EXPERT SAYS CRIME HAS 'NEW FACES'

Organized crime has made a financial killing in this country.

It isn't just the Italian Mafia that has cashed in on crime. From the Colombian drug cartels to the Asian gangs, organized crime is big business, says a law enforcement expert.

Dr. Gene Scarmella, an assistant professor from Western Illinois University, was a member of the Organized Crime Intelligence Division of the Chicago Police Department for a decade. He has spent the last three years in the Special Operations Division of the Cook County Sheriff's Department.

Scarmella spoke about the "new faces in organized crime" during a Common Hour speech Wednesday at Southeast Missouri State University's Academic Hall. About 60 students attended the lecture.

Scarmella said organized crime flourishes because of crooked politicians and corrupt policemen. "They cannot exist without the cooperation of corrupt public officials," he said.

Bribery and corruption are nothing new in Chicago where the Italian Mafia rules the organized crime scene.

Scarmella said he talked to a policeman-turned-mobster who admitted that he regularly bribed Chicago policemen. The man said crooked policemen regularly visited his bar because they wanted bribe money.

"They sought me out. They were already corrupt," Scarmella quoted the ex-policeman as telling him.

Organized crime has bribed everyone from beat officers to city hall politicians, Scarmella said.

After his speech, Scarmella said he didn't mean to suggest that all police in Chicago or anywhere else are crooked. Most are honest officers, he said.

Scarmella told his audience of criminal-justice students that there is little cooperation among law enforcement agencies in investigating organized crime. In contrast, organized crime groups will work together to further their illegal activities, he said.

In addition to the Italian Mafia, organized crime in America includes Chinese and Japanese gangs; the Colombian drug cartels; the Mexican Mafia; and Jamaican, Nigerian and Russian-Eastern European groups, as well as biker and street gangs.

It was estimated a few years ago that the Italian Mafia alone generated about $106 billion annually from its illegal activities, Scarmella said.

Organized crime has its hands in everything from labor unions to the gambling business, he said. Drug trafficking is a major activity of organized crime, Scarmella said.

Excluding the Italian Mafia, the other organized crime groups combined generate half-a-trillion dollars annually in the illegal drug trade, Scarmella said.

Colombian drug cartels control 80 percent of the cocaine market.

The Mexican Mafia has taken over the methamphetamine trade, which was once largely the domain of motorcycle gangs. Scarmella said the Mexican Mafia also kidnaps people and holds them for ransom. In the Chicago area, the caseload of kidnappings totaled 25 a month ago, he said.

As to biker gangs, Scarmella said the public often has the wrong impression of them. Gang members are seen as "leather-clad, tattoo-laden hell raisers," he said.

The reality often is far different. The head of the Hell's Angels gang in Chicago is a man in his mid-40s, who has short hair and wears $1,000 designer suits. The man looks more like a banker than a biker, Scarmella said.

Biker gangs often supply prostitutes and manage clubs for the Italian Mafia in the Chicago area, he said.

Nigerian gangs are known for counterfeiting everything from currency to airline tickets.

Russian and Eastern European gangs on the East and West coasts have been involved in everything from bank fraud to Medicare fraud.

Language remains a barrier to law enforcement efforts to investigate the Russian and Eastern European gangs. Immigrants typically are leery of the police and don't speak English well. Of the 13,000 members of the Chicago Police Department, only one officer speaks Russian, Scarmella said.

Russian gangs have been known to abduct and kill people so they can sell the victims' hearts, lungs and other organs on the black market. A heart can bring $800,000 on the black market, he said.

Street gangs rake in the profits too. "They generate hundreds of millions of dollars every year through the sale of narcotics," Scarmella said.

The leaders of the nation's street gangs aren't spray-painting teen-agers, he said. Rather, they are 40- and 50-year-old men.

One man has directed the activities of a street gang from his prison cell for two decades, he said.