Organised and professional crime

Organised crime in Finland consists of networks of locally and internationally active criminal groups, and their close associates, service providers and financiers. There are around 90–100 identified criminal groups, mostly based in Finland, and they involve around 1,000 people. The number of identified criminal groups and the networks they form has increased dramatically over the past two decades and, the same time, the influence of foreign-run criminal organisations in Finland has grown significantly. Internationally, the involvement organised crime in business and, further, in economic crimes has increased.

Infiltration into legitimate business and social structures benefits criminal activity

Organised criminals aim to increase their influence on society through violence, intimidation, corruption and other improper influence. However, the main objective of organised crime is to obtain direct or indirect economic benefit from crime and try to convert it into legal wealth through various real or artificial arrangements.

Europol (2024) (PDF 3,95 MB) estimates that up to 80% of organised crime benefits in some way from the business sector, and around half of criminal groups and networks have their own businesses or strong links to business. Companies are an important tool for criminals, both in the commission of crimes and in the successful management of illegally obtained wealth. The sectors particularly vulnerable to infiltration by organised crime are construction, the hotel and restaurant sector and logistics. Penetration of logistical hubs and supply chains is used in particular to illegally import prohibited substances and restricted products.

According to the 2024 study (PDF 1,1 MB), organised crime in Finland has a strong foothold in the Finnish economy. Members of criminal groups and people linked to their activities have business connections in around 2,700 companies in Finland. Companies linked to organised crime not only perform their obligations poorly but can also be used to launder the proceeds of criminal activity. Anonymity-enhancing methods such as highly encrypted communication channels, cryptocurrencies and location masking of online services are also used to conceal the proceeds of crime and the perpetrators. The proceeds of crime are often systematically diverted beyond the reach of the authorities, for example by using them in ways that make it difficult for the enforcement authorities.

Criminal business models are as diverse as legal business models and are changing rapidly. Various types of fraud are exploited, including identity misuse and the rapid creation of associations and companies.

Exploitation of professional enablers and the criminal service industry

Organised crime uses professional enablers such as accountants, lawyers and consultants. Typically, the role of such enablers is to divert illicit funds into the legal economy or to cover up the real operators by using complex schemes and exploiting existing structures. This arrangement may involve a chain of subcontractors, each of which only performs a certain part and is not aware of the whole. The activity is network-based and the benefits and advice are shared between many operators. The term crime-as-a-service (CaaS) is used to refer to the production of criminal services.

Criminal networks also involve influential and wealthy individuals who are not part of any particular criminal group, but who finance and exploit criminal groups and other criminal operators as partners in complex crime. Through their actions, these individuals enable organised crime and contribute to its growth.

Organised crime exploits a wide range of criminal opportunities

In Finland the market for organised crime is largely made up of drug trafficking, which also involves gun crime and violence. Alongside this, criminal networks are increasingly professionalising the smuggling of highly taxed products such as snus and cigarettes. Other areas of organised crime include human trafficking, human smuggling and labour exploitation, prostitution, evasion of international sanctions, a wide range of fraud, financial and property crime and corruption. Finland has also seen an increasing number of cases of counterfeiting, crime in the food chain and various serious environmental crimes, typically involving organised crime. Organised crime also abuses welfare services such as subsidies and grants.

Organised crime is based on networking and the use or threats of excessive violence. There are also many people who, for one reason or another, voluntarily, perhaps through ignorance or lack of understanding, work for the benefit of criminal groups. Such people ('useful fools') are sought by criminals in the environments they see fit to influence. For example, international criminal motorcycle gangs have been found to cooperate with the far right and football hooligans.

The digitalisation of commerce and communications has boosted the networking of organised crime. Most crime is at least partly cyber and social media-based. A significant proportion of cybercrime, such as various scams and black-market platforms, is internationally networked crime, with Finnish victims being part of a broader set of scam and fraud messages.

The surge in cybercrime by organised crime groups and underworld operators may have a significant impact on the forms of cooperation between criminal groups. For example, cybercrime groups may use the same money laundering or logistics service providers as more traditional criminal groups.

According to Europol's Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA 2025), state actors exploit organised crime and criminal networks to exert hybrid influence, as this benefits both parties and allows state actors to conceal their involvement by exploiting criminals. The aim of criminal operators and networks is to benefit from cooperation, first and foremost economically. Criminal networks are used by state actors for cybercrime, spreading disinformation, smuggling and systematic sabotage, among other things.

<p>The criminal activities of criminal motorcycle gangs are already well-established in Finland. These groups cover the whole of Finland and most of them are part of international criminal organisations that have been operating for decades. Long-standing groups include Bandidos MC Finland and Hells Angels MC Finland. Outlaws MC Finland is also now well established in the country. The legal orders to disband Cannonball MC and the United Brotherhood have significantly reduced the visibility of their emblems, but the groups are still suspected of continuing their criminal activities. The control of disbanded criminal organisations requires active and determined intervention by the police.</p> <p>According to an early 2025 estimate, the street gangs identified by the police include around 180 key individuals who are actively involved in criminal activity. Street gangs are not structured in a fixed way, but are networked and dynamically evolving. They have no formal organisation, and criminal activities are carried out both within individual networks and through inter-network cooperation. Prison sentences and measures taken by the authorities also have an impact on the gangs.</p> <p>The gangs are often linked to a specific neighbourhood, but criminal activity is widespread and not confined to a single neighbourhood. Criminal activities also reflected throughout Finland via cyber networks, for example through drugs and fraud. These networks have also been found to have links abroad and with other criminal networks. Among other things, it is estimated that the number of people associated with street gangs who have links to Swedish organised crime has increased.</p> <p>There are many foreign-run criminal organisations, particularly in the Metropolitan region, and their impact already spans the country. The main operators come from the Western Balkans, Romania, the Baltic states, Russia, North Africa, Iraq and Sweden. Almost all their criminal proceeds are "repatriated" abroad. So far, few indications of mafia- and clan-type groups and networks, where membership is usually based on family ties, have been found in Finland.</p>

Organised crime extensively combatted in Finland

In February 2025, the Finnish Government adopted a decision in principle on a strategy to combat organised crime for the period 2025–2030, and related programme of measures. The strategy will strengthen cooperation in the fight against crime, reduce the criminal proceeds of offenders, hinder criminal activities, prevent organised crime from infiltrating the infrastructure of society and improve the protection of people particularly vulnerable to crime.

Government Decision of Principle on the Strategy and Programme of Measures to Combat Organised Crime 2025-2030 [.fi]›

In the Criminal Code (chapter 17, section 1a), an organised criminal group means a structured association of at least three persons, which is established for a certain period of time and which acts in concert to commit offences punishable by a maximum penalty of at least four years' imprisonment, or offences referred to in chapter 11, section 10 (agitation against a population group) or chapter 15, section 9 (threatening a person to be heard in the administration of justice) of the Criminal Code.

More on street gang crime on the police website [.fi]›
More about organised crime on the police website [.fi]›
More on smuggling Customs control annual publication 2024 (PDF 1,5 MB) (in Finnish)
More about professional enablers
Read more about how organised crime exploits legitimate business activities