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When many of us think of Organized Crime, we think of the mobsters from the 1920’s like Al Capone and the

glamorous life that Hollywood portrayed.

Some of us think of “GoodFellas” and “The Godfather.”

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Today’s organized crime is nothing like it was in the past with tommy guns and cement shoes. Today’s “mafias” are more complex than ever before.

All of the following groups have a presence in the United States and/or are targeting us from their countries by using the internet and other technology.

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FIA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Iv3U3GusU

(right click on link and choose “open hyperlink”)

When the USSR collapsed, a free market economy and organized criminal groups took over Russia’s economy and many have since fled to the U.S.

There are now thirty Russian crime syndicates operating in at least seventeen U.S. cities, most notably New York, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Denver. The Russian mob has become the world's fastest-growing criminal superpower ;  trafficking in prostitutes, heroin, and missiles, infiltrating our banks and brokerage firms--and American law enforcement is just waking up to this enormous problem.

"The Russians didn't come here to enjoy the American dream," New York state tax agent Roger Berger says glumly. "They came here to steal it." 

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The Nigerian mafia is involved in many fraud schemes using Nigerian networks across the country, New York and Houston are the “hubs” and many work out of Atlanta, New Orleans and Los Angeles.

New Nigerians that come to the U.S. are trained in credit card, banking and insurance fraud.

Their most common and lucrative frauds:

• Bank and Credit Card Fraud; Check forgery; Welfare fraud; Student loan fraud; insurance fraud; Heroin trafficking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkoMxQmmHZI

(right click and choose open hyperlink)

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Japanese Boryokudan/

Yakuza

The Boryokudan have built one of

the world's largest criminal

organizations  and have grossed

almost 10 billion U.S. dollars in

revenue, one-third from crystal

methamphetamine and smuggle guns from the U.S. into

Japan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyhdv1sRL-o

The Yakuza specializes in high-level financial fraud, while dabbling in other activities. In Japan, it frequently extorts money from corporations and lines the pockets of politicians.

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Chinese Triadsare best known for trafficking in heroin and opium, but they are in fact as diversified as the biggest multinational conglomerate. Among their other activities are arms smuggling, credit-card fraud, counterfeiting, software piracy, prostitution, gambling, loansharking, white-collar crime, home-invasion robbery, high-tech theft and trafficking in endangered animals and plants.

The triads are also increasingly involved in the smuggling of illegal aliens. U.S. officials estimate that up to 100,000 Chinese are illegally smuggled into the country each year, many of them forced to live in involuntary servitude for years while they work off their debt to the gangsters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW8ADVK1sTM

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The triads of China and the Yakuza of

Japan are the most notorious of the

Asian crime organizations, but there are countless

smaller groups from Taiwan,

Vietnam, North and South Korea,

Thailand, Laos, the Philippines and

elsewhere involved in some form of

organized criminal activity.

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Currently Budapest is the global

epicenter of illegal pornographic

material, contraband

cigarettes and is also a meeting

point and negotiation center between the heads

of international crime groups in the

sectors of arms, women and drug trafficking. Money laundering is also another thriving illegal industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agBDrzatBgg#t=17

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Gang members using distraction techniques have been behind the rise in cashpoint thefts. The thieves will often crowd round ATMs and read PIN numbers before stealing the card, drain the victim's account. 

Other thieves use more sophisticated ATM scams - and will fit the machine with a 'skimming' device which will make a copy of the card's details

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DzJewhtbDI

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http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0303/article_255.shtml

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/overview

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/gang/yakuza/1.html

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3071662/#.UnL3lflQHCs

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337158/Cashpoint-card-snatches-treble-Romanian-crime-gangs-responsible-92-thefts-cash-machines-police-believe.html