889 articles
Lake Bodom murders
Lake Bodom murders (Bodominjärven surmat): unsolved June 1960 killing of three teenage campers in Espoo, Finland; survivor Nils Gustafsson was charged in 2004 and acquitted in 2005.
Lamb Funeral Home scandal
Lamb Funeral Home scandal: 1980s Pasadena, California mortuary case in which David Sconce ran mass cremations, commingled ashes, and sold organs and dental gold, prompting California cremation regulation reforms.
Larceny
Larceny, a common law property crime also called stealing or theft, is the trespassory taking and carrying away of another's personal property without consent, with intent to permanently deprive the owner; graded as petit or grand larceny by value.
Larry Hoover
Larry Hoover (born 1950) is co-founder and "Chairman" of the Gangster Disciples street gang of Chicago, who led it from prison. Convicted of 1973 murder (150-200 years) and 1997 federal criminal enterprise (life); Trump commuted the federal sentence May 28, 2025; the Illinois term stands.
Lascivious behavior
Lascivious behavior (lewd and lascivious conduct): a criminal-law category for lewd, obscene sexual conduct, defined variously by US state statutes such as Florida §798.02 and Kansas §21-5513, with penalties from misdemeanor to felony.
Lawrence Singleton
Lawrence Singleton, American merchant seaman and criminal, attacked Mary Vincent in 1978, served 8 years of a 14-year sentence, sparked a 1987 parole controversy, then murdered Roxanne Hayes in Tampa in 1997 and was sentenced to death in Florida in 1998.
Laws regarding rape
Laws regarding rape define the crime through force-based or consent-based models, including yes-means-yes and no-means-no variants. Key reforms include the Istanbul Convention, France's 2025 consent law, and the abolition of the marital rape exemption.
Lazarus Group
Lazarus Group (Hidden Cobra, Labyrinth Chollima, ZINC/Diamond Sleet; MITRE G0032) is a North Korean state-sponsored hacking cluster attributed to the Reconnaissance General Bureau, known for the 2014 Sony Pictures attack, WannaCry, the APT38/BlueNoroff bank-theft subunit, and record cryptocurrency thefts including the 2025 Bybit hack.
Lee Murray
Lee Murray, 'Lightning', Moroccan-British former MMA fighter who won once at UFC 46 (2004) and was convicted in Morocco for masterminding the 2006 £53m Securitas depot robbery in Tonbridge, Kent, Britain's biggest cash robbery, serving a 25-year sentence.
Legal history of cannabis in Canada
Legal history of cannabis in Canada: prohibition from 1923, medical legalization in 2000, and the Cannabis Act of October 17, 2018, which made Canada the first major industrialized country to legalize recreational cannabis.
Legality of child pornography
Legality of child pornography, now often called child sexual abuse material (CSAM): criminalized in most jurisdictions under the 2000 UN Optional Protocol (178 parties) and national statutes in the US, UK, Canada, Germany and the EU, with current reforms on AI-generated and self-generated images.
Leopold and Loeb
Leopold and Loeb: Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb, wealthy University of Chicago students who kidnapped and murdered Bobby Franks in 1924 as a 'perfect crime,' spared the death penalty by Clarence Darrow.
Lèse-majesté
Lèse-majesté (crimen laesae majestatis) is the crime of attacking a sovereign's dignity, from Roman law to modern statutes; Thailand's Section 112 carries three to fifteen years, while most European laws are dormant or repealed.
Lester Street Massacre
The Lester Street Massacre, also called the Lester Street murders, was the March 2, 2008 killing of six people, including two children, at 722 Lester Street, Memphis, by Jessie Dotson, who received six death sentences.
Lindbergh kidnapping
The Lindbergh kidnapping: the March 1, 1932 abduction and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in Hopewell, New Jersey; Bruno Richard Hauptmann's 1935 trial, 1936 execution, the Lindbergh Law, and lasting guilt controversy.
List of brothels in Nevada
List of brothels in Nevada: legal, county-licensed houses of prostitution, permitted only in rural counties under 700,000 population; 16 operating in 2026 across Elko, Nye, Lyon, Lander, Storey, and White Pine counties, excluded from Las Vegas and Reno.
List of con artists
List of con artists: documented confidence tricksters from William Thompson (origin of "confidence man," 1849) through Ponzi, Lustig, Parker, Sorokin, and recent UK and US fraud prosecutions, with schemes and outcomes.
List of criminal enterprises, gangs, and syndicates
List of criminal enterprises, gangs, and syndicates: catalog of organized crime groups, mafias, cartels, triads, yakuza, MS-13, with legal definitions, EU/US counts, and typology.
List of criminal gangs in Brazil
Criminal gangs in Brazil: over 80 organized criminal groups as of 2024, dominated by the PCC (São Paulo, founded 1993) and Comando Vermelho (Rio, 1970s), with CV dissidences ADA and TC, northern allies FDN and GDE, Amazon expansion, and US terrorist designations in 2026.
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.
List of gangs in Mexico
Gangs in Mexico: youth pandillas (chavos banda), border gangs like MS-13, Barrio 18, Los Aztecas, Mexicles, and La Línea, cartel-affiliated groups such as Santa Rosa de Lima, and major cartels including Sinaloa, CJNG, Gulf, and Familia Michoacana.
List of hacker groups
List of hacker groups: notable collectives from Anonymous and LulzSec to Cult of the Dead Cow, state-sponsored APT28, APT29, and Lazarus Group, and ransomware gangs Qilin, LockBit, and Black Basta, with origins, motives, and signature attacks.
List of Italian Mafia crime families
Italian Mafia crime families are the family and clan units of Cosa Nostra, the 'Ndrangheta, the Camorra, and Apulian groups such as the Sacra Corona Unita, covering their structures, notable clans, and state response.
List of kidnappings
The list of kidnappings, also covering famous abductions, catalogs notable cases from modern history, including Charles Lindbergh Jr., Patty Hearst, Aldo Moro, Jaycee Dugard, and Elizabeth Smart.
List of kidnappings before 1900
Kidnappings before 1900: ransom captivity in medieval Europe, raptus abductions of women, kidnapping of free Black Americans 1780-1865, and the 1874 Charley Ross case, the first known US kidnapping for ransom.
List of long-term false imprisonment cases
Long-term false imprisonment cases: Dugard (18 years, Antioch), Fritzl (24 years, Amstetten), Cleveland kidnappings (~10 years), Colleen Stan (7 years), Terry Anderson (2,454 days), with legal distinction from kidnapping.
List of mass shootings in the United States (2010–2019)
Mass shootings in the United States, 2010–2019, also called the decade's gun massacres: no official definition exists, so counts range from about 5 to hundreds yearly; average 51 deaths per year; deadliest was Las Vegas 2017.
List of mass shootings in the United States in 2025
Mass shootings in the United States in 2025: FBI designated 34 active shooter incidents; AP/USA Today/Northeastern counted 17 mass killings (81+ deaths, lowest since 2006); EveryShot logged 485 mass shooting incidents with 493 deaths.
List of red-light districts
List of red-light districts: urban areas concentrating commercial sex and erotic businesses, also called RLDs. Covers definitions, notable districts such as De Wallen, Reeperbahn, Storyville, and Soho, Progressive Era closures, and zoning laws.
List of school attacks in Turkey
List of school attacks in Turkey: chronological record of armed attacks at Turkish K-12 schools, universities and school buses, 1978–2026, including the April 2026 Siverek and Kahramanmaraş shootings (16 wounded, 10 dead).