3,576 articles
Lufthansa heist
Lufthansa heist: December 11, 1978 armed robbery of Lufthansa's JFK cargo terminal, stealing about $5 million cash and $875,000 in jewelry, the largest US cash robbery at the time, linked to Jimmy Burke and depicted in Goodfellas.
Luigi Mangione
Luigi Nicholas Mangione, Maryland-born University of Pennsylvania graduate, pleaded guilty 2026 to federal stalking charges in the December 4, 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan; his New York state murder trial is postponed pending a double jeopardy motion.
Luis Garavito
Luis Alfredo Garavito, "La Bestia" (1957–2023), Colombian serial killer who confessed to more than 190 child murders across 11 departments plus Ecuador; sentenced in 2000 to Colombia's 40-year maximum; parole denied 2021; died in Valledupar prison custody October 2023.
Lululemon murder
The Lululemon murder: Brittany Norwood killed co-worker Jayna Murray (331 injuries) at a Bethesda, Maryland Lululemon store on March 11, 2011, staged a fake masked robbery, and received life without parole.
LulzSec
LulzSec (Lulz Security) was a black-hat hacking group formed in 2011 inside Anonymous chatrooms; its 50-day spree hit Sony, PBS, and Fox before FBI informant Sabu (Hector Monsegur) helped dismantle it.
Luo Xiang
Luo Xiang (罗翔, born 1977) is a Chinese criminal-law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law who became a top Bilibili legal educator.
Lust murder
Lust murder (Lustmord; erotophonophilia) is a subcategory of sexual homicide in which sadistic killing itself produces sexual gratification, distinguished by mutilation, FBI offender typologies, and Krafft-Ebing's 1886 origins.
Lustration
Lustration, from the Latin for purification, is the administrative screening and removal of officials tied to a former authoritarian regime, first codified by Czechoslovakia in 1991.
Lyle and Erik Menendez
Lyle and Erik Menendez, American brothers convicted of the 1989 shotgun murders of parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in Beverly Hills; hung 1993 juries, 1996 life-without-parole convictions, 2025 resentencing to 50 years to life, and denied parole.
Lynching of Jesse Washington
The lynching of Jesse Washington, known as the Waco Horror, was the 1916 mob torture and burning of a seventeen-year-old Black farmhand in Waco, Texas.
Lynching of Michael Donald
Lynching of Michael Donald: 1981 Ku Klux Klan killing of 19-year-old Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama, recorded as the last documented US lynching; his mother's civil suit bankrupted the United Klans of America.
Lynda Lyon Block
Lynda Lyon Block (1948–2002), also known as Lynda Lyon, was an American anti-government activist executed in Alabama's electric chair on May 10, 2002 for the 1993 murder of Opelika police sergeant Roger Lamar Motley, the first woman executed in Alabama since 1957.
M. P. Jayaraj
M. P. Jayaraj (எம். பி. ஜெயராஜ்), Mysore Puttaswamaiah Jayaraj (1947–1989), Bengaluru's first underworld don, not a Chennai figure: Congress-linked Indira Brigade leader, convicted in the 1977 courtroom sword attack, assassinated 21 November 1989 by Muttappa Rai with D-gang shooters.
M'Naghten rules
The M'Naghten rules, also spelled McNaghten, are the 1843 English legal test for criminal insanity: a defect of reason from disease of the mind leaving the defendant unaware of the act's nature or wrongfulness, still used in about half of US states.
M25 Three
The M25 Three were Raphael Rowe, Michael Davis, and Randolph Johnson, three Black Londoners convicted in 1990 of a 1988 murder and robberies near the M25 in Surrey.
Ma Barker
Ma Barker (Arizona Donnie Clark Barker, Kate Barker, 1873–1935), American matriarch tied to the Barker-Karpis gang of bank robbers and kidnappers, killed by FBI agents at Lake Weir, Florida, January 16, 1935; later reassessed as unlikely gang mastermind.
Macdonald triad
The Macdonald triad, or homicidal triad, is John Macdonald's 1963 set of three childhood behaviors, animal cruelty, firesetting, and enuresis, once thought to predict adult violence and serial murder but now largely unsupported empirically.
Machine Gun Kelly (gangster)
Machine Gun Kelly, born George Kelly Barnes (1895 or 1897–1954), was an American Prohibition-era bootlegger, bank robber, and kidnapper who abducted oilman Charles Urschel in 1933, was captured in Memphis, and served at Alcatraz.
Mad Dog Coll
Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (1908–1932), Irish-born gangster from Gweedore, County Donegal; Dutch Schultz's Bronx enforcer turned rival gang leader, kidnapper, press-dubbed "Mad Dog" after the 1931 child's death; acquitted by Leibowitz; machine-gunned in a phone booth at 23.
Made man
Made man: a fully initiated member (soldier) of the American Mafia, also called man of honor, goodfella, or wiseguy; entered via a blood-oath ceremony, restricted to men of Italian descent, revealed publicly by Joseph Valachi in 1963.
Madlanga Commission
Madlanga Commission, formally the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System, is a South African presidential inquiry chaired by retired Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, established July 2025 after Lt-Gen Mkhwanazi's allegations of syndicate infiltration of police, prosecution and intelligence.
Mae Capone
Mae Capone (Mary Josephine Coughlin, 1897–1986), Irish-American wife of mob boss Al Capone; married 1918 in Brooklyn, lived apart from his rackets, nursed him until his 1947 death, sued Desilu over The Untouchables.
Mafia
Mafia: organized crime born in 19th-century western Sicily, tied to citrus exports and weak post-1860 rule of law; comprises Cosa Nostra, Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita; defined by protection rackets, omertà, initiation rites.
Mafia (series)
Mafia (series) is a narrative-driven action/adventure video game series about organized crime, established in 2002. It features storylines like Mafia III, where Lincoln Clay builds a criminal empire.
Mafia Commission Trial
The Mafia Commission Trial, formally United States v. Anthony Salerno, was a 1985–1986 federal RICO prosecution led by Rudolph Giuliani that convicted eight bosses of La Cosa Nostra.
Maggie Dickson
Maggie Dickson, "Half-Hangit Maggie" (c. 1702–c. 1765), a Musselburgh fishwife hanged in Edinburgh's Grassmarket on 2 September 1724 for infanticide, who revived in her coffin, was freed, and is remembered by a Grassmarket pub.
Mahadev Betting App Case
Mahadev Betting App case: Indian ED and CBI probes into Mahadev Online Book, a Dubai-run illegal betting syndicate of Saurabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal, with estimated proceeds of ₹36,000–43,400 crore, money laundering charges, and fugitive proceedings.
Mahek Bukhari
Mahek Bukhari, known as Maya, is a British TikTok influencer convicted in 2023 of murdering Saqib Hussain and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin in an A46 car pursuit; her minimum term was reduced to 26 years 285 days in 2025.
Mail and wire fraud
Mail and wire fraud are parallel U.S. federal crimes (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343) punishing schemes to defraud executed through the mails or interstate wires, including honest-services fraud limited by Skilling to bribery and kickbacks.
Major Crimes Act
The Major Crimes Act is a United States federal statute, enacted March 3, 1885, that places serious crimes committed by Indians in Indian country under exclusive federal jurisdiction.