Organized crime also refers to criminal organizations; they could be transnational, local or they could be deeply rooted in a region where they operate as businesses. This article explains the true meaning of organized crime. Furthermore, the document examines all organized criminal groups in Russia and analyzes the effects they have on the economy. Furthermore, organized crime created cartels illegally trading weapons and ammunition that compromised the security of Russians. This has made Russia a den of terrorists and traffickers of hard drugs. However, the Soviet Union took all necessary measures to reduce the number of organized crime in Russia with the help of the United States and the United Nations. Organized crime has taken on different names depending on the region, but "Mafia" is a universal name that refers to many organized groups around the world. Most regions once had a mafia group; Sicily had the Sicilian mafia, even the United States did not lag behind since it had the Italian American mafia and the Mexican mafias in North America (Albanese, 2000, p. 409). Russia had the Irish mafia, considered a very strong cartel involved in drug trafficking. Many organized groups have had a common thing uniting them where they had distorted psychologies and mentalities. Some of the organized groups arise from activities or practices shared between them (Albanese, 2000, p. 409). Some of the factors that contributed to the formation of organized crime or groups could be social factors. In most cases, organized criminal groups must have social control over their community or region. The other factor that contributed to the formation of organized groups was the result of economic influences (Albanese, 2000, p. 410). Most organized crime must have control of the economy of a region or territory; control of economic activities could be achieved through corruption, coercion or through illegal practices (Albanese, 2000, p. 410). The other factor that contributed to the formation of organized groups was political power. Organized groups are determined to gain power over a territory through violence or corruption. The current organized groups are very different from traditional mafias as they are said to have a clandestine operational strategy and therefore it becomes very difficult for the government to control such formations. Currently, most mafia groups have moved away from traditional management methods, when groups used to act against each other, to work together (Albanese, 2000, p..