17. Department of Justice · Notable
Aggressively deploy RICO against criminal organizations
Printed page 555 17. Department of Justice
“Aggressively deploy the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which Congress expressly created to empower the Department of Justice to treat patterns of intrastate-level crimes, such as robbery, extortion, and murder, as federal criminal conduct for criminal organizations and networks.”
What has happened
- Done
RICO is being deployed at scale against criminal organizations under the suspended approval regime: 27 members and associates of Tren de Aragua were charged with racketeering, narcotics, sex trafficking, robbery and firearms offenses in a single indictment, one of a continuous run of racketeering cases against gangs and cartels through the window.
- Partially done
The cartels memorandum makes racketeering the default charge against cartel and transnational criminal organization leaders — the most serious readily provable offenses for them "will typically include ... racketeering charges" — and suspends the Criminal Division's Violent Crime and Racketeering Section approval requirements for filing racketeering and violent-crimes-in-aid-of-racketeering charges against all such organizations. The internal brake on RICO charging is off; no charges had yet been brought under the new rule.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
The Quote asks for aggressive deployment of an existing statute rather than a new instrument; the measurable action is the removal of the headquarters approval requirement plus the charging that followed.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)
- ID
- 1546