Organized Crime

Piracy

Pirates have been considered the earliest organized crime groups. Concentrated in areas bordering the Indian Ocean, heavily armed gangs of pirates in fast boats interfere with shipping. But this is nothing new, as pirates have been causing problems even before the rise of the English Sea Dogs in the 16th century. The European colonization of the Americas, [Page 481]with much of its wealth exposed on the sea, led to what has been termed the golden age of piracy, 1660–1730. This was the era of Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, and other famous pirates of the Caribbean. The era ended only after seafaring nations expanded their navies to deal with the threat.

In the 1960s, piracy returned. These pirates mostly attacked ships at anchor and stole cargo or ship's stores. By the 1990s, the problem had grown to such a level that the Piracy Reporting and Rescue Centre was established in 1992. In the waters off Somalia, large vessels continue to be attacked. The Gulf of Aden is a connection between Somalia and Yemen that is about 550 miles long by 200 miles wide and a necessary crossing point for ships sailing to and from the Suez Canal. The pirates are drawn by the concentration of ships and the lack of control, especially in Somalia, where formal government is nearly nonexistent. The scope of contemporary maritime piracy is now costly, massive, growing, and horrific. Piracy in this region is now considered a form of transnational organized crime. Since 2010, the United Nations has tracked the financial profits of pirates and of those who support and finance piracy.

The Mafia

While piracy is indeed a form of organized crime, it is not what most Americans think of when imagining it. Instead, what most Americans traditionally think of as organized crime is the Mafia. The roots of this group were secret societies in Italy, which have existed for hundreds of years. During the 19th century, the Italian Camorra became known for acts of murder and extortion. The Camorrian code demanded total silence. Italian criminal organizations that came to the United States with the wave of European immigration during the late 19th and early 20th centuries included the Black Hand and the Mafia. The Black Hand specialized in extortion and focused on the intimidation of Italian immigrants. The Black Hand became powerful in New Orleans, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis. The Mafia, with roots in Sicily, were organized in the Italian ghettos of large industrial American cities.

Secret societies in Italy barely survived during the Fascist reign of Mussolini, which ended after World War II. The surviving Mafia members were aligned with American and allied intelligence services during the war and assumed their traditional positions of power within Italian society after the war. Links between American criminal organizations and those in Italy expanded after World War II.

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