[A bright, technological-feeling track prominently featuring synthesizers begins.]

Narrator: On a previous episode of our podcast, we defined the term transnational organized crime (also known as TOC) and mapped out the current ecosystem of this brand of illegal activity.

But on this episode—part two of our deep-dive into all things organized crime—we’ll discuss:

Why and how the FBI investigates transnational organized crime;
What a success looks like in fighting this type of crime;
And how the public can report suspected TOC activity.
This is Inside the FBI.

[The Inside the FBI jingle kicks in. It's a bright and driving track.]

***

[A more minimal variation of the episode's opening track begins. It has a more serious feel, and repeats a few times.]

Dr. John Fox: The FBI developed right around the same time that the earliest organized criminal groups, in some ways, were coming around.

Narrator: That’s FBI Historian Dr. John Fox.

Dr. Fox: They probably predated us by a few years, but in our early days, we would investigate crimes, sometimes that were committed by people who were thought eventually to be the predecessors of the mafia or other organized crime groups.

We tackled some crimes related to bootlegging, which of course, is where organized crime begins to develop.

And then, of course, in the 1930s, with the gangsters, you had the rise of both organized criminal groups associated with both Italian and Jewish gangsters, as well as a wider development of, we could almost say, an infrastructure for crime in the United States.

We would have people who were associated with different regional groups who would be engaged in money laundering, in providing medical services to gangsters so that they didn't necessarily reach the public's attention, and even safe spaces to hide.

Narrator: According to Dr. Fox, the FBI was aware that there were localized criminal groups, but until the 1950s, we didn’t have explicit evidence of such a thing as the Mafia—a complex, nationwide organized criminal group.

Fox: But in 1957, there was a meeting in upstate New York at the house of a mobster named Joseph Barbara. The town was called Apalachin, and New York State Police became aware of it and actually caused the meeting to break up and mobsters to flee.

One of the New York State Police officers was taking down license plates, and they were from all over the country. All of a sudden, we have national confirmation that these criminal elements were actually meeting together and colluding.

The FBI became obviously very much aware that there was, perhaps, a national problem here—not just a local or a regional one—and really began to go after mob investigations at that point.

But the tools that we had to deal with it were pretty rudimentary.

We could often get people for transporting gambling equipment across state lines or transporting pornography across state lines—both of which were federal violations—but most of the crimes that mobsters were involved in were not federal.

Narrator: In 1968, the FBI received legal authority to conduct wiretaps to gather electronic evidence in crimes, another tool in the fight against organized crime.

But a truly breakthrough moment came in 1970, when Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, for short. According to Dr. Fox, this law allows the United States Department of Justice...

Dr. Fox: ...to prosecute organized criminal groups by connecting individual crimes together and saying that this shows a pattern, a conspiracy of criminal behavior. Then, we could actually start going after the leaders of those groups, as well.

Narrator: And after former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972, the Bureau started using undercover agents to penetrate organized crime groups for extended periods of time.

Dr. Fox: We had people like Joe Pistone—who's sometimes known by as his cover name of “Donnie Brasco”—or Louis Freeh, who came into the Bureau as a young agent and basically worked undercover as a budding lawyer who was getting close to the mob in New York City.

Narrator: Freeh helped secure multiple prosecutions against these mobsters. Years later, he was named FBI Director.

Dr. John Fox: But it was in putting those three things together—the wiretaps, the RICO Act, and the undercover agents—that we were able to start building cases against the organized crime families that had become so strong over the years.

Perhaps our biggest successes in first applying RICO and these new techniques included cases like:

The Union Racketeering case (or UNIRAC), which was the early 1980s, looking at mob influence and various labor unions;
Of course, the investigation of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance and presumed murder;
The Commission case, which went after the leaders of several organized crime families; as well as
The Pizza connection case that we worked very closely with Italian judicial and law enforcement authorities targeting heroin-smuggling operations in the New York and New Jersey area by organized crime.
And then, in the late 1980s, finally getting the “Teflon Don,” John Gotti, and bringing down some of the key leaders of these organized crime families. This was the really the maturation of our organized criminal investigations.

Narrator: You can visit fbi.gov/history to learn more about some of the FBI’s most notable organized crime cases.

***

[A slower, more foreboding-feeling musical track begins, and repeats through the end of the episode.]

Joseph: The RICO Act has become probably one of the strongest tools that we have that distinguish us from many other jurisdictions around the world.

Narrator: That was Joseph, a unit chief from the FBI’s Transnational Crime Section.

Joseph: Once you've articulated that this organization is working as a criminal enterprise, the RICO Act allows you to apply even harsher penalties against members of that organization. You actually charge all of the members for the crimes that were conducted by the group as a whole.

Narrator: This also requires the FBI to identify transnational organized crime group members and determine the crimes they’ve allegedly committed.

Joseph: That's the challenge with RICO.

Narrator: But if a group’s actions don’t fall under RICO charges, he said, the FBI can still investigate individual members for their offenses.

Joseph: The FBI has been able to apply this to atypical groups that are acting as an enterprise.

Joseph: FIFA’s the governing body for soccer around the world, and they were conducting a bunch of activities for a number of years, so we actually applied the RICO statute against a sporting organization for this excessive amount of bribes and kickbacks.

Narrator: Using the RICO statute in the FIFA investigation was permissible—and successful--because the Act is...

Joseph: ...meant to tackle corrupt organizations, whether or not they're tied to organized crime, as well. So, it's a powerful statute for us to leverage in the FBI, and it's something that distinguishes us when we go around the world. We can apply that to even some of the foreign-based individuals that are part of an enterprise that's operating in [the] United States.

Narrator: Claudia, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Transnational Organized Crime Western Hemisphere Unit, echoed the importance of leveraging the RICO Act in the fight against organized crime.

Claudia: As an investigator, I love the RICO statute. A lot of the cases that are investigated on the gang side, we use violent crime in aid of racketeering--

Narrator: Or ViCAR, for short.

Claudia: Even if you didn't have a subject that was directly involved in the crime, under RICO and VICAR, that individual can still be charged under the conspiracy.

If you have people directing or you have people involved in conversations or communications about that specific criminal activity, those individuals can also be held liable for their actions or their role in the conspiracy.

So, in a specific case that I had, an individual was charged with a conspiracy for simply delivering the victim to the individuals that ended up murdering him.

At sentencing, the judge specifically said, “You may not have directly been one of the individuals that stabbed the victim, but you were just as culpable as everybody else for delivering him,” and ended up sentencing him to a mandatory life sentence, as the others had been sentence[d].

Narrator: And while RICO and ViCAR have made it easier for the Bureau to build cases against individuals engaging in or supporting transnational organized crime, the FBI can still leverage any federal statute to build a case.

Narrator: And, Joseph explained, since transnational criminal organizations are largely revenue-driven, the Bureau is often able to use their money-laundering activities to secure an indictment.

Joseph: Money makes the world go round. And so, for these organizations, hitting them with those charges, as well, is another weapon for us.

***

Narrator: According to Joseph, the FBI takes a...

Joseph: ...Whole of government, whole of the world type of approach in addressing these types of groups.

Joseph: The FBI tries to maintain an awareness of all the groups operating throughout the world. If we don't know what's happening to our partners in other parts of the world, then we won't be able to kind of sense when it's happening in the United States. Our constant engagement with partners, with other federal agencies, other foreign partners, and their law enforcement entities helps [us] understand the trends that are going on around the world so that when it hits our shores, we're ready to address it.

We can't dismantle many of these groups without partnering with the law enforcement agencies in the countries that also have the connective tissue. If we only arrest the people in the United States, that organized crime organism will continue to live on. It will grow another limb.

Narrator: The end goal, he said, is to seek prosecutions for every member of a given transnational organized crime group.

Joseph: We will work with a foreign partner, and they will effect that arrest or that prosecution with us.

Claudia: That's what I think makes the FBI so unique. I think we are so well postured to tackle the transnational organized crime threat because of our connections with our international partners. We also have our other operational programs.

Narrator: Since many transnational organized crime groups engage in cybercrime and white-collar crime, she said...

Claudia: ...we have the ability to collaborate even internally with those sections, to be able to share intelligence, to identify new patterns and trends.

Narrator: The FBI works side-by-side with our domestic and international partners to infiltrate, disrupt, and dismantle these groups by targeting their leadership.

TOC investigations must also carefully navigate First-Amendment concerns.

Claudia: When we are investigating a case within the FBI, our predication for a case opening cannot be solely based on a First Amendment protected right.

Narrator: Take the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, for example. As discussed on our last episode, the group has been known to engage in criminal activity on U.S. soil and overseas.

But since its right to gather is protected by the First Amendment, the Bureau can’t investigate it simply for existing.

Claudia: The Hells Angels group, as a fraternity, they have the right to come together, have their meetings.

Joseph: We have to show the criminal violations in addition to knowing that they form a particular group.

***

Narrator: In addition to what we’ve discussed so far, another key piece to an investigation is the information received from the public.

Joseph: A significant amount of our ability to spot and jump on organized crime groups comes from tipsters, comes from concerned citizens that may see something irregular, may have been defrauded, may have been victimized by an isolated incident.

Narrator: For example, someone in Iowa may report that they got defrauded trying to buy something online. At first glance, it may seem like an isolated incident—but an investigation reveals several tips like this have come in. And when connecting the dots...

Joseph: ...we take a look and we discover that it's tied to a much larger organization.

Narrator: Tips and leads from the public help the Bureau ensure that we don’t overlook subtle things, he said.

Joseph: Most often, we start to see these trends, and when more and more citizens are victimized by a certain type of activity, we now know that it's organized-crime-related.

Narrator: If you believe you have a tip, you can call or visit any of the FBI’s field offices or resident agencies to provide information about known or suspected transnational organized crime activity. You can also submit tips online at tips.fbi.gov. Finally, if you’re looking to share information about an internet crime, you can submit a tip to the Bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.

Narrator: And, Joseph added...

Joseph: ...If people don't have that access, calling or even going to--we encourage them to go to local police departments to relay information to us, as well.

It's of paramount importance for the FBI that people be able to report that, and with that comes a great responsibility to protect that. Oftentimes, they're not in a position to testify. We will work within those constraints to still get the information, but protect where the sourcing is coming from. So, if it ends up going to prosecution, we still go through every effort to make sure that we can conceal the source of that tip.

These are serious groups that we’re dealing with. And the repercussions are dire; they're deadly. If we don't protect the public, who gives us tips, then we're going to lose our reputation and our success, just like that. And most of the greatest cases we've put together [have] come from a concerned citizen, a source of information that has given us that first little indication of this activity.

***

Narrator: You can visit fbi.gov/organizedcrime to learn more about the transnational organized crime threat and read about relevant investigative successes.

This has been another production of Inside the FBI. You can follow us on your favorite podcast player, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. You can also subscribe to email alerts about new episodes at fbi.gov/podcasts.

On behalf of the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs, thanks for listening.

[The musical track gets louder for a moment before fading out.]