AskHistorians

Black Flag could be one depending on the side you take. While not officially organized crime but here nor there. A Black Flag was used by regular folk and flew it high. Think of July 4th and almost every home has an American Flag, back the it was usually a Black Flag. A Black Flag means no quarter to any Brits but was also an advertisement they would take in anyone who is for the Continental Army. This kind of set the bases for getting a warrant to search a house. Now on the Naval Side it was used by Continental Privateers. While they did not get together and commit robberies or so it was a unified concept and very very much illegal at the time to fly one. The flip side to that coin also let the Brits know which house they could just kick the door in or burn it down. So like organized crime there was a choice at the time to go with something that was "illegal" at the time. It was kind of like an insignia. Then pirates developed Jolly Roger (that is another rabbit hole). Usually if you flew the black flag in the Continental States it kind of meant you or your family were antagonizing the Brits by either hit or run tactics. Kind of think of drive by's today. It got so bad that people who flew it would not give any quarter to any Brit no matter how fucked up they were. Look up the Waxhaws Massacre. But again Organized Crime is subjective. For example should Al Capone be labeled a criminal and crime gang leader because he did order people to be killed (not directly of course ;)) Or was he a savior and ahead of his time socialist like give turkeys and can goods out of a truck to the neighborhood or by opening soup kitchens that served 3k people a day. Now if you look into Cartels they do the same thing it's their home area they take care of first. Like Organized Crime giving back to the community. I could go on for days with this. If need be I can expound on more direct connection to Organized Crime