What is racketeering

| by Max Soni

Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group. We’re a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek – with over 40 years of combined experience handling federal criminal cases. We’ve represented clients in cases you’ve probably heard about – the Anna Delvey Netflix series, juror misconduct in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, high-profile federal prosecutions that other firms said were unwinnable. If you’re facing racketeering charges, you’re looking at decades in federal prison unless you understand what prosecutors are actually doing to you.

Racketeering isn’t what most people think it is. It’s not just “organized crime” or mob activity. Under federal law – specifically 18 U.S.C. § 1961 – racketeering means engaging in a pattern of criminal activity connected to an enterprise. That enterprise can be a mafia family, sure, but it can also be a street gang, a business, a political organization, or even a loose network of people working together. In 2025, federal prosecutors are using RICO charges against everyone from cryptocurrency scammers to gang members to white-collar executives.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – RICO – was passed in 1970 to give prosecutors a tool to dismantle criminal enterprises. Before RICO, you could only charge someone for individual crimes. If a mob boss ordered ten murders but never pulled the trigger himself, prosecution was difficult. RICO changed that. Now prosecutors can charge you for being part of the criminal enterprise itself, even if you didn’t personally commit every crime.

Two Predicate Acts – That’s All It Takes

To charge you with racketeering, prosecutors need to prove you committed at least two “predicate acts” from a list of 35 specified crimes within a ten-year period. These predicate acts include murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, counterfeiting – the list goes on. According to DOJ policy guidelines, they can mix and match. One act of wire fraud plus one act of money laundering three years later, both connected to the same business scheme, that’s potentially a RICO case.

But it’s not quite that simple. The government has to prove more than just two crimes. They have to show those crimes were related to each other – same purposes, same participants, same methods – and that they demonstrated either continuity or a threat of continued criminal activity. A few isolated crimes over a couple months won’t cut it. Prosecutors need to show an ongoing pattern.

The predicate acts don’t all have to be federal crimes. State crimes count too – murder, kidnapping, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, drug dealing, as long as they’re punishable by more than one year in prison under state law. This is how prosecutors in Georgia charged Young Thug and 27 others under Georgia’s state RICO law in 2022, alleging the YSL record label was actually a criminal street gang. That case became the longest trial in Georgia history, ended with no murder convictions – Young Thug got probation in October 2024, the last defendant pled guilty in June 2025.

The Enterprise Element Changes Everything

What separates RICO from regular criminal charges is the enterprise requirement. Prosecutors have to prove you participated in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. The enterprise can be legitimate or illegitimate – a corporation, a partnership, an association, a group of people associated in fact. The key is that the enterprise has some structure, some continuity over time, and you participated in its affairs through criminal activity.

In July 2025, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, a jury convicted two gang members of RICO conspiracy and drug trafficking conspiracy. Forty members of the Highs gang were charged in the massive indictment – 38 have now been convicted. The government argued the gang was a criminal enterprise that sold fentanyl at specific street corners in North Minneapolis and enforced its territory through violence, kidnapping, murder. That’s the enterprise. The individual acts – drug sales, shootings, kidnappings – those are the predicate acts.

The enterprise doesn’t need to be huge or sophisticated. Three people who work together to commit fraud over several years, that can be enough. A legitimate business that engages in systematic bribery or fraud, that’s an enterprise. The structure can be informal – the government just has to show the group had some organization and continuity.

Penalties That Stack Like Bricks

If you’re convicted of racketeering, you face up to 20 years in prison per RICO count. But prosecutors can charge you with RICO violations and still charge you separately for the underlying predicate crimes. So you might get 20 years for the RICO count, plus 10 years for wire fraud, plus 15 years for money laundering. The sentences can run consecutively. You’re looking at life in federal prison if the government stacks the charges right.

And then there’s forfeiture. Under RICO, if you’re convicted, you must forfeit any interest you acquired or maintained through racketeering activity. That means your business, your property, your bank accounts – anything you gained through the criminal enterprise, it’s gone. The government seizes it. They can take your house, your cars, your business, everything. Even before conviction, they can freeze your assets, make it impossible to pay for a defense attorney.

The fines can reach $25,000 per count, though that’s almost meaningless compared to the prison time and asset forfeiture. Federal prosecutors use these penalties as leverage – they’ll offer you a plea deal, drop some charges, recommend a lower sentence if you cooperate and testify against co-defendants. The exposure is too great. Most people can’t risk going to trial when they’re facing decades in prison.

Defense Becomes Incredibly Complicated

RICO cases take years to build. Prosecutors use wiretaps, confidential informants, undercover agents, financial records, surveillance footage, everything they can gather to map out the enterprise and prove the pattern of racketeering activity. They flip lower-level defendants, offer them reduced sentences in exchange for testimony about the leaders. The indictments are massive – 50 pages, 100 pages, detailing every predicate act, every member of the enterprise, every overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

And federal prosecutors are getting more aggressive with RICO charges in 2025. It’s not just traditional organized crime anymore. You see RICO cases against street gangs, cybercrime rings, fraudulent business schemes, political corruption. The statute is broad enough to cover almost any ongoing criminal activity involving multiple people.

Defense becomes complicated because you’re not just defending against individual criminal acts – you’re defending against the narrative that you were part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. Even if you only committed one or two of the predicate acts personally, if prosecutors can prove you knowingly participated in the enterprise’s affairs, you’re liable for RICO violations. Your co-defendants’ crimes become your problem.

At Spodek Law Group – we’ve seen how federal prosecutors use RICO to pressure defendants into cooperation, how they leverage the massive exposure to force plea deals. Todd Spodek is a second-generation criminal defense attorney with many, many years of experience handling federal cases. These aren’t cases you handle with a public defender or a lawyer who doesn’t regularly practice in federal court. Racketeering charges require a defense strategy that challenges every element – the existence of the enterprise, your participation in it, whether the predicate acts actually form a pattern, whether they’re related. You need lawyers who understand how federal prosecutors think, how they build these cases, where the weaknesses are.