Organized Crime, Essay Example

Traditional organized crime in the USA centred on the Mafia and Cosa Nostra who operated primarily out of Cities like New York and Chicago.  Today these criminal activities have become much more globalized with South East Asia operations targeting the USA.  The FBI has identified a number of these organization and this includes the Yakuza from Japan. “In Japan there are 110,000 active members divided into 2,500 families. “ (Bruno, 2010).  This is interesting because the USA only has 20,000 crime syndicates and has double the to influence the Japanese population of Japan.  The Yakuza are extremely influential with the right wing political parties in Japan and in addition to criminal activities like Vice and Gambling they are well embedded in the Corporate business world. One of the big scandals in the Corporate world was that involving Lockheed in 1976 “aircraft giant had paid the godfather more than two million dollars market away from McDonnell-Douglas and Boeing and toward Lockheed” (Bruno, 2010).  The Chairman of Lockheed was brought to testify before the Senate and the investigation in Japan and whilst the senior figure in Yakuza (Kodama) escaped conviction they got him on a charge of $6 million tax evasion instead.

The Yakuza have exploited the situation in both China and the Philippines and have taken vast numbers of young girls and put them into the sex trade in Japan. They have also been heavily involved with arms smuggling and drug trafficking operating in many countries throughout the world including the USA.

Organized Crime in the USA falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI.  “The FBI defines organized crime as any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities” (FBI, 2010).  The laws that regulate organized crime include that of the RICO Act (racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations) providing the framework for the FBI to tackle criminal activities in this area. The laws coming into effect from January 1996 and are extremely comprehensive in scope and nature. These are in addition to the myriad of laws that cover Federal offences and the penalties for same.  The FBI has realized the global organized crime has become a serious international problem and they co-operate with other agencies like INTERPOL in Europe.  They have also separated this activity from that of Terrorist activity. The USA Patriot Act provides a framework for agencies like the FBI and CIA to co-operate in dealing with domestic terrorist threats posed against the homeland States.

Works Cited

Bruno, A. (2010). The Yakuza. Retrieved 9 8, 2010, from TruTV: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/gang/yakuza/1.html

FBI. (2010). Organized Crime. Retrieved 9 6, 2010, from Federal Bureau of Investigation: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/orgcrime/glossary.htm