Organized trans-national groups have formed criminal enterprises to commit a variety of financial crimes. The crimes include financial schemes and scams including fencing operations, identity theft, organized retail crime, public aid fraud, cargo theft, money laundering, credit card and bank fraud. These groups victimize legitimate businesses each year for billions of dollars. The organized enterprises often operate in the form of semi-legitimate businesses that commit an ongoing and diverse series of these crimes. Each of these enterprises is connected to numerous other similar criminal enterprises that work together to facilitate these crimes. Many of these criminal enterprises finance and become a conduit for other criminal activity including violence, narcotics trafficking, and other gang activity.