Michele Zaza was a member of the Camorra criminal organisation who was also initiated in the Sicilian Mafia. He headed the Zaza clan in Naples. Zaza was known as ’O Pazzo due to his outspoken and implausible public statements. He was one of the first Camorristi to emerge as a powerful organiser of the cigarette contraband industry in the 1960s and 1970s.
Albanian mafia or Albanian organized crime are the general terms used for criminal organizations based in Albania or composed of ethnic Albanians. Albanian organized crime is active in Europe, North America, South America, and various other parts of the world including the Middle East and Asia. The Albanian Mafia participates in a diverse range of criminal enterprises including trafficking in drugs, arms, and humans. Thanks to their close ties with the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, they control a large part of the billion dollar wholesale cocaine market in Europe and appear to be the primary distributors of cocaine in various European drug hubs including London. Albanian organized crime is characterized by diversified criminal enterprises which, in their complexity, demonstrate a very high criminal capacity. In Albania, there are over 15 mafia families that control organized crime. According to some sources, Albania is the first European narco state.
A series of meetings between Sicilian Mafia and American Mafia members were allegedly held at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes in Palermo, Sicily, between October 12–16, 1957. Also called the 1957 Palermo Mafia summit, the summit discussed the international illegal heroin trade in the French Connection. The FBI believed it was this meeting that established the Bonanno crime family in the heroin trade.
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and was dismantled in the 1970s. It was responsible for providing the vast majority of the heroin used in the United States at the time. The operation was headed by Corsicans Antoine Guérini and Paul Carbone. It also involved Auguste Ricord, Paul Mondoloni and Salvatore Greco.
The East Harlem Purple Gang was a gang or organized crime group consisting of Italian-American hit-men and heroin dealers who were semi-independent from the Italian-American Mafia and, according to federal prosecutors, dominated heroin distribution in East Harlem, Italian Harlem, and the Bronx during the 1970s and early 1980s in New York City. Though mostly independent of the Italian-American Mafia and not an official Mafia crew, the gang was originally affiliated with and worked with the Lucchese crime family and later with the Bonanno crime family and Genovese crime family. It developed its "closest ties" with the Genovese family, and its remnants or former members are now part of the Genovese family's 116th Street Crew.
Organised crime in Nigeria includes activities by fraudsters, bandits, drug traffickers and racketeers, which have spread across Western Africa. Nigerian criminal gangs rose to prominence in the 1980s, owing much to the globalisation of the world's economies and the high level of lawlessness and corruption in the country.
François "Lydro" Spirito was a French gangster. He was one of the leaders of the French Connection, and inspired the film Borsalino, which featured Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Paul Bonnaventure Carbone was a Corsican criminal involved in the Marseille underworld from the 1920s until his death in 1943. He was known as the Emperor of Marseille. Associated with François Spirito, who would become one of the leaders of the French Connection, Carbone inspired the film Borsalino which featured Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Simon Pierre Sabiani was a French businessman and politician. He served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1928 to 1936.
The Unione Corse is a term designating the Corsican organized crime as a whole during the period 1930s–1970s, in the context of the French Connection, an international heroin trade network operated at that time between Turkey, Southern France, and the United States. A 1972 Time article described the "Unione Corse" as a Corsican-based unified and secretive crime syndicate akin to the American Five Families. The local situation in Southern France during this period was in reality more complex, with a nebula of mainly Corsican and Italian-French clans cooperating or fighting each other according to the circumstances and opportunities. If they constituted a key element of the wider French Connection, flooding the American market with Marseille-produced heroin from the 1950s to early 1970s, those clans remained overshadowed by the much more powerful Italian-American Mafia.
Jacques Imbert was a French gang leader who first came to prominence in 1960s Marseille's underworld, where he was considered "The Last Godfather". His nickname "Jacky le Mat" means "Jacky the madman" in Provençal. He was also known as "Pacha" and "Matou".
Marcel Francisci was a French politician and an alleged member of the Unione Corse who was accused of masterminding the French Connection drug network. As a young man, Francisci fought in World War II and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Following the war, he developed a business empire that included casinos in Britain, France and Lebanon. Francisci served in the general council of the Corse-du-Sud (UDR) and was a member of the Civic Action Service (SAC), a Gaullist militia. He was assassinated in Paris in 1982.
The gang de la Brise de Mer was one of the most powerful Corsican criminal organizations. Based in Northern Corsica, the gang controls various activities in Corsica, but also in the South of France, in Paris, in Italy, in Occidental African countries, and in Latin American countries.
The Hornec brothers gang, also called "the H" or "the Montreuil gang", is a Gitanes criminal group from the region of Paris. It is the most influential gang in the French capital. They control many criminal activities in the Parisian region, and they have also good connections with the Corsican mafia, and the Maghrebian gangs.
Organized crime in France is primarily based in major cities like Marseille, Grenoble, Paris, and Lyon. It is often referred to as grand banditisme in France.
The Ukrainian mafia is a type of criminal organization with origins in Ukraine. Such organizations are regarded as one of the most influential types of organized crime coming out of the former USSR, including also the Russian mafia, the Georgian mafia, the Chechen mafia, the Armenian mafia and the Azerbaijani mafia. Ukrainian criminal organizations are involved in a significant number of illegal activities. Although Ukrainian criminal organizations are for the most part independently operating enterprises, they are sometimes connected with Russian mafia organizations, such as the case with Semyon Mogilevich.
The Company, also called the Hawaiian Syndicate, is the name given to an organized crime syndicate based in Hawaii that controlled criminal activities in the state from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s.
Jacques Follorou is a French journalist for Le Monde. He is the author of several books, including three about organized crime in Corsica.
Marie-Jeanne Bozzi was a Corsican local politician and convicted criminal who was assassinated in 2011.
The Petit Bar Gang is an organized crime group from Corsica. It gets its name from the "Petit Bar," an establishment in Ajaccio, owned by Ange-Marie Michelosi, a lieutenant of Jean-Jérôme Colonna, from whose gang it is said to originate.
