"Mobsters without borders" are global threat: U.S.

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Crime groups operating as "mobsters without borders" have gained significant footholds in global markets and provide logistic support to terrorists, the United States said on Wednesday.

Launching a campaign against such international criminals, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said they were more adaptable and sophisticated than La Cosa Nostra and other syndicates the U.S. government set out to defeat half a century ago.

"These international criminals pose real national security threats to this country," Mukasey said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. He cited recent cases, many with links to the former Soviet bloc.

"They touch all sectors of our economy, dealing in everything from cigarettes to oil; clothing to pharmaceuticals," Mukasey said.

A department assessment of the organized crime threat found such groups "control significant positions in the global energy and strategic materials markets," Mukasey said.

"They are expanding their holdings in these sectors, which corrupts the normal functioning of these markets and may have a destabilizing effect on U.S. geopolitical interests."

He cited Semion Mogilevich, indicted by the United States in 2003 and arrested in Russia this January, who was suspected of exerting influence over "large parts" of the natural gas industry in the former Soviet Union.

MONEY LAUNDERING