3,576 articles
Bail
Bail: money or conditions set by a court to secure a criminal defendant's release before trial. Also called cash bail or pretrial release. Distinguished by English common-law origins, the 1966 and 1984 U.S. Bail Reform Acts, and Illinois's 2023 abolition of cash bail.
Bail bondsman
A bail bondsman, or bail bond agent, guarantees a criminal defendant's court appearance for a nonrefundable fee, an occupation existing almost entirely in the United States.
Bail in the United States
Bail in the United States is the pretrial release system based on money or conditions guaranteeing court appearance. Key facts: Eighth Amendment limits, 24 states with expanded preventive detention, Illinois first to abolish cash bail in 2023, mixed reform evidence.
Bain family murders
Bain family murders: killings of Robin, Margaret, Laniet, Arawa, and Stephen Bain in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 20 June 1994. David Bain was convicted in 1995, cleared by the Privy Council in 2007, acquitted at a 2009 retrial, and denied compensation in 2016.
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.
Bajinder Singh
Bajinder Singh, also called the 'Yashu Yashu' pastor, is a self-styled Punjab Christian faith healer, founder of the Church of Glory and Wisdom, convicted in 2025 in a 2018 rape case and sentenced to life imprisonment.
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.
Barbara Graham
Barbara Graham (Barbara Wood Graham, 1923–1955), "Bloody Babs," was executed by gas at San Quentin on June 3, 1955, for the 1953 murder of Burbank widow Mabel Monahan; her contested trial inspired I Want to Live! and later reassessments.
Baretta
Baretta: American ABC crime drama (1975–1978, 82 episodes) starring Robert Blake as undercover detective Tony Baretta, retooled from Toma; won two Emmys, famous for the cockatoo Fred.
Barksdale Organization
Barksdale Organization: fictional West Baltimore drug trafficking organization in HBO's The Wire, led by Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell, based in the Franklin Terrace towers, dissolved in 2004.
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 George
Barry George, alias Barry Bulsara, wrongly convicted in 2001 of murdering BBC presenter Jill Dando; conviction quashed in 2007 over firearms residue evidence, acquitted at 2008 retrial, denied compensation in 2013.
Barry Mills (Aryan Brotherhood)
Barry Byron Mills, known as "The Baron," led the federal faction of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood for decades before being convicted of murder and racketeering in 2006.
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.
Barry Seal
Barry Seal (Adler Berriman Seal, 1939–1986), American pilot and Medellín cartel drug smuggler turned DEA informant, based at Mena, Arkansas; photographed Sandinista cocaine loading in 1984, assassinated in Baton Rouge 1986.
Bat Masterson
Bat Masterson (William Barclay Masterson, 1853-1921), Canadian-born buffalo hunter, Army scout, Ford County Kansas sheriff, and Dodge City lawman, later a New York boxing columnist and U.S. marshal; famed gunfighter whose documented killings were few.
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.
Battle of Alcatraz
The Battle of Alcatraz, or Alcatraz Blastout, was a failed May 2-4, 1946 escape attempt at Alcatraz federal penitentiary in which six inmates seized the cellhouse; five people died and two convicts were executed.
Baybaşin family
Baybaşin family: Kurdish-Turkish crime clan from Lice, Turkey, also called the Bombacilar; led by brothers Huseyin (life sentence, Netherlands), Abdullah and Mehmet; once controlled up to 90% of UK heroin.
Bear Brook murders
Bear Brook murders: four bodies, an adult woman and three girls, found in two barrels near Bear Brook State Park, Allenstown, New Hampshire, 1985 and 2000. Killer Terry Peder Rasmussen, alias Bob Evans and Curtis Kimball, identified by genetic genealogy; victims identified 2019 and 2025.
Beheading video
Beheading video: recorded decapitation footage disseminated online, chiefly by jihadist groups; from Daniel Pearl (2002) and Nick Berg (2004) to IS's Foley video (2014), with studied production, audiences, and moderation.
Beilis affair
The Beilis affair (1911–1913) was a Kiev blood libel trial in which Mendel Beilis, a Jewish brick-factory clerk, was falsely accused of ritually murdering Andrei Iushchinskii; a jury acquitted him while affirming a ritual murder.
Béla Kiss
Béla Kiss, the "Monster of Cinkota", was a Hungarian tinsmith born 1877 who murdered women lured by marriage ads under the alias Hoffmann, preserving bodies in alcohol-sealed drums; discovered 1916, he vanished and was never caught.
Belene labour camp
The Belene labor camp was communist Bulgaria's largest and longest-operating forced-labor camp, on Persin island in the Danube, holding over 15,000 regime opponents without trial from 1949 to 1987.
Belle Gunness
Belle Gunness (Brynhild Paulsdatter Strseth, 1859–disappeared 1908), Norwegian-American serial killer and 'Lady Bluebeard' of La Porte, Indiana, who lured suitors via matrimonial ads; her death in the 1908 farmhouse fire was never confirmed.