Criminological definitions of organized crime on the digital test bench: towards a physical–digital framework

Abstract The question of whether cybercrime groups qualify as organized crime is a central debate in contemporary criminology. Classical definitions, rooted in studies of Cosa Nostra and mafia-type organizations, emphasize hierarchy, violence, corruption, monopoly, and extra-legal governance. Applied to cybercrime, these benchmarks often exclude cybercrime groups from the category of organized crime, reflecting historical trajectories rather than empirical realities. This article subjects existing definitions of organized crime to a “digital test bench.” Drawing on von Lampe’s collection of definitions and Varese’s analytical synthesis, we identified recurrent constitutive elements and applied them to 71 judicial cases from the UNODC SHERLOC database that combine cybercrime with participation in an organized criminal group. These cases do not capture the entire empirical landscape of cybercrime groups, but they provide a valuable judicial vantage point for testing criminological definitions. The findings show that cybercrime groups consistently display collaboration, continuity, profit orientation, and enterprise, as well as network organization, while rarely exhibiting violence, corruption, or monopolistic ambitions. We argue that cybercrime groups meeting the definitional threshold should be recognized as organized crime. To capture this evolution, we propose the Physical–Digital Organized Crime Framework , an integrated model in which organized crime is understood as a genus encompassing different species and attributes along a physical–digital spectrum. Mafia-type organizations remain a distinctive species but no longer define the category; instead, the digital dimension functions as a cross-cutting qualifier across contemporary organized crime.