There are many types of organized crime and there are many types of individual crime. The one main difference between the two is that organized crime involves many people with the commission of each crime or a series of crimes. That organized group of people can be as small as a single gang that commits crimes in one particular area or that gang might be a part of a single organization that commits crimes on a national scale or even World-Wide.
Such is the case of a so called drug cartel that recruits people to grow and harvest the plants in question, process those plants into deadly and/or addictive drugs, ship that poison to wherever it will be sold and finally go as far as to take part in the actual sale of that poison to the final consumer. So too, some people will be required to account for the money received and pay those who are a part of the cartel.
Like it or not, each person who is part of an operation like that is a criminal. Some believe that the only way to put an end to such a criminal operation is to kill or capture the leader. Well, there are many leaders in such an organization and to stop any of the above branches of the entire criminal operation will not completely put an end to that drug business.
The fact of the matter is that there are too many people within that organization for law enforcement to completely stop its illegal activity. So too, the top tier of leaders are usually hiding in a Country where the elected politicians are as corrupt as can be and as friendly as possible to the leaders of those criminal operations. That is why tens of thousands of tons of illegal drugs find their way into the United States of America each year, in spite of the efforts of Federal, State and Local law enforcement.
If an individual person commits a crime without the support of other criminals that is believed to be an individual crime. It is the one person who robs a store, illegally enters a home or business, robs a bank or mugs people on the street. They usually act alone or with a few other people to commit the crime. That also includes people who might be independent operators who buy and then resell deadly drugs, deadly weapons and/or other stolen property to those who desire what is offered for sale.
Criminals exist in our World because every person has to have a way to stay healthy and alive. The truly greedy among us end up being the biggest criminals, in terms of the damage done to the most people during the time before they are captured, killed or otherwise neutralized.
