that an individual belonged to that organization to be punished and not that the individual actually individually committed illegal acts. The concept of the criminal organization came into being during the Nuremberg Trials. Several public sector organizations of Nazi Germany such as the SS and Gestapo were judged to be criminal organizations, while other organizations such as the German Army High Command were indicted but acquitted of charges. This conception of criminal organizations was, and continues to be, controversial, and has not been used in human rights law since the trials at Nuremberg.

Notable criminal organizations

Notable organizations include the Italian Mafia (or Cosa Nostra), The Irish Mob, the Colombian drug cartels, the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Triads, the Russian Mafia, the Brazilian PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). Prisoners may also be involved in criminal organizations. Many terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the Provisional IRA and the Ulster Defence Association also engage in criminal activity such as trafficking and money laundering as well as terrorism.

World leaders throughout history who have been accused of running their country like a criminal organization include Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Augusto Pinochet, Idi Amin, Mobutu Sese Seko, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Francisco Franco, Hugo Banzer, , Chiang Kai-shek, Slobodan Milošević and various other dictators and military juntas.

Organized Crime Today

Today criminal organizations are increasingly working together, realising that it is better to work in cooperation rather than in competition with each other. This has led to the rise of global criminal organizations such as Mara Salvatrucha. The Sicilian Mafia in the U.S. have had links with organized crime groups in Italy such as the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta and the Sacra Corona Unita. The Sicilian Mafia has also been known to work with the Irish Mob (John Gotti of the Gambino family and James Coonan of the Westies are known to have worked together, with the westies operating as a contract hit squad for the Gambino family after they helped Coonan come to power) , the Japanese Yakuza and the Russian Mafia have also worked together. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that global organized crime makes $1 trillion per year.

This rise in cooperation between criminal organizations has meant that law enforcement agencies are increasingly having to work together. The FBI operates an organized crime section from its headquarters in Washington and is known to work with other national (e.g. Polizia di Stato and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), federal (e.g. Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Coast Guard), state (e.g. Massachusetts State Police Special Investigation Unit and the New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation) and city (e.g. New York Police Department Organized Crime Unit and the Los Angeles Police Department Special Operations Division) law enforcement agencies.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Abadinsky, Howard. Organized Crime, Wadsworth Publishing (2006). ISBN 0495092134
• Grennan, Sean. Organized Crime: A Worldwide Perspective, Prentice Hall (2005). ISBN 013171094X
• Lunde, Paul. Organized Crime: An Inside Guide to the World's Most Successful Industry, DK Adult (2006). ISBN 0756618991
• Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires, St. Martin's Griffin (2006). ISBN 0312361815
• Robinson, Jeffrey. The Merger: The International Conglomerate of Organized Crime, Overlook TP (2002). ISBN 1585672483

External links

• BBC radio series on global crime (including audio files)
• UN Office on Drugs and Crime - Has sub-section dealing with organized crime worldwide
• Organized Crime Research - Has a vast collection of definitions of organized crime, reviews of books on organized crime, research papers, and other material
• Extensive page of links relating to organized crime
• Hungary emerges as base for foreign organized crime groups Jane's Intelligence Review, July 2006
• Organized crime killings shock Ireland

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