Organized crime or criminal organizations are groups or operations run by criminals, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit. The Organized Crime Control Act (U.S., 1970) defines organized crime as "The unlawful activities of ... a highly organized, disciplined association...".

Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are politically motivated. Gangs sometimes become "disciplined" enough to be considered "organized". An organized gang or criminal set can also be referred to as a mob. The act of engaging in criminal activity as a structured group is referred to in the United States as racketeering. In the U.S., organized crime is often prosecuted federally under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), Statute (18 U.S.C. Part I Chapter 96 §§ 1961-1968).

Origins and conceptual background

"If we take a global rather than strictly domestic view, it becomes evident even crime of the organized kind has a long if not necessarily noble heritage. The word 'thug' dates to early 13th-century India, when Thugs, or gangs of criminals, roamed from town to town, looting and pillaging. Smuggling and drug-trafficking rings are as old as the hills in Asia and Africa, and extant criminal organizations in Italy and Japan trace their histories back several centuries..." (Sullivan, Robert, ed. Mobsters and Gangsters: Organized Crime in America, from Al Capone to Tony Soprano. New York: Life Books, 2002).

"Piracy and banditry were to the pre-industrial world what organized crime is to modern society" (Paul Lunde, Organized Crime, 2004). Today, crime is thought of as an urban phenomenon, but for most of human history it was the rural world that was crime-ridden. Pirates and bandits attacked trade routes, at times severely disrupting commerce, raising costs, insurance rates and prices to the consumer.

Organized crime is deeply linked to the moral problem of integrating subcivilized energy into civilized state building. The early Christian world was dubious about an unqualified legitimacy of nation-states. St. Augustine (City of God, 4.4) famously defined them as what would now be called kleptocracies, states founded on theft:

"If justice be disregarded, what are states but large bandit bands, and what are bandit bands but small states? ... Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, 'What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you who does it with a great fleet are styled emperor'" (1).