Racketeering

Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit.^[1]

Narrowly, it means coercive or fraudulent business practices; broadly, it can mean any criminal scheme or operation with ongoing or reoccurring profit, as defined in the 1970 U.S. RICO Act, which aimed to curtail the power of the Mafia and other organized crime.^[2]

Originally and often still specifically, racketeering may refer to a criminal act in which the perpetrators offer a service that will not be put into effect, offer a service to solve a nonexistent problem, or offer a service that solves a problem that would not exist without the racket. However, racketeers may also sometimes offer an ostensibly effectual service outside of the law to solve an actual existing problem. The traditional and historically most common example of a racket is the "protection racket", in which racketeers offer to protect a business from robbery or vandalism; however, the racketeers will themselves coerce or threaten the business into accepting this service, often with the threat (implicit or otherwise) that failure to acquire the offered services will lead to the racketeers themselves contributing to the existing problem. In many cases, the potential problem may be caused by the same party that offers to solve it, but that fact may be concealed, with the intent to engender continual patronage. The protection racket is thus often a method of extortion, at least in practice.

However, the definition of the term "racket" has been expanded over time and may now be used less strictly to refer to any continuous or repeated illegal organized crime operation, including those that do not necessarily involve fraudulent or coercive practices or extortion. For example, "racket" may refer to the "numbers racket" or the "drug racket", neither of which generally or necessarily involve extortion, coercion, fraud, or deception with regard to the intended clientele. Because of the clandestine nature of the black market, most proceeds made from criminal rackets often go untaxed.

The term "racketeering" was coined by the Employers' Association of Chicago in June 1927 in a statement about the influence of organized crime in the Teamsters Union.^[3] Specifically, a racket was defined by this coinage as being a service that calls forth its own demand, and would not have been needed otherwise.^[3]

RICO Act

On October 15, 1970, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1968), commonly referred to as the "RICO Act", became United States law. The RICO Act allows federal law enforcement to charge a person or group of people with racketeering, defined as committing multiple violations of certain varieties within a ten-year period. The purpose of the RICO Act was stated as "the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce". S.Rep. No. 617, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 76 (1968). However, the statute is sufficiently broad to encompass illegal activities relating to any enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.

18 U.S.C. § 1961(10) provides that the Attorney General of the United States may designate any department or agency to conduct investigations authorized by the RICO statute and such department or agency may use the investigative provisions of the statute or the investigative power of such department or agency otherwise conferred by law. Absent a specific designation by the Attorney General, jurisdiction to conduct investigations for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1962 lies with the agency having jurisdiction over the violations constituting the pattern of racketeering activity listed in 18 U.S.C. § 1961.^[4]

In the United States, civil racketeering laws are also used in federal and state courts.

Examples

Many types of crime can be covered by the "RICO" Act^[5]

A protection racket is a form of extortion whereby racketeers offer to "protect" property from damage in exchange for a fee, while also threatening (possibly in a veiled way), in part or in whole, to execute the kind of damage they claim to be offering protection against.
A fencing racket is an operation specializing in the resale of stolen goods.
A numbers racket is any unauthorized lottery or illegal gambling operation.
Money laundering and other creative accounting practices that are misused in ways to disguise sources of illegal funds.
Organized, coordinated, and repeated or regular theft operations, including: pickpocketing, burglary, smash and grab, home invasion, gasoline theft, metal theft, train robbery, armed robbery, bank robbery and art theft
Terrorism
Organized retail crime and shoplifting
Fraud and embezzlement operations, including: credit card fraud, check fraud, health care fraud, welfare fraud, insurance fraud, employment fraud, lottery fraud, disability fraud, charity fraud, mail and wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, mortgage fraud, telemarketing fraud, return fraud, false billing and electoral fraud
Confidence tricks, including: romance scams, larceny, overpayment scams and advance-fee scams
Mail robbery and package theft rings
Truck theft, auto theft and chop shop operations
Counterfeit operations, including: Counterfeit consumer goods such as counterfeit medications, counterfeit electronic components, counterfeit watches, copyright infringement, art forgery and identity document forgery
Illegal taxicab operations
Identity theft and sale of personal data
Kidnapping and ransom rings
Contract killing or murder-for-hire services
White-collar financial crime operations, including: front running, market manipulation, and insider trading
Bribery and police corruption
Organized academic dishonesty by school administrators, essay mills, contract cheating, diploma mills
Loan sharking rackets
Computer crimes
Drug trafficking operations, including: depressants, opioids, stimulants, entactogens, hallucinogens, designer drugs, performance-enhancing substances and unlicensed pharmaceuticals
Arms trafficking operations, including: gun-running, knife-running and sale of explosives
Extortion rackets
Blackmail operations
Counterfeit money and counterfeit coin operations
Prostitution operations, including: procuring, sex work, sexual tourism, and commercial sexual exploitation of children
Cigarette smuggling rackets
Witness tampering and intimidation
Modern piracy rackets
Business skimming operations
Illicit gems and blood diamond operations
Illegal gambling, bookmaking, and match fixing
Human trafficking rings, including: trafficking of children, sex trafficking, labor trafficking, bride buying and debt bondage
Organ trafficking
People smuggling rings
Antiquities trade operations
Trafficking rings
Rum-running rackets (or alcohol smuggling), caffeinated alcoholic drink operations, illegal sale of alcohol to minors, and moonshine operations
Illegal nuclear power trade operations
Illegal subleasing rackets
Criminal operation of otherwise ostensibly legal operations, such as strip clubs, hotels, restaurants, casinos, nightclubs, bars, pornographic film studios, social clubs, construction companies, salvage yards, auto shops, laundromats, dry cleaners, waste management firms, farms, property development companies, hospitals, television studios, newsrooms, clinics, music stores, hardware stores, fisheries, airline companies, shipyards, florist shops and fashion companies
Political corruption
Corporate corruption
Bid rigging and price fixing
Labor corruption or labor racketeering
Illegal sports, including underground fight clubs, street racing and baiting

References

^ Lou, Michelle; Griggs, Brandon (March 26, 2019). "What is racketeering? The crime, explained". CNN. Archived from the original on September 24, 2023. Retrieved March 22, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ "Racketeering". August 2023. Archived from the original on March 22, 2024. Retrieved March 22, 2024.
^ ^a ^b David Witwer, "'The Most Racketeer-Ridden Union in America': The Problem of Corruption in the Teamsters Union During the 1930s", in Corrupt Histories, Emmanuel Kreike and William Chester Jordan, eds., University of Rochester Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58046-173-5
^ "Crime". Usdoj.gov. Retrieved 2012-02-18.
^ What Is Racketeering?, by Black's Law Dictionary