889 articles
Arson
Arson is the willful or malicious destruction of property by fire or explosion, once limited at common law to burning another's dwelling. Covers statutory definitions, penalties in England, Wales, and the US, fire investigation under NFPA 921, and wrongful-conviction reforms.
Asian Boyz
Asian Boyz (ABZ, ABZ Crips) is a Southeast Asian American street gang based in California, one of the largest Asian street gangs in the United States.
Assassination
Assassination, or political murder of targeted leaders, defined by the CTC, with causes (polarization, restricted competition), motives, perpetrators, weapons, consequences, and modern trends from CTC, ACLED, and Institut Vidocq data.
Assassination of Malcolm X
Assassination of Malcolm X: the February 21, 1965 fatal shooting of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) at Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom; three men convicted, two exonerated in 2021 after withheld FBI and NYPD evidence surfaced.
Assassination of Olof Palme
Assassination of Olof Palme: the 28 February 1986 fatal shooting of Sweden's prime minister on Sveavägen, Stockholm. Also known as Palmemordet. Unsolved: no conviction ever; Christer Pettersson acquitted 1989; investigation closed 2020 naming Stig Engström, a designation withdrawn in 2025.
Assault
Assault, in tort and criminal law, is an intentional act creating reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact, or in many criminal codes an attempt or act causing physical injury; distinct from battery, definitions vary by jurisdiction.
Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Florida
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, allegedly hid with a scoped SKS-style rifle in the tree line of Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, on September 15, 2024; a Secret Service agent spotted the rifle, fired, and Routh fled and was arrested without firing a shot.
Ba'athist Syrian Captagon industry
The Ba'athist Syrian Captagon industry was the Assad regime's state-sponsored captagon (fenethylline) production and trafficking apparatus, supplying about 80 percent of Middle East seizures and billions of dollars in revenue until the regime's fall in December 2024.
Bada Rajan
Bada Rajan (Rajan Mahadev Nair), Mumbai underworld don of Tilak Nagar, Chembur; ran cinema ticket black-marketing and hafta rackets, mentored Chhota Rajan, allied with Dawood Ibrahim, and was shot dead outside Esplanade Court in 1983.
Bait-and-switch
Bait-and-switch: deceptive sales practice of advertising a product the seller never intends to sell, then switching customers to a pricier alternative; illegal under FTC Act Section 5, distinct from loss leaders, and prohibited in Canada and the UK.
Bali Nine
The Bali Nine: nine Australians arrested in Bali in April 2005 smuggling over 8 kg of heroin; ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran executed in 2015; five survivors repatriated December 2024.
Bandidos Motorcycle Club
Bandidos Motorcycle Club, founded March 1966 in San Leon, Texas, by Donald Chambers, is a one-percent outlaw motorcycle club and one of the world's largest OMGs, known for the fat Mexican patch, RICO convictions, and Hells Angels rivalry.
Banditry
Banditry is armed robbery and related property violence by outlaws outside state authority, also a political label criminalizing challenges to state power; studied via Hobsbawm's social banditry, Blok's critique, and cases from medieval Europe to Nigeria.
Bangladesh Bank robbery
The Bangladesh Bank robbery, also called the Bangladesh Bank heist, was a 2016 theft of $81 million via fraudulent SWIFT payments, attributed to North Korean hackers.
Banting murders
The Banting murders, also called the Sosilawati Lawiya murders, killed four people at a Banting, Selangor farm on August 30, 2010; three men retain final Malaysian death sentences, one was acquitted.
Barbara Daly Baekeland
Barbara Daly Baekeland, American socialite and model who married Bakelite heir Brooks Baekeland; murdered November 17, 1972 in her London penthouse by her son Antony, later dramatized in Savage Grace.
Barrio Azteca
Barrio Azteca, or Los Aztecas, is a transnational prison gang founded in the mid-1980s Texas prison system by El Paso and Juárez inmates, allied with the Juárez Cartel, funded by cuota extortion and drug trafficking, implicated in the 2010 U.S. consulate murders in Ciudad Juárez.
Barry Minkow
Barry Minkow is an American fraudster who founded ZZZZ Best in the 1980s. He later became a pastor and was convicted again for securities fraud and church embezzlement.
Battery (crime)
Battery (crime): intentional harmful or offensive physical contact without consent, an intentional tort and general-intent crime; distinct from assault, merged into assault in 28 US states, six-month summary offense in England and Wales.
Betty Broderick
Betty Broderick (Elisabeth Anne Broderick, born Elisabeth Anne Bisceglia, 1947) was an American convicted of the 1989 San Diego murders of ex-husband Dan Broderick and his wife Linda Kolkena; convicted of second-degree murder in 1991, sentenced to 32 years to life, died in prison 2026.
Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel
Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel (born 1990, Gujarat, India) is an FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive wanted for the April 12, 2015 murder of his wife Palak at a Dunkin' Donuts in Hanover, Maryland; he fled, was last known near Newark, and carries a $1 million reward.
Bill Cosby sexual assault cases
Bill Cosby sexual assault cases: the civil suits and Pennsylvania criminal prosecution of comedian Bill Cosby over drugging-and-assault allegations by more than 60 women; 2018 conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault was vacated in 2021; Constand settled for $3.38 million, Huth won $500,000.
Billy McFarland
Billy McFarland (William Z. McFarland), American founder of the failed Fyre Festival and Fyre Media; convicted of wire and bank fraud, sentenced in 2018 to six years, released early in March 2022, and later sold the Fyre brand for $245,300.
Black Disciples
Black Disciples (BDs), a Chicago street gang founded by David Barksdale in 1966, once part of the Black Gangster Disciple Nation with Larry Hoover's Gangster Disciples; ran a massive 1989-2004 South and West Side drug-trafficking organization dismantled in a 2004 47-defendant federal takedown.
Black Hand (extortion)
The Black Hand (Mano Nera) was an American extortion method of the late 1800s and early 1900s, using mailed threat letters signed with a black hand; not an organization, it declined after Joe Petrosino's 1909 death and Postal Inspector crackdowns.
Black Mafia
The Black Mafia was a Philadelphia African American organized crime group formed in the 1960s, distinct from Detroit's Black Mafia Family (BMF), known for extortion, heroin trafficking, the 1972 Club Harlem and 1973 Hanafi massacre murders, and the Junior Black Mafia successor.
Black Mafia Family
Black Mafia Family (BMF), cocaine trafficking and money laundering organization founded in early 1990s Detroit by Demetrius "Big Meech" and Terry "Southwest T" Flenory; dismantled in 2005 by Operation Motor City Mafia; also the name of the 2021 Starz drama series.
Black Swan manslaughter case
The Black Swan manslaughter case was the Florida prosecution of former ballet dancer Ashley Benefield, convicted in 2024 of fatally shooting her estranged husband Doug in 2020.
Blackmail
Blackmail: threatening to expose damaging information unless a demand for money, property, or action is met; a form of extortion. Illegal in all US states and federally (18 USC 873), and under the UK Theft Act 1968 s.21 (max 14 years).
Bling Ring
The Bling Ring: Los Angeles youths including Rachel Lee, Nick Prugo, and Alexis Neiers who burglarized celebrity homes such as Paris Hilton's in 2008-2009, stealing over $3 million; subject of Coppola's 2013 film.