who are the top 3 most powerful crime organizations in your opinion? in terms of power, money, influence etc.

Speaking OPINION only: 1. Sinaloa Cartel 2. Ndrangheta 3. Nigerian Syndicates

I'd include Japan's Yakusa in that list. They are absolutely joined at the navel with Japanese Big Business.

Al Qaeda/Taliban
Sinaloa Cartel
'Ndrangheta.
Yakuza

ndragheta must be pretty damm powerful


i also didn't know the nigerians are up their as well?

Sinaloa Cartel,'Ndrangheta,Solntsevskaya Bratva.


Nigerian Syndicates...? I don't think so.

I'd say this too .

The reasons for nigerian syndicates is for the flexibility in their networks. Within 20 or so years they were able to expand into 80 countries subtle and swiftly. Focusing mostly on financial fraud that cost countries billions of dollars a year without the use of violence. They have good skills in coordination and communication which they use to partner up with every major crime group that is mentioned in this forum.

a top 5 would be better, coz i think these groups have a similar power

mexican cartels
italian mafia
russian mob
yakuza
triads

I still hold my opinion that only the most powerful groups exist and not just one . On a similar level I would say in terms of wealth , power and organisation it's the Mexican Cartels, Italian Mobs and the Chinese Triads. The Eastern European groups aren't so organized . Also remember that the Calabrian mafia are estimated to make 44 billion , and all the Mexican cartels roughly make 50 billion. That definitely says something about the ndranghetaat the moment

But anyway, it's not like the 'ndrangheta can be considered one group. There are different clans that have been enemies since forever. The same goes for the Mexican cartels, the Russian mafia etc. For example, we could ask whether the Piromalli 'ndrangheta clan is stronger or weaker than the Solnzevskaya Bratva, because theoretically it's possible they will have a conflict on a neutral territory, but it isn't possible the the whole 'ndrangheta and the whole Russian mafia form 2 coalitions to fight one another.

Someone please state me how much aproximetely are there Ndragheta clans and how big is the membership. And also please state the number of Mexican cartels and their aprox. membership.

I would say 50-100 people not more(Ndrangheta)but you have 'Ndrangheta cells in other countries that have about 5-10 people and they report to Calabria,but you also have families that have grown such as case in Canada and Australia and they became independent.

50-100??? The 'ndrangheta has thousands as a whole, and there are clans like the Piromalli who have about 500 made members (don't remember the source, but I can try to find it) and an unknown number of associates.

1. Vors - too many billionaires and Putin protected not to mention them
2. Yakuza - quasi-legal and has their fingers in BIG TIME legit businesses worldwide.
3. The Smaldone LCN Family in Denver

I think the position of the thieves-in-law (vory v zakone) is weaker than before, now there are the so-called "businessmen" like Sergei Mikhailov, Vladimir Tiurin, Anatoliy Bykov or Vladimir Kumarin who usually don't care about traditions and "honorific" titles (even though Tiurin is a thief-in-law).
The vors are often arrested for drugs possession, the police very often plant drugs in their pockets, while they are afraid to do so to the "businessmen" like Mikhailov and others.

I think he meant per clan, which makes more sense. Well according to the FBI , all of the Italian mobs put together have 25 000 core members and 250 000 affiliates however this is obviously very rough as it is hard to get a decent figure . I'd imagine the Mexican cartels and those afilkyated to them would be similar . Also conferescenti estimates the mafia at around 100 billion euros and I've seen figures at about 50 billion dollars for the Mexicans, like I said these figures are all guesses, nobody truly knows.

However I do think that the Russian or former so ite groups are exaggerated a little , sure they're major players, but people tend to over caution them I think. I would imagine Balkan organized crime is more powerful or pervasive than some Russian groups, eg the Albanians.

The cells operating outside of Russia maybe are not that powerful, since they are on territories that belong to others, but the ones the bosses of which stay safely in Moscow, St.Petersburg etc unfortunately have tremendous power in the country. It's not that long since the 90s ended, and the 90s were like the Wild West in America, the only difference was that, while in the Wild West the sheriffs could at least shoot the bandits on the spot, in the 90s in Russia the police couldn't to it to the big bosses and was virtually powerless. The police is also mostly corrupt. When in the city of Togliatti (an Italian name, but it's in Russia) a drug lord's right-hand man was arrested and his boss went on the run, he was questioned about who, according to him, will now be in charge of the city's drug trade. He answered: the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation.

I said 50-100 members per family(Sorry my bad),whole 'Ndrangheta prolly about 5000-6000 ?

Organized crime in Russia has been weakened, at least somewhat, in recent years. The system under Putin is not like it was back in the 1990's.

According to the FBI, the 'Ndrangheta has about 6,000 members. For the record, the FBI says the Camorra has 7,000 members, the Cosa Nostra 5,000 members, and the Sacra Corona Unita 2,000 members. This totals 20,000, which is less than the 25,000 also cited on the FBI website. Obviously, estimates are going to vary. For example, Italian OC scholar Letizia Paoli cites the 'Ndrangheta as having 5,000 members and the Cosa Nostra 3,500 members. And it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison with the manpower in other crime groups, many of whom do not have the distinction of being "made" vs not "made."

I hope it really is like you are saying, but as far as I know, many crime groups are considered not active anymore NOT because the leaders have been imprisoned, but only because they are considered "to have gone legit", and this isn't always the case. Many crime bosses have been killed, but nobody of the ones who have national or international power has been punished through the law. The only one is Vladimir Kumarin (head of the Tambovsakya group), and that's only because some underlings of his tried to extort somebody who was friends with the governor who sent a complaint to Putin. Most of the others who went to jail are just local bosses who don't control more than one region. The only exception apart from Kumarin I can think of is the thief-in-law Tariel Oniani, the main rival of the killed Grandpa Hasan (Aslan Usoyan).

There was a good article a while back that talked about how the OC groups in Russia had been weakened in recent years. I posted it on the RD forum but can't access it anymore.

Many groups went extinct, but it doesn't mean that Russian OC is weakened. It's just that most of these groups went into legal business. And other groups were brought down by authorities or killed by other groups. They still hold enough power.

The Russian OC leaders and guys who started in the 90's now are sitting in the offices. While guys at the age of 20 are doing the dirty job.

It's more or less that it's not anymore so public and criminals have became smarter.

your right in Dallas the nigerians are involved in medicare scams maybe the biggest group in dallas. plus other scams such telecom ,stolen cell phones.

good citings!

who are the smaldone

say no more

so would you guys say the nigerians have reached the wealth and power as the ndragheta

Ofcourse no.