A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior, with such behavior often constituting a form of organized crime.
The Gambino crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing.
Buford Hayse Pusser was the sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee from 1964 to 1970 and constable of Adamsville from 1970 to 1972. He is known for his virtual one-man war on moonshining, prostitution, gambling, and other vices along the Mississippi–Tennessee state line. His efforts have inspired several books, songs, movies, and a TV series. He was also a wrestler known as "Buford the Bull" in the Mid-South.
The Chicago Outfit is an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, which originated in the city's South Side in 1910. The organization is part of the larger Italian-American Mafia.
The Irish Mob is a usually crime family–based ethnic collective of organized crime syndicates composed of primarily ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and have been in existence since the early 19th century. Originating in Irish-American street gangs – famously first depicted in Herbert Asbury's 1927 book, The Gangs of New York – the Irish Mob has appeared in most major U.S. and Canadian cities, especially in the Northeast and the urban industrial Midwest, including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago.
Harold Ray Presley was an American sheriff known for his war against narcotics. He was the elected sheriff of Lee County, Mississippi, from 1993 to 2001. In 1995, he won the Buford Pusser Officer of the Year Award for his tough stance against illegal drugs. According to the Buford Pusser Home and Museum in Adamsville, Tennessee, Presley's department had confiscated more than $1 million in drugs including marijuana.
The State Line Mob was an association of criminal elements that operated in the 1950s and 1960s at the Mississippi–Tennessee state line in Alcorn County, Mississippi, and McNairy County, Tennessee, along U.S. Route 45. The State Line Mob was involved in bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, tourist fleecing, robbery, and murder. A few of the members were from Phenix City, Alabama, having been displaced from that town when martial law was declared by the Governor and the Alabama National Guard attempted to clean the town up.
Jewish-American organized crime initially emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In media and popular culture, it has variously been referred to as the Jewish Mob, the Jewish Mafia, the Kosher Mob, the Kosher Mafia, the Yiddish Connection, and Kosher Nostra or Undzer Shtik. The last two of these terms are direct references to the Italian Cosa Nostra; the former is a play on the word for kosher, referring to Jewish dietary laws, while the latter is a calque of the Italian phrase 'cosa nostra' into Yiddish, which was at the time the predominant language of the Jewish diaspora in the United States.
The New Orleans crime family, also known as the Marcello crime family or the New Orleans Mafia, was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The family had a history of criminal activity dating back to the late nineteenth century. These activities included racketeering, extortion, gambling, prostitution, narcotics distribution, money laundering, loan sharking, fencing of stolen goods, and murder. Operating along the Gulf Coast, with its main criminal activity centered in the New Orleans area, the organization reached its height of influence under bosses Silvestro Carollo and Carlos Marcello.
Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. is the former boss of the Dixie Mafia.
The Detroit Partnership is an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Detroit, Michigan. The family mainly operates in Detroit and the Greater Detroit area, as well as in other locations including Windsor, Ontario; Toledo, Ohio; and Las Vegas.
The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society and organized crime group. In North America, the organization is often colloquially referred to as the Italian Mafia or Italian Mob, though these terms may also apply to the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy, or ethnic Italian crime groups in other countries. The organization is often referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original Mafia or Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia groups from Sicily operating in the United States.
The Los Angeles crime family, also known as the Dragna crime family, the Southern California crime family or the L.A. Mafia, and dubbed "the Mickey Mouse Mafia" by former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Los Angeles, California as part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. Since its inception in the early 20th century, the family has spread throughout Southern California. Like most Mafia families in the United States, the Los Angeles crime family gained wealth and power through bootlegging alcohol during the Prohibition era. The L.A. family reached its peak strength in the 1940s and early 1950s under Jack Dragna, although the family was never larger than the New York or Chicago families. The Los Angeles crime family itself has been on a gradual decline, with the Chicago Outfit representing them on The Commission since the death of boss Jack Dragna in 1956.
Rex Armistead was a private detective, Mississippi Highway Patrol officer, and the leading operative for the since disbanded Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Later, he was heavily involved as an investigator for the Arkansas Project, a co-ordinated attempt in the 1990s to investigate then U.S. President Bill Clinton. The project was funded by conservative media billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.
The Corsican mafia is a collective of criminal groups originating from Corsica. The Corsican mafia is tied to both the French underworld and the Italian organized crime groups. The Corsican mafia is an influential organized crime structure operating in France, as well as North African and Latin American countries.
Armenian Power 13, also known as AP, the Armenian Mob, or Armenian Mafia is an Armenian criminal organization and street gang founded and currently based in Los Angeles County, California. They are involved in drug trafficking, murder, assault, fraud, identity theft, illegal gambling, kidnapping, racketeering, robbery and extortion. They are believed to have around 200 members and hundreds of associates, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. They are also well known for their connections with the Mexican Mafia.
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 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.
Peter J. Halat Jr. is an American politician and lawyer who served as the twelfth mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi, and was later convicted and served time for his involvement in a criminal conspiracy which led to the 1987 murders of Halat's former law partner, Mississippi judge Vincent Sherry, and Sherry's wife Margaret, a Biloxi city councilwoman. He was found guilty and sentenced to 18 years in prison, of which he served 15.
The 10th & Oregon Crew, also known as the 10th & O Crew, the 10th & Oregon Gang or the 10th & O Gang, is a predominantly Italian-American organized crime gang operating in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Active since the 1960s, the gang is associated closely with but independent from the Italian-American Philadelphia crime family. The 10th & Oregon Crew is primarily active in South Philadelphia and certain working-class Italian-American neighborhoods in nearby South Jersey.
