History of Organized Crime: Origins, Revenue, and Intelligence
This paper examines the history of organized crime in the United States from its early 20th-century origins to its current transnational form. Beginning with John Landesco's landmark 1929 Illinois Crime Survey and tracing law enforcement responses through RICO and beyond, the paper surveys the expanding ethnic diversity of criminal organizations now active in the U.S. It then analyzes two major revenue streams — drug trafficking and money laundering — before reviewing current and emerging intelligence methods employed by the FBI and federal government to disrupt these enterprises. The paper concludes that organized crime has grown more sophisticated and global, requiring a coordinated international response.
- Introduction: Framing organized crime's scope and paper structure
- Background and Overview of Organized Crime: Historical origins, FBI definition, RICO, ethnic diversity
- Drug Trafficking as a Revenue Source: Global drug trade as primary criminal revenue stream
- Money Laundering Operations: Concealing illicit proceeds through legitimate businesses
- Current and Emerging Intelligence Methods: FBI task forces, cyber tools, and international cooperation
- Conclusion: Organized crime's global growth and need for coordinated response
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What makes this paper effective
- It grounds its claims in authoritative sources — including the FBI, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and peer-reviewed journal articles — lending credibility to each major argument.
- The paper moves logically from historical context to specific revenue mechanisms and finally to enforcement responses, creating a coherent analytical arc rather than a simple narrative survey.
- Direct quotations are used judiciously to anchor key definitions (e.g., Black's Law Dictionary on money laundering) and are integrated smoothly into surrounding analysis.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models effective use of official and institutional sources alongside academic literature. Rather than relying on a single source type, it triangulates between government agency reports (FBI, White House strategy documents), peer-reviewed scholarship (Kelly & Chin; Morris; Calderon), and investigative journalism (Zill & Bergman), demonstrating how multi-source synthesis strengthens an argument about a complex, empirically contested subject.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief introduction that frames the research questions and outlines the paper's structure. The main body is divided into three analytical sections: a historical and definitional overview of organized crime, an examination of drug trafficking revenues, and an analysis of money laundering. A final section covers intelligence strategies before a conclusion synthesizes the findings and calls for a large-scale coordinated global response.
More than a century of motion pictures and more than half a century of television productions have created a somewhat romanticized version of organized crime, as typified by The Godfather series. Indeed, there is even a National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement — commonly known as "The Mob Museum" — in Las Vegas, which has become a popular tourist destination (Green, 2013). The reality of organized crime, however, contrasts sharply with any romanticized depiction. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) emphasizes that organized crime is not only prevalent in the United States but has also become far more complex and broader in scope compared to the past. To examine the facts about the history of organized crime, this paper provides a background and overview, followed by an analysis of some of the main revenue sources for these criminal organizations. Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of current and emerging intelligence methods directed at organized crime, along with a summary of important findings.
According to the general definition provided by the FBI, organized crime is "any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities" (Organized crime, 2016, para. 4). Clearly, this definition encompasses an enormous array of activities that subvert the law in some fashion and frequently include violence as a means of enforcement. Not surprisingly, these criminal organizations have a profoundly adverse effect on the communities in which they operate, as well as on the state, region, and entire nation (Organized crime, 2016).
While a broad application of the FBI's definition suggests that organized crime has existed for as long as the country itself, the formal analysis of organized crime only dates back to the early 20th century. Some of the first research into organized crime was conducted as part of the Illinois Crime Survey by John Landesco in 1929 (Kelly & Chin, 1999). This seminal research found that the roots of organized crime could be traced to members' community-level social structures. In sum, Landesco determined that "the members of the crime syndicate came from neighborhoods 'where the gang tradition is old' and where the residents could absorb the attitudes and skills necessary to enter into the world of organized crime" (as cited in Kelly & Chin, 1999, p. 333).
Law enforcement authorities first began specifically targeting organized crime in 1967, when the New York City Police Department's Italian branch commander grew concerned over the Black Hand's extortion of the local Italian community and residents' natural reluctance to cooperate with investigations (Kelly & Chin, 1999). In an ill-fated response, the police commander planned to examine Sicilian police records to discover grounds for deporting Black Hand leaders. However, the leaders learned of the plan, and the commander was assassinated (Kelly & Chin, 1999). The Black Hand leader suspected of ordering the assassination was dining with an Italian parliamentarian at the time and therefore had an ironclad alibi (Kelly & Chin, 1999). Three-quarters of a century later, organized crime remains a nationwide problem requiring a multifaceted enforcement strategy. As Kelly and Chin conclude, "The business of organized crime continued and continues apace, as do the law enforcement efforts to combat it" (1999, p. 333).
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