The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
Barry Jay Minkow is a former American businessman, pastor, and convicted felon. While still in high school, Minkow founded ZZZZ Best, which appeared to be an immensely successful carpet-cleaning and restoration company. However, it was actually a front to attract investment for a massive Ponzi scheme. ZZZZ Best collapsed in 1987, costing investors and lenders $100 million in one of the largest investment frauds ever perpetrated by a single person, as well as one of the largest accounting frauds in history. The scheme is often used as a case study of accounting fraud.
Operation Fastlink is a coordination of four separate, simultaneous undercover investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Cyber Division, the Department of Justice, the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal Division and Interpol. The four different investigations have not been publicly enumerated, but the U.S. Department of Justice has said in at least one press release that "Operation Higher Education" is the largest component, with participation from twelve nations. Mention has also been made of an investigation into pre-release music groups led by FBI agents from the Washington Field Office. As of March 6, 2009, the FBI states that Operation Fastlink has yielded 60 convictions. The raids occurred in similar fashion to those from Operation Buccaneer and Operation Site Down. Other somewhat-related law enforcement actions include Operation Gridlock and Operation D-Elite.
Coingate is a nickname for the Tom Noe investment scandal in Ohio revealed in early 2005 in part by Toledo, Ohio newspaper The Blade. The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) invested hundreds of millions of dollars in high risk or unconventional investment vehicles run by people closely connected to the Ohio Republican Party who had made large campaign contributions to many senior Republican party officials.
James Galante is an American convicted felon and associate of the Genovese crime family, owner of the defunct Danbury Trashers minor-league hockey team and a defunct racecar team fielding cars for Ted Christopher, and ex-CEO of Automated Waste Disposal (AWD), a company that holds waste disposal contracts for most of western Connecticut and Westchester and Putnam counties in New York.
Bertram "Bert" Johnson is a Democratic former member of the Michigan Senate and a convicted criminal.
The Colorado crime family, also known as the Smaldone crime family, Denver crime family, Denver Mafia or the Mountain Mafia was an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in Pueblo and Denver, Colorado. Pete and Sam Carlino’s bootlegging organization was the foundation of the Denver Mob, which was later taken over by Giuseppe “Little Caesar” Roma. Roma’s organization evolved into the modern Denver branch of the La Cosa Nostra of which is known today as the Smaldone crime family. Roma expanded their criminal operations into extortion, loan sharking, drugs, bookmaking, and more. It is believed by federal authorities that the Denver Mafia went defunct in the 2000s after the death of Clarence Smaldone, however, evidence suggests that they still have a small but significant presence in the Colorado state, particularly in mountain towns.
Mark Arthur Ciavarella Jr. is an American convicted felon and former President Judge of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, who was involved, along with fellow judge Michael Conahan, in the "Kids for cash" scandal in 2008, for which he was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison in 2011.
Albert Gonzalez is an American computer hacker, computer criminal and police informer, who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATM numbers from 2005 to 2007, the biggest such fraud in history. Gonzalez and his accomplices used SQL injection to deploy backdoors on several corporate systems in order to launch packet sniffing attacks which allowed him to steal computer data from internal corporate networks.
The "kids for cash" scandal centered on judicial kickbacks to two judges at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, US. In 2008, judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were convicted of accepting money in return for imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles to increase occupancy at the PA Child Care for-profit detention centers.
Michael T. Conahan is an American convicted felon and former judge. He received a J.D. degree from Temple University and went on to serve from 1994 to 2007 as judge on the Court of Common Pleas. During the last four years of his tenure, he was the presiding judge of the county.
United States v. Spy Factory, Inc. was a criminal case dealing with the largest chain of surveillance equipment shops in the United States, the San Antonio, Texas-based Spy Factory. The store and its officers Ronald Kimball, Marlin Richardson and Tracy Edward Ford were indicted on a total of 70 counts related to smuggling of and illegal trade in equipment used for wiretapping and surveillance. Despite motions to dismiss the case because of the alleged vagueness of 18 U.S.C. § 2512 and other issues, the company and all three officers pleaded guilty and were convicted.
The Tran Organization was a criminal gang of casino cheats in the 2000s. The group targeted at least 28 casinos across the United States and one in Canada. The casinos lost around $7,000,000 to the organization. As of 2011, 47 people were indicted, of which 42 had already pleaded guilty in relation to the conspiracy.
The Wyatt Family was featured on the American reality TV show American Guns. Rich Wyatt ran a gun store called Gunsmoke Guns which was the main setting for the American Guns show. He operated the store with his family: Renee his wife, his stepdaughter Paige Wyatt, and his stepson Kurt Wyatt, along with the many other employees of Gunsmoke. The store lost its firearms license in April 2012, though continued to trade allegedly booking the sales whilst directing purchasers to another store to fill in checks and complete the sale. Rich Wyatt was found guilty of charges related to this activity and tax evasion in 2017, and was sentenced to 78 months in prison.
On November 1, 2017, a shooting occurred at a Walmart Supercenter in Thornton, a suburb of Denver, Colorado. It was reported to have begun at 6:10 p.m. MT, resulting in three people killed. There was a nationwide manhunt for suspect Scott Allen Ostrem, 47.
The trial of the Nine Trey Gangsters was a criminal case against eleven alleged members and associates of the street gang Nine Trey Gangsters. The case is notable for its inclusion of rapper 6ix9ine, real name Daniel Hernandez, and his associate Kifano "Shotti" Jordan as defendants.
