120 articles
Drug cartel
Drug cartel: term coined in the 1980s for Colombia's Medellín and Cali syndicates, now applied chiefly to Mexican DTOs such as Sinaloa and CJNG; large criminal organizations trafficking cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
Drug lord
Drug lord (also kingpin): leader of a drug trafficking organization controlling production, smuggling, distribution, and finances. Examples include El Chapo and El Mencho; the DEA's kingpin strategy targets them, with evidence of violence increases after captures.
Enedina Arellano Félix
Enedina Arellano Félix, also known as Enedina Arellano Félix de Toledo or La Jefa, born 1961 in Sinaloa, is the sister of the Tijuana Cartel founders, reportedly its financial operator from 2006 and leader from 2008, and an OFAC-sanctioned individual.
Five Families
The Five Families are New York City's major Italian-American Mafia organizations: Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese, formed after the 1930–31 Castellammarese War under Lucky Luciano's Commission. Once controlling rackets citywide, they remain active in gambling and labor racketeering despite RICO-era prosecutions.
French Connection
The French Connection, also called La French, was a Corsican-run heroin trafficking network based in Marseille that supplied the United States until the early 1970s.
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of New York's five La Cosa Nostra families, formed in 1931 from the Mangano family, named for boss Carlo Gambino, and led later by John Gotti; known for gambling, loansharking, labor racketeering, and construction extortion.
Gangster
A gangster (also mobster) is a member of an organized group of violent criminals. Distinguished from ordinary gang members by membership in continuing criminal enterprises such as mafias, triads, and yakuza.
Genovese crime family
The Genovese crime family is one of New York's Five Families of La Cosa Nostra, founded as the Luciano family and renamed for Vito Genovese in 1957; known for secrecy, labor racketeering, and relative freedom from informants.
Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela
Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela (El Ajedrecista), with brother Miguel, led Colombia's Cali Cartel, which trafficked about 80% of world cocaine by the early 1990s; arrested 1995, extradited 2004, pled guilty 2006, sentenced 30 years, died in U.S. prison 2022.
Greek mafia (Ελληνική μαφία)
Greek mafia (Ελληνική μαφία) is the media term for Greece's domestic organized crime groups: drug trafficking, extortion, fuel and tobacco smuggling, and over 20 contract killings since 2017, including the 2025 murder of Giorgos Moschouris.
Guadalajara Cartel
Guadalajara Cartel (Cártel de Guadalajara), a Mexican drug trafficking organization of the early 1980s founded by Félix Gallardo, Caro Quintero, and Fonseca Carrillo; precursor of the Sinaloa, Tijuana, and Juárez cartels; linked to DEA agent Camarena's 1985 murder.
Gulf Cartel
Gulf Cartel (Cártel del Golfo, CDG), a Tamaulipas-based Mexican drug trafficking organization dating to 1930s alcohol smuggler Juan Nepomuceno Guerra; once dominant nationally, it spawned Los Zetas and has since fractured into warring factions and was designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2025.
Hutch–Kinahan feud
The Hutch–Kinahan feud is a violent conflict between two Dublin-based crime gangs that began with the murder of Gary Hutch in Spain in 2015, leaving 18 dead.
Illegal drug trade
The illegal drug trade is the global underground economy of producing, trafficking, and selling prohibited psychoactive substances, governed by the 1912, 1961, 1971, and 1988 UN drug conventions; UNODC estimates continued expansion of cocaine and methamphetamine markets alongside declining opiate supply.
Illegal drug trade in Colombia
Illegal drug trade in Colombia: the cocaine-centered illicit economy making Colombia the world's leading cocaine producer, with 253,000 hectares of coca in 2023, Medellín and Cali cartel history, Plan Colombia, and record seizures.
Inagawa-kai (稲川会)
Inagawa-kai (稲川会), a Tokyo-based Japanese designated boryokudan founded around 1949 by Seijo Inagawa in Atami; one of Japan's three largest yakuza syndicates with the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumiyoshi-kai, once described as second-largest at over 8,600 members.
Israeli mafia
Israeli mafia: family-based mafia-style organized crime groups in Israel active in extortion, drugs, arms trafficking, and loan sharking, concentrated in Tel Aviv, the north, and Arab communities, with rising homicide rates and 2024 anti-crime legislation.
Jack McVitie
Jack "the Hat" McVitie (Jack Dennis McVitie, 1932-1967) was a London enforcer in the Kray twins' firm, murdered by Reggie Kray in Stoke Newington in October 1967; the killing anchored the 1969 Old Bailey convictions that ended the Krays.
Jalisco New Generation Cartel
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, CJNG) is a Mexican drug cartel founded around 2010 by El Mencho, a main rival of the Sinaloa Cartel.
James Galante
James Galante, Danbury, Connecticut trash hauler and owner of Automated Waste Disposal and the Danbury Trashers, ran a mob-linked property rights system and pleaded guilty in 2008 to racketeering conspiracy.
Jewish-American organized crime
Jewish-American organized crime, often called the Kosher Nostra, was the participation of Jewish immigrants in US criminal enterprises, chiefly from the early 1900s through the mid-century.
Joe Adonis
Joe Adonis (Giuseppe Antonio Doto, 1902-1971) was an Italian-American mobster of the Genovese/Luciano circles in New York, a Masseria killer, Kefauver figure, and deportee to Italy in 1956; not the actor or the Chippendales troupe.
Juárez Cartel
Juárez Cartel (Cártel de Juárez), also the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug trafficking organization based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, founded in the 1980s, led by Amado Carrillo Fuentes until 1997, and now dominated by its La Línea armed wing.
Kansas City crime family
Kansas City crime family, also called the Civella clan, a Kansas City, Missouri Italian-American Mafia family born under the Pendergast machine, led by Nick Civella, notorious for Las Vegas casino skimming, now a small remnant reportedly led by John Sciortino.
Kinahan Organised Crime Group
Kinahan Organised Crime Group (Kinahan cartel): Irish-led transnational drug trafficking and money laundering organisation founded by Christy Kinahan, based in Spain and Dubai, US-sanctioned in 2022, in feud with the Hutch gang.
KK Park
KK Park is a large cyber-scam compound in Myawaddy, Kayin State, Myanmar, on the Moei River border with Thailand. Built from 2020 under Karen BGF protection, it trafficked thousands of workers into online fraud until the Myanmar military's October 2025 raid and disputed demolition.
Knights Templar Cartel
Knights Templar Cartel (Los Caballeros Templarios), Mexican drug cartel formed in early 2011 from a La Familia Michoacana split, based in Michoacán; issued a Templar code of conduct, ran meth, extortion, and iron ore, and was dismantled by autodefensas and federal forces by 2015.
La Familia Michoacana
La Familia Michoacana (LFM) is a Mexican drug cartel founded 2005-2006 in Michoacán by defectors from Los Zetas and the Milenio Cartel; known for pseudo-religious ideology, extortion, and violence, it fragmented in 2011 into the Knights Templar and persists through La Nueva Familia Michoacana and United Cartels.
La Línea (gang)
La Línea ("The Line") is a Mexican criminal group founded in the early 2000s by police officers in Ciudad Juárez as the Juárez Cartel's enforcement arm; it fought Sinaloa in 2008–2011, was linked to the 2019 LeBarón massacre, and now dominates parts of Chihuahua.
List of criminal organizations in New York City
List of criminal organizations in New York City: the five La Cosa Nostra families (Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese), the DeCavalcante family, plus Westies, Russian networks, and MS-13, with origins, activities, and decline.