2. • The core of syndicated crime (commonly referred to as "organized crime") is the provision of
illegal goods and services in a society that displays a continued and considerable demand for
such goods and services. (Beirne & Meserschmidt, 2006: 160)
• Organized crime is syndicated crime, the violation of the law on a large-scale basis by
ongoing, tightly structured groups devoted to the pursuit of profit through criminal means.
What distinguishes organized crime form other types of structured criminal activity are the
durability and complexity of syndicates, which have some of the traits of formal organizations:
a division of labor, a hierarchical authority structure, and coordination among various statuses.
(Conklin, 2007: 315)
3. ORGANIZATION
There are three ways in which networks are formed within organized
crime…
I. FAMILY
• this form of organized crime operates based on the hierarchies of
the related families, training of family members, reliance on religion,
tradition and culture.
II. BUSINESS
• have a complex authority hierarchy and are impersonal.
4. • These tend to be particularly dangerous for the members due to the
impersonal nature of the organizational members, the lack of familial or
interpersonal loyalties to other members, and the importance of power
relationships rather than protection of family members as in the prior
network.
III. ‘GANG’
• members are often recruited through members’ involvement in crime as
youths and the connections made in the correctional facilities.
5. ACTIVITIES
• Organizational criminals typically use extortion, which is the practice of
obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats to get what
they want.
• The organization also typically victimizes companies and individuals by
stealing cars (to either trade or take apart and sell the parts), robbery, fraud,
counterfeiting money and rigging public projects.
6. • These criminal organizations use violence regularly as a way to obtain
what they want. Bodily harm may come to victims that do not comply or to
members themselves that do not take their roles seriously or complete their
assigned task successfully.
• One of the main ways that organized crime groups obtain money is by drug
trafficking and arms, or weapons, smuggling. Because this money is illegal
and unable to be placed into a bank, these organizations launder the
money, or convert this money into useable assets, such as real estate,
vehicles or other tangible items.
ACTIVITIES
7. ORIGIN OF MAFIA
• The Mafia, a network of organized-crime groups based in Italy and America,
evolved over centuries in Sicily, an island ruled until the mid-19th century by a long
line of foreign invaders.
• Sicilians banded together in groups to protect themselves and carry out their own
justice. In Sicily, the term “mafioso,” or Mafia member, initially had no criminal
connotations and was used to refer to a person who was suspicious of central
authority. By the 19th century, some of these groups emerged as private armies, or
“mafie,” who extorted protection money from landowners and eventually became
the violent criminal organization known today as the Sicilian Mafia.
8. ORIGIN OF MAFIA
• The American Mafia, which rose to power in the 1920s, is a separate entity from
the Mafia in Italy, although they share such traditions as omerta, a code of
conduct and loyalty.
9. THE BIGGEST ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS IN
THE WORLD
Yamaguchi Gumi– Revenue: $6.6 billion
• The largest known gang in the world is called the Yamaguchi Gumi,
one of several groups collectively referred to in Japan as “Yakuza,”
• The Yamaguchi Gumi make more money from drug trafficking and
the next two leading sources of revenue are gambling and extortion,
followed closely by “dispute resolution.”
10. • Traditionally federations of gamblers and street merchants
• Kenichi Shinoda – Boss/Oyabun of Yamaguchi Gumi (23,400 members)
• Kunio Inoue – former leader of Y.G. Now Boss of Kobe Y.G which has 6100 members (Power
conflict)
• Hierarchal structure - Oyabun-Kobun (foster parent- foster child)
• People joined due to socio-economic benefits (Social Exchange Theory)
• Humanitarian values like strong sense of honor, obligations, traditions and respect are now
diminishing according to former yakuza boss Takayama (Merton’s latency)
• Politics – Social conflict theory
• Source of Revenue – drug trafficking, gambling and extortion (Merton’s SST- Innovation)
11.
12. THE BIGGEST ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS IN
THE WORLD
Camorra– Revenue: $4.9 billion
• Camorra is the most successful of these groups, raking in an
estimated $4.9 billion per year on everything from “sexual
exploitation, firearms trafficking, drugs, counterfeiting, gambling and
extortion.
13. • Paolo Di Lauro - Italian crime boss, leader of the Di Lauro Clan, a Camorra
crime organization
• 111 Camorra clans and over 6,700 members in Naples and the immediate
surroundings.
• Horizontal and federal structure which enable clans act independently to each
other
• The System is defined less by code of honour but by the laws of economic gain
• Social Control Theory and Merton’s SST-Conformity – restrictions of OCG
movements
• Weberian bureaucratic rationality or legal rational rule – corruption on LGU
14. THE BIGGEST ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS IN
THE WORLD
‘Ndrangheta– Revenue: $4.5 billion
• the country’s second largest mafia group by revenue.
• ‘Ndrangheta has made its name for itself by building international ties with
South American cocaine dealers, and it controls much of the transatlantic drug
market that feeds Europe.
• It has also been expanding its operations in the U.S. and has helped prop up
the Gambino and Bonnano crime families in New York.
15. • Rocco Morabito, a boss of the Calabria-based Ndrangheta crime group
• secret hierarchical structure with a central leader and having literally limited family
members or blood relatives
• Pledge of allegiance – gun and suicide pill (symbolic interactionism)
• The governing body of the 'Ndrangheta is the Crimine (Crime), supervised by the
capo crimine (head crime)
• 6000 members
16. THE BIGGEST ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS IN
THE WORLD
Sinaloa Cartel– Revenue: $3 billion
• Sianola is Mexico’s largest drug cartel, one of several gangs that
has been terrorizing the Mexican population as it serves as the
middleman between South American producers of illegal drugs and
an unquenchable American market.
17. • Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Héctor Luis Palma Salazar are the founders
• At that point his nephews, the Arellano Félix brothers, left and created their own
organization which came to be known as the Tijuana Cartel, while the Sinaloa
Cartel continued to be run by former lieutenants Héctor Luis Palma Salazar,
Adrián Gómez González and Joaquín Guzmán Loera (El Chapo).
• horizontal structure
• A drug cartel is any criminal organization with the intention of supplying drug
trafficking operations.
19. CONCLUSION
Crime Organized Groups is determined by Social Class
• A standard sociological answer would hold that the gang members had few
opportunities for legitimate wages. In addition, from being foot soldiers into the
way of stepping up to becoming an officer of the gang and make much better
money (socio-economic advantages) .
• hierarchical pay scales that represent inequality, and both have individuals willing
to suffer through the lower ranks in hopes of getting to the higher ranks.
