Fake handbags, watches, shoes and perfumes. The business of counterfeit goods is the largest underground industry in the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars are generated while sapping the economy, putting lives in jeopardy, and funding organized crime in the process.
From prostitution to slave labor, human trafficking is a booming business. This $32 billion underground industry knows no moral bounds, stretching around the globe. Crime Inc. examines the underground industry where hopelessness and greed create a sinister and sometimes lethal combination.
The over $70 billion industry of stolen goods is a complex web of stealing, buying, and selling--placing the items on the Internet, in flea markets, and even back on the shelves of legitimate stores. No one is safe, these modern day pirates steal from stores, semis, warehouses, even our very own homes.
The multibillion-dollar business of illegal gambling; online wagering; the debate over legalizing gambling.
The retail sales of prescription drug business topped $300 billion in 2010 alone and criminals are doing everything they can to get a piece of it. Between bribed medical professionals and online rogue pharmacies, strong prescription medicine like Oxycodone and Vicodin are falling into the wrong hands with tragic consequences.
Throughout the U.S., emergency rooms have seen a spike in drug overdoses involving extreme paranoia, psychosis, and some fatalities. The culprit? A newgeneration of synthetic drugs with benign-sounding names like Bath Salts, Vanilla Sky, and Cloud 9. Sold at head shops, gas stations, and online for as little at $20, the substances mimic marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy, and other illicit drugs. Andjust like these hardcore drugs, their side effects can be dangerous and even deadly at times. Synthetic drugs are designed by drug "chemists" who tweak the substances' formulas to try and keep the drugs legal, often relying on trial-anderror.In some cases, synthetic drugs are too new to be regulated - though law enforcement is catching up, outlawing the drugs soon after they hit the streets.They're relatively cheap and easy to get over the internet. And they're making lots of money for the producers and sellers. Rick Broider, president of the North American Herbal Incense Trade Associationlocated in New Hampshire, produces a variety of synthetic substances including synthetic marijuana. His organization claims that their products churn out big-time profits: $5.4 billion. Broider disputes that synthetic drugs have harmed anyone."Would we be a $5 billion dollar industry if people were truly dying?" he says. Federal law enforcement agencies, including the DEA, as well as several local agencies, such as the Tammany Parish (Louisiana) Sheriff's Office, which coversan area hard-hit by synthetic drugs, have agreed to give us access to undercover operations and raids of businesses selling synthetic drugs illegally.We could also revisit methamphetamine - one of the original synthetic drugs - more than a decade after the scourge first hit. As discussed, Carl Quintanilla produced a story on meth in New Jersey. Carl can do a ten-year retrospective on meth.
One minute is all it takes for a thief to steal your car. And every minute, a car isstolen somewhere in America. Car theft costs individuals and insurancecompanies $8 billion a year.Through interviews with former car thieves, this episode will take us inside theblack market of car theft, from the chop shops that strip a car for parts, to thethieves who specialize in stealing high-end automobiles like Mercedes and2BMWs for the "export" market in Asia.
The UN calls art crime a global industry and the FBI estimates losses running as high as $6 billion annually - and this surveyed number is probably low because it only includes a third of the 192 member countries of the United Nations. Art and antiquities theft ranks fourth in transnational crime after drugs, money laundering, and illegal arms shipments. But in the US art theft didn't even become a federal crime until 1995. Art crimes run the gamut from fraud to theft to looting and trafficking. Today, according to the Justice Department, the annual value of illegally trafficked artand cultural objects is surpassed only by the illegal trades in drug and gun smuggling. For savvy thieves, art has become a form of currency. It's easy to move across borders and few in law enforcement are trained to flag suspiciousitems. In fact, everything fueling the legitimate global economic revolution - the Internet, efficient shipping, mobile phones, and customs reforms (particularly in the EU) makes it easier for thieves to smuggle stolen art. And pulling off asuccessful crime relies on close ties between the illegitimate and legitimate art world. The art world. Mysterious and seductive. It's commerce based less on facts and figures than intangibles like reputation and intuition. And it's ripe for exploitation.
You may think of corporate espionage as one company spying on a competitor to see what's in their pipeline. But more often, corporate espionage is an "inside job," involving an employee leaving with trade secrets. Whatever its form,corporate espionage is a huge business. In 2008, the director of U.S. National Intelligence told Congress that intellectual property and data theft costs businesses $1 trillion every year, posing an enormous threat to America's economic power and competitiveness. Companies can no longer afford to look the other way as foreign spies, former employees and corporate rivals continue to attack some of America's most competitive industries by stealing secret information.
Rip it. Burn it. Steal it. Never before has it been so easy to copy a song, movie or game. It may seem harmless, but media piracy is a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise. Crime Inc. takes you inside the high tech and high-stakes underworld.
Healthcare fraud is one of the most harmful financial crimes, siphoning billions of dollars from patients and insurance companies to con men and scammers... and entering this underground is simple. From doctors who perform unnecessary surgeries to seemingly trustworthy businessmen who sell phony insurance... Crime Inc. takes you into this dark underworld.
Wherever there is a thing of beauty...and of value, there is someone who wants to buy - or steal - it. Fine paintings and other works of art are a magnet for criminals tempted by the lure of easy scores and outrageous paydays. From home invasions and museum heists to forgers passing off high-priced fakes, the damage of art theft and forgery can be incalculable.
