Racketeering

Racketeering is a pattern of organized criminal activity used to obtain money or influence through coercion, fraud, or illegal markets. It can involve repeated offenses, legitimate businesses, or both.

Extortion: The practice of obtaining money, property, or action through threats or coercion. Threats can enforce payments, silence witnesses, or secure control in racketeering schemes.
Predicate offense: A crime that serves as a required underlying offense for a separate legal charge or consequence. Racketeering statutes often require specified underlying crimes as predicates.
RICO: The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a U.S. law addressing patterns of racketeering connected to an enterprise. RICO is the best-known U.S. framework for prosecuting or suing over racketeering.
Conspiracy to commit an offense: An agreement between people to commit a crime, usually accompanied by an additional act or other statutory requirement. Conspiracy focuses on agreement; racketeering charges additionally require a qualifying pattern and enterprise.
Money laundering: The process of disguising the origins of proceeds from crime to make them appear legitimate. Laundering can hide proceeds generated by a continuing criminal enterprise.
Criminal enterprise: An organized group or entity engaged in ongoing unlawful activity. The enterprise concept connects individual crimes to a continuing organization.
Hobbs Act: A U.S. federal law criminalizing robbery or extortion that affects interstate or foreign commerce. The Hobbs Act is often used to prosecute extortion within racketeering schemes.
Fraud: Intentional deception used to secure an unlawful gain or cause another person a loss. Fraud can be one component of racketeering, but does not alone establish an ongoing pattern.
Front organization: An entity that conceals the activities or interests of another organization behind an outwardly legitimate appearance. A legitimate-looking business can mask racketeering operations or move their proceeds.
Continuity (RICO): The RICO requirement that racketeering activity show either closed-ended duration or a threat of future repetition. Continuity distinguishes a pattern from a brief series of unrelated offenses.

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