Organized crime
Organized crime is continuing criminal activity coordinated by structured groups to gain profit, power, or other enduring objectives.
Criminal organization: A structured group that coordinates unlawful acts or maintains illicit markets. Organized crime depends on coordination that persists beyond isolated offenses.
Italian Mafia: A family of Sicilian and Italian criminal organizations built around secrecy, hierarchy, and illicit enterprise. Its history shaped enduring public images and scholarly accounts of organized crime.
Al Capone: A Chicago crime boss who became nationally prominent during the Prohibition era. His bootlegging empire exemplifies the scale and publicity of American gangland power.
Drug trafficking: The illegal production, transportation, and distribution of controlled drugs. Many groups build cross-border networks around the movement and sale of drugs.
Transnational crime: Criminal activity planned, committed, or producing effects across national borders. Cross-border operations make jurisdiction and cooperation central to enforcement.
Extortion: Obtaining money, property, or action through threats or coercion. Protection rackets turn threats into recurring income and local control.
American Mafia: Italian American criminal organizations that developed across the United States, especially during the twentieth century. Its growth illustrates how migration, prohibition, and urban networks shaped a criminal syndicate.
Lucky Luciano: An Italian American mobster associated with reorganizing New York's Mafia in the 1930s. His career connects syndicate organization with the emergence of the Commission.
Human trafficking: The exploitation of people through force, fraud, or coercion for labor or commercial sex. Organized groups may coordinate recruitment, transport, and exploitation across jurisdictions.
State capture: The shaping of public rules and institutions by powerful private interests for their own benefit. Criminal networks can seek durable influence by compromising officials and institutions.