120 articles
Racketeering
Racketeering, defined in US law by the 1970 RICO Act (18 U.S.C. 1961-1968), is conducting an enterprise through a pattern of at least two related predicate crimes such as mail or wire fraud, carrying 20-year-per-count penalties, forfeiture, and civil treble damages.
Rayful Edmond
Rayful Edmond III (1964-2024), D.C.'s biggest crack cocaine kingpin of the late 1980s, ran a 1,700-pound-a-month trafficking operation, dealt from prison, became a federal informant, and died at 60 before his planned release.
Rizzuto crime family
Rizzuto crime family, Montreal Sicilian Mafia clan founded by Nicolo Rizzuto of Cattolica Eraclea and led by Vito Rizzuto; Bonanno-linked, dominant in Quebec until the 2009–2013 war, Project Colisée, and Vito's 2013 death.
Roberto Escobar
Roberto Escobar Gaviria, El Osito, Colombian accountant of the Medellín Cartel and older brother of Pablo Escobar; surrendered 1991, blinded by a letter bomb in prison, wrote The Accountant's Story, founded Escobar Inc., and demanded $1 billion from Netflix over Narcos.
Sacra Corona Unita
Sacra Corona Unita (SCU), Italy's "fourth mafia," is a mafia-type organization founded in an Apulian prison in the early 1980s by Pino Rogoli, active in smuggling, drug trafficking, and extortion.
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre: killing of seven Moran North Side gang members in a Chicago garage on February 14, 1929, by gunmen posing as police, generally attributed to Al Capone's mob; solved ballistically but never prosecuted.
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore (Totò) Riina, Corleone-born boss of bosses of Cosa Nostra 1982–1993, won the Second Mafia War, ordered the Falcone and Borsellino bombings, served 26 life sentences, and died in Parma in 2017.
Serbian mafia
Serbian mafia: organized crime groups based in Serbia, also called Balkan cartel groups, dominant in cocaine and arms trafficking, hierarchically structured, with documented state security ties since the 1990s Yugoslav collapse.
Sex trafficking in Dubai
Sex trafficking in Dubai: exploitation of migrant women and girls for commercial sex in the UAE's largest city. Victims come from Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Eastern Europe; US Tier 2 rating; Federal Law 24 of 2023 governs; ICIJ and State Department document recruitment fraud, debt bondage, and shelter gaps.
Sex trafficking in the United States
Sex trafficking in the United States: commercial sex induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or involving minors, under the TVPA of 2000; covers the 3P framework, T visas, Polaris hotline typology, prevalence-data limits, and myths like the Super Bowl claim.
Sinaloa Cartel
Sinaloa Cartel (Cártel de Sinaloa), Mexican drug-trafficking federation founded in the early 1990s by El Chapo Guzmán, El Mayo Zambada, and El Azul; federal, factional structure, Golden Triangle base, CJNG rival, and 2024 internal war after Zambada's arrest.
Smuggling
Smuggling: evading trade regulations by moving goods or people across borders illegally, avoiding duties or prohibitions. Also called contraband trade; spans mercantilist-era Atlantic trade, cigarette and drug smuggling, and modern migrant smuggling (90% of EU irregular arrivals use smugglers; €4.7–6 billion yearly).
Solntsevskaya Bratva (Солнцевская братва)
The Solntsevskaya Bratva, or Solntsevo Brotherhood, is a Russian organized crime group formed in the 1980s in Moscow's Solntsevo district, led by Sergei Mikhailov and Viktor Averin.
Sonora Cartel
Sonora Cartel: 1990s Mexican drug trafficking organization identified with Rafael Caro Quintero in Sonora state; its successor groups, the Caborca Cartel and Nuevo Cártel Independiente de Sonora, now fight Los Chapitos for the border desert.
Sumiyoshi-kai (住吉会)
The Sumiyoshi-kai (住吉会) is Japan's second-largest designated yakuza group, headquartered in Akasaka, Tokyo, a Tokyo gambling-association federation descended from the Meiji-era Sumiyoshi-ikka, renamed in 1991.
Sun Yee On (新义安)
Sun Yee On (新義安) is one of Hong Kong's largest triad societies, alongside 14K and Wo Shing Wo. Founded from a Chiu Chow workers' trade association, it is linked to drug trafficking, the Sinaloa cartel, and major 2025 police crackdowns.
The Commission (American Mafia)
The Commission, the governing council of the American Mafia (La Cosa Nostra), was formed in 1931 by Lucky Luciano with seven family bosses after Maranzano's murder; its five New York bosses were convicted in the 1985 Mafia Commission trial.
Thomas DeSimone
Thomas "Two-Gun Tommy" DeSimone, Thomas Anthony or Thomas James DeSimone, was a Lucchese crime family associate of New York, tied to the 1978 Lufthansa heist and the Billy Batts murder, who disappeared in January 1979 and inspired Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas.
Tijuana Cartel
Tijuana Cartel, or Arellano-Félix Organization (AFO), a Mexican drug trafficking organization based in Tijuana, Baja California; founded from Félix Gallardo's network in 1989, it dominated Baja smuggling before losing the city to the Sinaloa Cartel around 2009-2013 and allying with CJNG.
Tong (堂) (organization)
Tong (堂), Chinese for association, names fraternal organizations in North American Chinatowns that provided mutual aid to Chinese immigrants and, in some cases, ran vice businesses; the Hip Sing and On Leong tongs fought 19-year tong wars.
Tong Wars
Tong wars were violent conflicts between rival Chinese-American tongs, notably the Hip Sing Tong and On Leong Tong, in New York, San Francisco, and other Chinatowns from the 1880s to the 1920s, fought over gambling, opium, prostitution, and territory.
Trafficante crime family
Trafficante crime family: Tampa, Florida Mafia family led by Santo Trafficante Sr. and Jr., at its peak from the 1940s to the 1960s, built on bolita gambling, Cuba casinos, and CIA-linked Castro plots.
Triad (organized crime)
Triad (organized crime) is a Chinese organized crime society linked to secret brotherhood societies founded in Fujian in 1761 or 1762, derived from the Tiandihui.
Turkish mafia
Turkish mafia: organized crime groups of Turkish origin in Turkey and the European diaspora, rooted in Laz migrant syndicates of early-20th-century Istanbul, historically dominant in the Balkan heroin route and now active in cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking.
Underboss
The Underboss, or Sottocapo, is the second-in-command of a traditional organized crime family. This role involves relaying messages and is a primary target of federal law.
Vito Genovese
Vito "Don Vito" Genovese (1897–1969), Italian-born American Mafia boss, underboss to Lucky Luciano, later boss of the New York family bearing his name; convicted of narcotics conspiracy in 1959 and linked to the 1957 Apalachin raid.
Westies
The Westies were an Irish-American organized crime gang, also called Coonan's Crew, based in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, active from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s under James Coonan, allied with the Gambino family and dismantled by 1988 federal RICO convictions.
Winter Hill Gang
Winter Hill Gang: Irish-American organized crime group from Somerville, Massachusetts, also called the Irish Mob, led successively by Buddy McLean, Howie Winter, and Whitey Bulger; fought the McLaughlin Gang in the 1960s and collapsed after Bulger's 1994 flight and 2011 arrest.
Yakuza
Yakuza (boryokudan, gokudō): Japan's organized crime syndicates, active since the 17th century, structured on oyabun-kobun bonds, led by the Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai, and Inagawa-kai, legally never banned but restricted since the 1992 Botaiho.
Yamaguchi-gumi (山口組)
Yamaguchi-gumi (山口組), Japan's largest yakuza syndicate, founded 1915 in Kobe by Yamaguchi Harukichi as a dock labor-broking group; designated bōryokudan since 1992, split in 2015 forming the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, with about 3,100 members at end-2025.