To put things into perspective, we've been hearing narratives about the Mob's demise since the early 90's. You can find books or movies from that timeframe that mention the "washed up Mob". Well, we're at the end of 2023 now and the American LCN is still here. They're not what they once were, they never ever will be what they once were, but they're still around and they're still making money.

And to be honest, all kinds of organized crime you can describe as "traditional organized crime" has taken HUGE hits. This is not a tendency that's unique to the American Mob. The Sicilian Mafia has been battered. The Yakuza have been hit hard since the early 90's. The Triads in Hong Kong and Taiwan have been taking major hits. Traditional British crime firms (especially in London)...the Corsican underworld in the South of France...you can't claim that the modern day world hasn't done major damage to any of them. And when you think of it, how often do you actually hear about a "Russian mob bust" these days? Exactly, it's all few and far between.

Does that mean that they're gone or even that they will disappear somewhat in the foreseeable future? Not at all. They will continue to operate and they will all continue to make plenty of money, but it will never be the way it was before for any of them.

Nowadays the drug trade garners the most attention and it's a fact that world generates the most violence by far. So of course, drug gangs are the ones we're gonna hear about the most. One question we have to ask ourselves though; how "organized" exactly is "organized crime" when it comes to the drug world these days? From what I can see what once were organizations active in the drug business is constantly splintering off into dozens upon dozens of smaller crews that are consistently at each other's throats. Big players are continuously getting busted and new groups shoot up like mushrooms before getting wiped out again in the blink of an eye. The way I see it, the drug trade seems to be more like "organized crime in a disorganized landscape" or vice versa if that makes any sense.
Governments have been doing their darnedest to push what was "organized crime" way into the underground, but what they got in return in the public eye is what one could call "disorganized organized crime".