169 articles
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén (born 1967, Tamaulipas), Gulf Cartel boss of Matamoros and founder of the Zetas; captured 2003, extradited 2007, sentenced to 25 US years in 2010, released and deported to Mexico in December 2024.
Patriarca crime family
The Patriarca crime family is the New England La Cosa Nostra organization, named for boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca and based on Federal Hill, Providence; it ran gambling, extortion, and loansharking before federal RICO prosecutions in 1989-1991 dismantled its leadership.
Peaky Blinders
Peaky Blinders: BBC crime drama (2013–2022, six series) by Steven Knight about the Shelby gangster family in post-WWI Birmingham, named for a real 1890s gang, continuing via The Immortal Man film and sequel series.
People Nation
People Nation: Chicago-based street gang alliance, rival of Folk Nation, founded in Illinois prisons in the late 1970s and formalized in 1981 by Black P Stones, Vice Lords, Latin Kings, and Mickey Cobras; five-point star, number 5, left-side representation; now largely defunct on the streets.
Philadelphia crime family
The Philadelphia crime family, also known as the Philadelphia Mafia or Philly mob, is a La Cosa Nostra organization based in Philadelphia and active since the early 1900s.
Pittsburgh crime family
The Pittsburgh crime family, also called the LaRocca or LaRocca/Genovese family, is the Pittsburgh-based La Cosa Nostra organization of western Pennsylvania, shaped by Prohibition, the Youngstown war with the Cleveland Mafia, and a 1990 federal racketeering conviction of nine defendants.
Primeiro Comando da Capital
Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC, First Command of the Capital), Brazilian criminal organization founded in 1993 in Taubaté prison, São Paulo; 20,000–30,000 members, horizontal factional command, cocaine trafficking via Santos, South American expansion, US terrorist designation.
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
Sex trafficking: forcing someone into commercial sex through coercion, fraud, or abuse of vulnerability, as defined by the 2000 Palermo Protocol; distinct from consensual sex work, though conflation, unreliable online-ad indicators, and weak prevalence data complicate identification.
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.
Shower Posse
The Shower Posse is a JLP-aligned Jamaican organized crime group from Tivoli Gardens, formed around 1980 in New York, led by the Coke family, blamed for over 1,600 murders, and weakened after Christopher 'Dudus' Coke's 2010 extradition.
Simon City Royals
Simon City Royals: Chicago street and prison gang founded 1971 from the 1956 Simon City club; Folk Nation ally of the Gangster Disciples; now centered in Mississippi prisons and the target of major federal RICO convictions.
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.
Supreme Team (gang)
Supreme Team, Queens, New York street gang founded 1981 by Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff in Baisley Park Houses, South Jamaica; Five Percenter roots, $200,000-a-day 1987 peak, led later by Gerald "Prince" Miller, ended in federal RICO life sentences.
Surrey Six massacre
Surrey Six massacre: October 19, 2007 shooting of six men, four gang-affiliated and two bystanders, in a Balmoral Tower apartment in Surrey, BC, tied to the Red Scorpions-UN gang conflict; convictions ran from 2009 to 2020.
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.