889 articles
Body snatching
Body snatching: secret removal of corpses from graves for sale to medical schools, also called resurrectionism. Flourished 17th–early 19th centuries, ended in Britain by the 1832 Anatomy Act after Burke and Hare.
Bombings in Sweden
Bombings in Sweden (sprängningar): gang-linked explosive attacks against homes and vehicles, prosecuted as publicly dangerous destruction; record 159 detonations in 2025, falling to 76 in January–September 2026.
Bonanno crime family
Bonanno crime family: one of New York's five La Cosa Nostra families, founded under Maranzano and led by Joseph Bonanno; marked by the Donnie Brasco infiltration, Pizza Connection trial, and boss Joseph Massino's 2003 cooperation.
Bonny Lee Bakley
Bonny Lee Bakley (1956–2001), also called Bonnie Bakley, was the wife of actor Robert Blake, shot dead outside Vitello's in Studio City; Blake was criminally acquitted in 2005 but found liable for $30 million.
Boyacá necklace bomb incident
The Boyacá necklace bomb incident (collar bomba) of May 15, 2000: hooded criminals strapped an explosive collar on farmer Elvia Cortés near Chiquinquirá, Colombia; initially blamed on the FARC, the crime was later proven to be common crime, with José Miguel Suárez convicted in 2002.
Boystown (website)
Boystown (BoysTown) was a darknet child sexual abuse material forum active June 2019 to April 2021, with over 400,000 users and one million posts; shut down by Germany's BKA and ZIT in a Europol-coordinated operation, distinct from the Chicago neighborhood and Boys Town charity.
Brabant killers
Brabant killers (Bende van Nijvel, Tueurs du Brabant): unidentified Belgian gang behind 1982–1985 supermarket robberies and murders, 28 dead, about 40 injured; case closed unsolved in June 2024.
Brett Peter Cowan
Brett Peter Cowan (born 1969) is the Australian man convicted in 2014 of the 2003 abduction, sexual assault and murder of Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe, caught by an undercover police sting, sentenced to life with a 20-year non-parole period.
Brian Nichols
Brian Gene Nichols, Fulton County Courthouse shooter of March 11, 2005, killed four people including Judge Rowland Barnes during his rape trial, was captured after a 26-hour manhunt, and in 2008 received life without parole.
Bribery
Bribery: offering or giving something of value to induce improper official or business conduct; a core form of corruption. Covered via FCPA 1977, OECD Anti-Bribery Convention 1997, UK Bribery Act 2010, and 2024-2025 U.S. enforcement changes.
Brink's-Mat robbery
The Brink's-Mat robbery, 26 November 1983 near Heathrow: six armed men stole 3.5 tonnes of gold worth £26m from the Brink's-Mat depot, Britain's biggest bullion heist, largely laundered and never recovered.
British firms (organised crime)
British firms are self-organized football supporter groups, such as West Ham's Inter City Firm and Leeds' Service Crew, that arranged match-day violence; some provided opportunity structures for organized crime, declining since the 1990s.
Brothel
Brothel: premises where commercial sexual services are provided, often under a licensed operator. Legal status varies by country under four models: prohibition, Nordic end-demand laws, licensing legalization, and decriminalization.
Brother Paul's Children's Mission
Brother Paul's Children's Mission, also called Brother Paul's Nature Camp, was a 1975 Michigan charity front for a child pornography ring on North Fox Island run by Francis Shelden, Gerald Richards, Dyer Grossman, and Adam Starchild; exposed in 1976.
Bufalino crime family
The Bufalino crime family, also called the Scranton Mafia, was a small Italian American Mafia organization based in northeastern Pennsylvania, named after boss Russell Bufalino.
Buffalo crime family
Buffalo crime family, also called the Magaddino family or "The Arm," is a La Cosa Nostra organization based in Buffalo and Niagara Falls, New York, led by Stefano Magaddino from 1922 to 1969, active in labor racketeering, gambling, and southern Ontario, and the subject of renewed federal prosecutions since 2024.
Burglary
Burglary: the crime of unlawfully entering or remaining in a building with intent to commit a crime inside; also called breaking and entering or housebreaking. Covers common law elements, modern statutes, sentencing, prevalence, and prevention.
Buster Edwards
Buster Edwards (Ronald Christopher Edwards, 1931–1994) was a Great Train Robbery gang member who fled to Mexico, served nine years, and later ran a famous flower stall at Waterloo station, played by Phil Collins in the 1988 film Buster.
Cali Cartel
Cali Cartel (Cartel de Cali), Colombian cocaine trafficking organization founded by Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela; less violent and more politically embedded than Medellín, supplied about 80% of US cocaine, collapsed after 1995 arrests and 2006 guilty pleas.
Camorra
The Camorra is a Neapolitan mafia-type criminal organization based in Naples and Campania, made up of autonomous clans rather than a single hierarchy, dating to the early 19th century.
Candy Montgomery
Candy Montgomery, Candace Lynn Wheeler, is an American woman who killed her friend Betty Gore with an axe in Wylie, Texas, in June 1980, before being acquitted.
Capo dei capi
Capo dei capi ("boss of bosses") is an informal Mafia title for the supreme leader, used for Riina and Provenzano in Sicily and held by Morello through Maranzano in the American Mafia until 1931.
Carding (fraud)
Carding is payment card fraud: stealing or buying card data and using it for unauthorized purchases, via card-testing bots, carding forums, and dark web marketplaces; covers US federal offenses from access device fraud to wire fraud.
Caril Ann Fugate
Caril Ann Fugate, later Caril Ann Clair, was the 14-year-old companion of Charles Starkweather convicted of first degree murder in the 1958 Nebraska-Wyoming killing spree, sentenced to life, paroled in 1976 after claiming hostage status.
Carnal knowledge
Carnal knowledge, a criminal-law term of art for sexual intercourse requiring slight penetration, used in rape, statutory rape and sodomy statutes; retained in US federal, Virginia and Georgia law, replaced elsewhere.
Carolyn Warmus
Carolyn Warmus, the "Fatal Attraction" killer, a former Westchester teacher convicted in 1992 of the 1989 murder of Betty Jeanne Solomon, her lover Paul Solomon's wife; paroled in 2019.
Castellammarese War
Castellammarese War: 1930–1931 New York Mafia gang war between Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano's Castellammare del Golfo faction; about 60 killed; ended with both bosses dead, Luciano's Commission, and the Five Families.
Catch Me If You Can (book)
Catch Me If You Can (book) is a 1980 memoir by Frank W. Abagnale. It details his criminal career, claiming he forged over $2.5 million in checks.
Causes of sexual violence
Causes of sexual violence: interacting individual, relationship, community, and societal risk factors, with gender inequality as the WHO-identified root cause; alcohol, childhood abuse, hostile norms, and weak sanctions are leading contributors.
Celeste Beard
Celeste Beard Johnson (born 1963) is an American convicted of Texas capital murder in 2003 for orchestrating the 1999 shotgun shooting of her fourth husband, Austin millionaire Steven Beard, by her lover Tracey Tarlton; life sentence, parole eligible 2042.