Romanian mafia
"Clanuri Interlope" | |
| Founded | Late 1980s |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Romania |
| Territory | Mostly active in Romania, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and North America |
| Ethnicity | Romanians, Romanis |
| Criminal activities | Human trafficking, illegal drug trade, prostitution, murder, cigarette smuggling, extortion, cyber crime, arms trafficking, property crime, racketeering, RFID skimming, online automotive fraud, wire fraud, robbery, loan sharking, assault, kidnapping, theft, contract killing |
| Notable members | List of members |
The Romanian mafia or Romanian organized crime (Romanian: Mafia Românească), known in Romania as "Clanuri Interlope", is the category of organized crime groups whose members are citizens of Romania or living abroad in the Romanian diaspora.
In recent years they have expanded their criminal activities in the European Union, reads a Europol report on EU organized crime, being active mostly in Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The Romanian Mafia is composed of several major organized groups, which in turn have wider networks throughout Europe and have even reached as far as North and Central America.
Including major heists and some of the biggest scams in history, the Romanian mafia is known worldwide for ATM-skimmings as well as pimping and drug trafficking. Gangs are organized horizontally, the leader of a group being called Nașu, meaning "Godfather" in Romanian. Criminal groups in Romania practice codes of silence alongside Mafia tattoos and deep political connections.
Police in Australia who have dealt with a violent wave of Romanian gangs said that "The Romanians are one of the hardest criminal enterprises to crack due to the fact that they usually only deal with other Romanians and can be extremely violent when needed. Romanian Mafia gangs in the Americas are different than those in the EU, where in the Americas the Romanian mafia has built a very lucrative pact with the Sinaloa Cartel".