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RICO
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a federal law that was passed in 1970. This law permits the trial and prosecution for actions that are performed as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. Actions that include such criminal behavior has illegal gambling, bribery, murder and money laundering are all typical of RICO violations.
The RICO act was intended to bring down crime families and mafia organizations or other organized crime. Within these criminal families are systems that protect the long standing hierarchies that control and deliver the criminal behavior within these families. As a result, old laws could not reach these criminals and new prosecutorial powers were needed to ensure that justice was taking place.
The RICO Act originally was legislated to prosecute the Mafia and others involved in organized crime, but over time, the definition of what constitutes racketeering activity has expanded. Consequently, the application of RICO law has broadened to include a variety of individuals, organizations and activities. Among other enterprises, RICO law has been applied to drug cartels, street gangs, corrupt police departments, political parties, protest groups, terrorist organizations, corporations, managed care companies, bankers and insurance and securities firms.
RICO laws give official power to chase and prosecute members of crime families who may never have actually committed those crimes. Instead the criminal enterprise is taken down and anyone associated with the unlawful activities that accompany such organizations. The statute was also designed for civil cases, with the intent to repay the victims of racketeering. The law suggests that individuals who have sustained injury to property or business due to racketeering activity may sue and are entitled to three times the amount of their losses. The extent to which the act can be interpreted by plaintiffs in civil RICO claims has led to some amount of fear and controversy, with critics leveling accusations that the law's wording is too broad, particularly in the areas of mail and wire fraud, and can be used to unfairly seek damages from non-criminal enterprises.
References
Cornell University Law School. 18 USC Chapter 96, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. Legal Information Institute, Viewed 12 May 2013. Retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-96
Oreto, 37 F.3d 739 (1st Cir. 1994). The 2st Circuit rejected the defendant's claim that requiring two predicate acts for conviction under one theory of liability but only one act for conviction under "loan sharking," violated equal protection. Due Process. The forfeiture provisions of RICO have been criticized for violating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Numerous cases have rejected this criticism including U.S. v. Nichols, (10th Cir.
Moreover, a prosecution of the core leadership of an organization under RICO charges is likely to produce revelations concerning the relationship between leadership and other members who are either guilty of racketeering or some lesser scope of individual crime. This is to say that RICO was essentially designed to push the door open on the activities of such typically obscured enterprises in order to systematically disrupt its initiatives and
Since RICO focuses on a pattern of behavior instead of just on the criminal acts that are involved prosecutors find it relatively easy to prove these cases. If an organization is convicted of committing two of the specified crimes within a ten-year period then they can be convicted of racketeering. Legitimate business owners deserve to have protection from groups that wish to pursue illegal activity. The RICO Act was put into
FCPA The following till take a look at Foreign Corrupt Practice Act or in other words the FCPA. Discovering the corporate payments difficulty in the middle of the 70s from a blend of work by the Watergate Special Prosecutor office, this includes related additional work and inquiry by SEC-Security and Exchange Commission and the Multinational Corporations Subcommittee by Senator Frank Church. In 1975, within four months, separate hearings were held by the
In extreme cases whole legitimate economic sectors are dislocated by commerce based on illegal activities, subverting loyalties from the nation-state and habituating individuals to operating outside the legal framework; 3) Degrade environmental systems through evasion of environmental safeguards and regulations; 4) Destabilize strategically important nations and hinder the progress of so-called economies in transition and developing economies and otherwise interfere with a nation's foreign policy goals and the international system; and
Organized crime has existed in society for hundreds of years in one form or another. It generally exists in prosperous societies where strong class distinctions -- sometimes brutally enforced -- exist. The history and dealings associated with major crime organizations have been well documented. In this paper, the effect of La Cosa Nostra (Our Thing or Cause) will be discussed in relation to its effects on modern society. This paper