Founded | 19th century |
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Founding location | United Kingdom |
Territory | United Kingdom |
Ethnicity | White British mostly English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Turkish Cypriot also Black British (including British Afro-Caribbeans) and British Asians (including British Orientals) |
Criminal activities | Racketeering, prostitution, bookmaking, drug trafficking, loan sharking, extortion, counterfeiting, assault, gambling, robbery, bribery, contract killing, assault, gambling, arms trafficking and smuggling |
Allies | Turkish mafia, Milieu, Penose, Jamaican posse, Irish Republican Army |
British firms is a name designated to describe organised crime groups originating in the United Kingdom.
In analogy with the Penose in the Netherlands and the Milieu in France, Organized crime in the United Kingdom has traditionally been governed by homegrown organised criminal groups involved in a multitude of illegitimate businesses. The UK being a multi-ethnic society, criminal enterprises come from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds finding their origin in the UK, the most dominant of them still being the White British groups.
Outside of the indigenous British crime firms, foreign criminal gangs such as the Irish mob, Albanian mafia, Cosa Nostra and other Italian organized crime groups; Triads, Russian mafia, Yardies, Pakistani mafia, Indian mafia as well as Sri Lankan Tamil and Vietnamese organised crime groups operate in parts of the United Kingdom. Those criminal organisations are not described as being British crime groups since their organisation itself or their main connections originated in a foreign country.
The whole of the UK is said to host some 7,500 different organised criminal groups that cost the country £100 million a day.
English and Scottish crime groups, as well as English crime groups of Irish (like the Adams) and Turkish Cypriot (like Arif family) descent find their origin in tough, impoverished white working class neighbourhoods. They are largely family-run organised criminal gangs involved in many illegal activities in their respective areas. Even with the influx of foreign gangsters as well as with the rise of homegrown gangs consisting of minorities, white British groups are still the major concern for law enforcement and are active in the major British urban centres. Indigenous criminal organisations are mostly centred around local extended criminal families.