These days it seems many more countries have crime organisations of their own. Equally vile, just as violent, just as corrupt and in some cases perhaps even more pervasive - and always with a local twist.
From Japan's Yakuza to Kenya's Mungiki, MSN investigates 10 of the world's worst mafias.
Yakuza (Japan)
Calling themselves ninkyō dantai or 'chivalrous organisations', Japan's crime elite are perhaps best known for their extensive tattoos and the gruesome practice of yubitsume. The latter is a requirement for anyone who offends his fellow gang member to sever his own finger, a traditional way of weakening a fighter's grip on his own sword.
Numbers are thought to have declined steadily since the 1990s, although estimates still suggest that as many as 85,000 mostly male members make up the five leading yakuza gangs
Unione Corse (France)
Active on Corsica and in the Mediterranean port of Marseilles, the Unione Corse (UC) is not thought to have spread much further afield. Hugely secretive, it may comprise just a dozen or so families.
Claims have also been made for a more respectable role during the second world war, with gang members 'executing' Nazi collaborators on behalf of the resistance. This has yet to be verified, as has the suggestion that UC enforcers were paid by the government to attack communist strikers in 1948
Triads (China)
Claiming they opposed the Manchu invasion during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), China's triads have nevertheless since provided the archetype of the violent oriental gangster. They comprise many individual gangs which number anything between a few dozen or several thousand members and wield considerable influence whilst keeping an impressively low profile.
Operating internationally for many years, the triads are thought to be particularly active in the hi-tech arena, gradually expanding their expertise at counterfeiting money and goods to pirating computer software, CDs and DVDs. Violence or the threat of it naturally underpins their activities, and bloodthirsty initiation ceremonies are not uncommon
Srpska Mafija (Serbia)
Made up of Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Albanians, a number of organised gangs came to prominence in the chaos which followed the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. That said, one so-called godfather, Ljuba Zemunac, was already active in Italy and Germany at the time of his murder by a rival in 1986.
More recently the gangs have spread throughout the EU, but at home remain particularly well connected. There are, for example, rumours of many powerful connections among local and national politicians and, until his death in 2006, former president Slobodan Milošević was said to have protected their interests in exchange for favours.
'Ndrangheta (Italy)
What the Camorra are to Campania, this lot are to Calabria. They have dominated crime in the 'toe' of Italy since the 1860s. Back then it was to rob and blackmail the galantuomini, rich landowners held responsible for the region's high levels of local taxation.
For around 100 years they remained a mostly local organisation, but in the mid-1970s moved into the kidnap business with a particular penchant for rich northerners. One victim is thought to be John Paul Getty III but a vow of silence (omerta) has so far prevented this from being confirmed.
Mungiki (Kenya)
A Kikuyu word meaning 'united people', the Mungiki were banned in 2002 but still operate openly in Mathare, a slum district of Nairobi. An almost total lack of any official law enforcement has allowed gang members to fill the vacuum whilst profiting from East Africa's urban poor.
The gangs reject many western practices in favour of often barbaric local traditions. They are also implicated in many horrific killings, in particular the beheading of matatu (minibus-taxi) drivers who refuse to join them
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La Eme (Mexico/America)
Deriving its name from the Spanish letter M, the so-called Mexican mafia recently celebrated a half-century of operations and is now well established in California. Claims have been made for a religious (ie Aztec/Mayan) dimension but their activities mostly include murder, gun-running, drug trafficking, kidnapping, prostitution, extortion and illegal gambling.
In the early days new members were recruited whilst in jail, hostile environments where particular ethnic minorities often group together for self-protection. However, defence rapidly turned to offence against other inmates, and upon being released members found themselves with a readymade hierarchy well-suited to future criminal endeavour.
Cosa Nostra (Italy)
'Our cause', or more informally 'this thing of ours', is, as an informer told US authorities in the early 1960s, how the mafiosi refer to themselves. The origins of the organisation lie in the harsh conditions of 19th century Sicily when clans or families (borgatas) came together for their mutual benefit.
Emigration took family members to the US, where crimes such as gun-running, racketeering and bootlegging during the Prohibition era soon gave a minority of America's relatively small Italian community an economic power and press profile out of all proportion to its size.
Bratva (Russia)
The first of the new mafias to enter the public consciousness, numerous gangs - the name is slang for 'brotherhood' - rose from the ashes of communism in the early 1990s.
Like the Sicilians, their influence has spread through mass emigration as thousands of Russians sought a better life in Europe and the US.
Camorra (Italy)
Predating most of its Italian rivals, the Camorra has its origins in the Campania region and is thought to date back to the 15th century when this area was ruled from Spain. With American and even Scottish branches, they are still strong in Naples and have several hugely profitable waste-disposal contracts.
The gangs' other profit-making focal points are the usual ones: drug trafficking and distribution operations; cigarette-and people-smuggling schemes; loansharking and construction projects.
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