The World's Biggest Crime Organizations

By Savannah Cox | Edited By John Kuroski

Published September 18, 2012

Updated November 9, 2023

Arellano Felix Organization

Biggest Crime Organizations Arellano Gang

Also known as the Tijuana Cartel, The Arellano Felix Organization is one of the most violent drug cartels in Mexico. Beginning with a mere 11 members, the family ‘business’ has grown in strength (and violence), infiltrating the Mexican law and judicial systems and trafficking cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine to the states. Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 Oscar-winning film Traffic featured the gang and detailed the exploits of one of the world’s biggest crime organizations.

Source: Borderland Beat

The Biggest Crime Organizations: D-Company

Source: Top Tens Best

Headed by one of the world’s most wanted and terrifying terrorists and crime bosses, Dawood Ibrahim, the D-Company is a criminal organization that funds and supports terrorist activity in their own country, India. They were responsible for financing the 1993 Mumbai terrorist bombings and also planned further attacks in Gujarat.

The organization also amasses billions through arms and drug trafficking, contract killing, counterfeiting, extortion, real estate and, it is alleged, the Indian film industry.

author

Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.

editor

John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.

Citation copied

COPY

Cox, Savannah. "Inside The World’s Five Biggest Crime Organizations." AllThatsInteresting.com, September 18, 2012, https://allthatsinteresting.com/crime-organizations. Accessed May 29, 2025.