of these activities. Racketeering activity is defined as an act or threat "chargeable as any one of a laundry list of state felonies or any act that is indictable under specifically listed federal criminal statutes."
It is clear from a reading of RICO that Congress was focused on curtailing the influence of the criminal underworld on American business. Although RICO has both civil and criminal provisions, the latter substantially dominated its decisions before 1980. During the first decade of the statute's life, there were only nine civil RICO decisions. Beginning in 1980, however, RICO has been applied to far more than criminal prosecutions and "the majority of civil RICO suits since 1980 involve either common law commercial fraud or securities fraud, and some courts have allowed the application of RICO to such areas as antitrust violations and suits involving abortion protesters."
Prosecutors often use RICO in a wide variety of criminal contexts for at least three commonly cited reasons. First, Con
...