ABSTRACT
There are criminal structures in many countries similar, but not identical, to the Italian-American La Cosa Nostra, Yakuza in Japan, and Medellin Cartel in Colombia. There are white-collar conspiracies of licit big business tycoons, such as the multibillion-dollar financial schemes of the supergiant transnational corporations like Lockheed Aircraft, Northrop, Gulf Oil, Exxon, Mobil Oil, United Brands, Esso Italiana, and Montedisson, which inflict enormous monetary damage well above that caused by the criminal activities o f mobs, or gangs, associated with syndicates. Sometimes, organized white-collar collusions pursue immediate political aims or result in political scandals (endless American “gates,” e.g., Watergate, Koreagate, Billygate [Billy Carter], and Irangate; or the Uzbek cases and the Churbanov case in the former USSR). These are to be included with organized terrorism —rightist, leftist, fascist, fundamentalist, chauvinist, separatist, and so on. In other words, organized crime flourishes in the context o f social systems distinct from each other in their sociocul tural characteristics. As different as the versions o f its background and forms could be, organized crime is closely related to the political and economic infrastructure of any society in which it emerges. Why? The emergence of organized criminal societies, criminal organizations o f gang sters, and white-collar or terrorist-type crime syndicates comes to be a peculiar and proper response to the political and economic conditions in the nation. The biggest among them act on the international level; they are in fact international criminal organizations.
