The following is a listing of enterprises, gangs, mafias, and criminal syndicates that are involved in organized crime. Tongs and outlaw motorcycle gangs, as well as terrorist, militant, and paramilitary groups, are mentioned if they are involved in criminal activity for funding. However, since their stated aim and genesis is often ideological rather than commercial, they are distinct from mafia-type groups.

Drug cartels

In several drug-producing or transit countries, drug traffickers have taken advantage of local corruption and lack of law enforcement to establish cartels turning in millions if not billions of dollars each year. Sometimes if government enforcement is particularly poor, the cartels become quasi-paramilitary organizations.

Latin America

Brazil

Active

Colombia

Active

Defunct

Mexico

Asia

North American organized crime

Canada

United States

American Mafia

Italian immigrants to the United States in the early 19th century brought with them the underground government many Americans refer to as "Cosa Nostra" (Our Thing) along with its traditions and formal induction rituals along with the concepts and precepts of Omerta, which espouses honorable and manly behavior at all times and under all conditions, taking care of your own problems and assisting your community, as well as non-cooperation with corrupt law enforcement and government officials. Many Italian-Americans around this same time also formed various small-time gangs which gradually evolved into sophisticated crime syndicates, but the nationwide organization known as "Cosa Nostra" has traditionally dominated organized crime in America for several decades. Although government crackdowns and a less-tightly knit Italian-American community have largely reduced its power, the American Mafia remains an active force in the underworld

Active

Defunct

Jewish mafia

African-American organized crime

Irish Mob

European organized crime

Italian organized crime

Organized crime in Italy, especially the south, has existed for hundreds of years and has given rise to a number of notorious organizations with their own traditions and subculture which have managed to infiltrate almost every part of Italian society. The Italian mafia is often thought of as being the archetype for organized crime worldwide.

British organised crime "firms"

Balkan organized crime

Balkan organized crime gained prominence in the chaos following the communist era, notably the transition to capitalism and the wars in former Yugoslavia.

Post-Soviet organized crime

Although organized crime existed in the Soviet era, the gangs really gained in power and international reach during the transition to capitalism. The term Russian Mafia, 'mafiya' or mob is a blanket (and somewhat inaccurate) term for the various organized crime groups that emerged in this period from the 15 former republics of the USSR and unlike their Italian counterparts does not mean members are necessarily of Russian ethnicity or uphold any ancient criminal traditions, although this is the case for some members.

Caucasian crime syndicates

See also Caucasus Emirate

Central Asian crime syndicates

Asian organized crime

East Asian criminal organizations

Korean criminal organizations

Japanese Yakuza

Active yakuza groups Defunct yakuza groups Hangure (半グレ, literally "half-grey") are considered to be “jun-bōryokudan(準暴力団, quasi-yakuza)” groups. The term half-grey in Japanese refers to groups that commit crimes, yet are not considered to fit the description of criminal organizations (referring to yakuza clans in this context). They mostly consist of former Bōsōzoku teenagers and former juvenile delinquents (also known as furyō(不良)) in middle and high schools, who became an adult and refuse to join the Yakuza because of their dislike for the traditional code of the Yakuza. Sometimes they outsource their crimes to their kōhai delinquents at Old Bōsōzoku group or Alma Mater as Senpai.

Chinese Triads

Hong Kong-based Triads Taiwan-based Triads Triads in Chợ Lớn

Southeast Asian criminal organizations

Thai gangs

Cambodian crime gangs

Indonesian crime gangs

Malaysian crime gangs

Filipino crime gangs

Vietnamese Xã Hội Đen

South Asian criminal organizations

Indian mafia

Sri Lankan criminal groups

Pakistani mafia

Middle Eastern criminal organizations

Iranian mafia

Israeli mafia

Lebanese mafia

====Turkish mafia ====

Yemeni mafia

Australian organized crime

Caribbean crime groups

African organized crime

Cybercrime networks

As society enters the Information Age, certain individuals take advantage of easy flow of information over the Internet to commit online fraud or similar activities. Often the hackers will form a network to better facilitate their activities. On occasion the hackers will be a part of a criminal gang involved in more 'blue collar crime', but this is unusual.

Drug and smuggling rings

Smuggling is a behavior that has occurred ever since there were laws or a moral code that forbade access to a specific person or object. At the core of any smuggling organization is the economic relationship between supply and demand. From the organization's point of view, the issues are what the consumer wants, and how much the consumer is willing to pay the smuggler or smuggling organization to obtain it.

Drug rings

Prison gangs

Prisons are a natural meeting place for criminals, and for the purposes of protection from other inmates and business prisoners join gangs. These gangs often develop a large influence outside the prison walls through their networks. Most prison gangs do more than offer simple protection for their members. Most often, prison gangs are responsible for any drug, tobacco or alcohol handling inside correctional facilities. Furthermore, many prison gangs involve themselves in prostitution, assaults, kidnappings and murders. Prison gangs often seek to intimidate the other inmates, pressuring them to relinquish their food and other resources. In addition, prison gangs often exercise a large degree of influence over organized crime in the "free world", larger than their isolation in prison might lead one to expect.

Prison gangs in the United States

Street gangs

Youth gangs have often served as a recruiting ground for more organized crime syndicates, where juvenile delinquents grow up to be full-fledged mobsters, as well as providing muscle and other low-key work. Increasingly, especially in the United States and other western countries, street gangs are becoming much more organized in their own right with a hierarchical structure and are fulfilling the role previously taken by traditional organized crime.

North America

African-American

Native American/Indigenous

Asian-American

Hispanic

Historical

Gangs in Canada

Other

South America

Europe

Africa

Asia

Oceania

Outlaw motorcycle clubs

Other

Historical