Protection rackets or extortion was a common crime the mob used to makes money. Extortion is threatening people or businesses to pay for "protection" from criminals, the implication being that they themselves were the criminals. Another cash cow for the Mob was through unions. Through infiltrations these labor union the Mafia could get workers to slow or halt construction jobs if contractors or developers didn't make the right payoffs as well as gave them access to huge union pension funds and sway elections with the political support that came along with running a large union. Stopping the Mafia proved to be much harder than authorities had thought. Because of the hierarchy of the Mafia it was rare for a Mob boss or Don to actually committee the crimes themselves, or be associated with the crime in any way other than being in the same organization and in command of said group. This meant they could not be charged for the crimes they ordered. The Mob had an almost endless supply of foot soldiers or Associates that would do as they were told. The Mob had found a loophole where those in charge were unable to be prosecuted for the crimes they order to be committed.
RICO or the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act is a federal law with the specific focus on racketeering and allows for leaders of an organization to be tried, both civilly and criminally, for crimes that they were responsible for ordering. RICO was passed in 1970 as part of the organized crime control act of 1970, after organized crime had been on the continues rise since the boom of prohibition. With RICO a person who has committed "at least two acts of racketeering activity" which draws from a list of twenty-seven federal crimes and eight state crimes, all within a ten year period, and can be linked to an "enterprise" can be charged with racketeering. The punishment for racketeering is twenty years in prison, as well as a fine up to 25,000, per count of racketeering, which there can be many counts depending on the case.
