Romanian mafia

The Romanian Mafia is composed of several major organized groups, which in turn have wider networks throughout Europe and have even reached as far as North and Central America.

[1] Including major heists and some of the biggest scams in history, the Romanian mafia is known worldwide for ATM-skimmings as well as pimping and drug trafficking.

[8] The Daily Mail first reported Romanian mafia activities in tourist areas of the southeastern state of Quintana Roo in September 2015.

[9] In June 2020, the non-profit organization Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad ("Mexicans against Corruption and Impunity", MCCI), together with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), presented an investigation that demonstrated the Romanian mafia had actually reached Mexico in March 2014 and had spread to other states including Jalisco and Guanajuato.

[9] Romanian businessman Florian Tudor (El Tiburón or "The Shark") was arrested in Quintana Roo in 2019 but released a few hours later for a lack of evidence.

[9] In February 2021, scores of Romanian citizens were arrested at the Cancún airport and, days later, 136 were allowed into the country and four were deported because there was a travel alert against them.

[9] The next day, Santiago Nieto, head of Mexico's Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), announced that 79 accounts of Mexicans and Romanians had been frozen for cloning credit and debit cards.

The majority of victims who have been found are women who were trafficked and exploited for sex in Romania as well as other European nations like Austria, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the UK.

Children in government-run facilities are still at risk of being victims of sex trafficking, especially girls who reside in homes and placement centers for people with impairments.

A number of non-governmental organizations have observed that females who are underage are recruited by previous occupants of government-run homes or residential institutes.

Cocaine smuggling on maritime routes and into Black Sea ports in Bulgaria and Romania has been more prevalent in recent years among Balkan criminal gangs, including Albanian, Serbo-Montenegrin, and Bulgarian groups.

Although research indicates that amphetamines and ecstasy are still more expensive in Romania than in Western Europe, production of these drugs has increased and costs have decreased in recent years.

A system of blind collaboration exists between the police and illegal loggers and rangers, contributing to the corruption that afflicts the forestry industry.

The emergence of shadow economies could pose a threat to Romania given the reported examples of corruption involving significant gas reserves.