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Organised Crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state (such as illegal drugs or firearms). Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for "protection". Street gangs may oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Mafia
Organized crime in Italy and its criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, especially Southern Italy, for centuries and have affected the social and economic life of many Italian regions since at least the 19th century. There are six major native mafia-like organizations that are heavily active in Italy. The oldest and currently most powerful of these organizations, having begun to develop between 1500 and 1800, are the Cosa Nostra of Sicily, the 'Ndrangheta from Calabria (who are considered to be among the biggest cocaine smugglers in Europe) and the Camorra based in Campania, also called the Neapolitan Mafia. In addition to these three long-established organizations, there are also three other significantly active organized crime syndicates that were founded in the 20th century: the Stidda of Sicily, and the Sacra Corona Unita and Società foggiana, both from Apulia. Four other Italian organized crime groups, namely the Banda della Magliana of Rome, the Mala del Bre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transnational Organized Crime
Transnational organized crime (TOC) is organized crime coordinated transnational crime, across national borders, involving groups or markets of individuals working in more than one country to plan and execute illegal business ventures. In order to achieve their goals, these criminal groups use systematic violence and corruption. Common transnational organized crimes include Illegal drug trade, conveying drugs, Arms trafficking, conveying arms, Sex Trafficking, trafficking for sex, toxic waste disposal, materials theft and poaching. History Prior to World War I, several organizations were created to formalize international police cooperation, but most quickly failed, primarily because public police institutions were not sufficiently detached from the political centers of their respective states to function autonomously as expert bureaucracies. In 1914, the First International Criminal Police Congress was held in Monaco, which saw police officers, lawyers and magistrates from 24 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 50 foreign news bureaus with more than 250 correspondents around the world. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England and national news c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Racket (crime)
Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and often still specifically, racketeering may refer to an organized criminal act in which the perpetrators offer a service that will not be put into effect, offer a service to solve a nonexistent problem, or offer a service that solves a problem that would not exist without the racket. However, racketeers may offer an ostensibly effectual service to solve an existing problem. The traditional and historically most common example of such a racket is the "protection racket", in which racketeers offer to protect a business from robbery or vandalism; however, the racketeers will themselves coerce or threaten the business into accepting this service, often with the threat (implicit or otherwise) that failure to acquire the offered services will lead t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organized Crime Control Act
The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (, October 15, 1970), was an Act of Congress sponsored by Democratic Senator John L. McClellan and signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon. The Act was the product of two sets of hearings in the Senate, the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management hearings of 1957-1959 and the McClellan hearings of 1962-1964. The Act prohibits the creation or management of a gambling organization involving five or more people if it has been in business more than 30 days or accumulates $2,000 in gross revenue in a single day. It also gave grand juries new powers, permitted detention of unmanageable witnesses, and gave the U.S. Attorney General authorization to protect witnesses, both state and federal, and their families. This last measure helped lead to the creation of WITSEC, an acronym for witness security. Part of the Act created the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act The Racketeer Influenced an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption. Over time, corruption has been defined differently. For example, in a simple context, while performing work for a government or as a representative, it is unethical to accept a gift. Any free gift could be construed as a scheme to lure the recipient towards some biases. In most cases, the gift is seen as an intention to seek certain favors such as work promotion, tipping in or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clientelism
Clientelism or client politics is the exchange of goods and services for political support, often involving an implicit or explicit quid-pro-quo. It is closely related to patronage politics and vote buying. Clientelism involves an asymmetric relationship between groups of political actors described as ''patrons, brokers'', and ''clients''. In client politics, an organized minority or interest group benefits at the expense of the public. Client politics may have a strong interaction with the dynamics of identity politics. This is particularly common in a pluralist system, such as in the United States, where minorities can have considerable power shaping public policy. The opposite of client politics is 'entrepreneurial' politics, or conviction politics. Although many definitions for clientelism have been proposed, according to the political scientist Allen Hicken, it is generally thought that there are four key elements of clientelistic relationships: * Dyadic relationships: S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narcokleptocracy
Kleptocracy (from Greek κλέπτης ''kléptēs'', "thief", κλέπτω ''kléptō'', "I steal", and -κρατία -''kratía'' from κράτος ''krátos'', "power, rule") is a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land they govern, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population."Kleptocracy". ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford University Press. 1st ed. 1909. Thievocracy means literally the rule by thievery and is a term used synonymously to kleptocracy. One feature of political-based socioeconomic thievery is that there is often no public announcement explaining or apologizing for misappropriations, nor any legal charges or punishment levied against the offenders. Kleptocracy is different from plutocracy (rule by the richest) and oligarchy (rule by a small elite). In a kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narco-state
Narco-state (also narco-capitalism or narco-economy) is a political and economic term applied to countries where all legitimate institutions State capture, become penetrated by the power and wealth of the illegal drug trade. The term was first used to describe Bolivia following the 1980 coup of Luis García Meza which was seen to be primarily financed with the help of narcotics traffickers. Other well-known examples are Honduras, Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Mexico, Myanmar and Syria, where drug cartels produce, ship and sell drugs such as Fenethylline, captagon, cocaine, heroin and marijuana. The term is often seen as ambiguous because of the differentiation between narco-states. The overall description would consist of illegal organisations that either produce, ship or sell drugs and hold a grip on the legitimate institutions through force, bribe or blackmail. This situation can arise in different forms. For instance, Colombia, where drug lord Pablo Escobar ran the Medellín Car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mafia State
In politics, a mafia state is a state system where the government is tied with organized crime to the degree when government officials, the police, and/or military became a part of the criminal enterprise. According to US diplomats, the expression "mafia state" was coined by Alexander Litvinenko. Particular applications of the concept Mafia in Italy and Yakuza in Japan In a critical review of Moisés Naím's essay in ''Foreign Affairs'', Peter Andreas pointed to the long existence of Italian mafia and Japanese Yakuza, writing that there were close relationships between those illicit organisations and respective governments. According to Andreas, these examples speak against incidences of mafia states as a historically new threat. In Italy, there are three main mafia organisations that originated in the 19th century: the Cosa Nostra originating from the region of Sicily, the Camorra originating from the region of Campania, and the 'Ndrangheta originating from the region of Cala ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kleptocracies
Kleptocracy (from Greek κλέπτης ''kléptēs'', "thief", κλέπτω ''kléptō'', "I steal", and -κρατία -''kratía'' from κράτος ''krátos'', "power, rule") is a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land they govern, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population."Kleptocracy". ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford University Press. 1st ed. 1909. Thievocracy means literally the rule by thievery and is a term used synonymously to kleptocracy. One feature of political-based socioeconomic thievery is that there is often no public announcement explaining or apologizing for misappropriations, nor any legal charges or punishment levied against the offenders. Kleptocracy is different from plutocracy (rule by the richest) and oligarchy (rule by a small elite). In a kleptocracy, corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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