# Transnational Organized Crime **Acronym:** TOC **Entity class:** Cross-border criminal-threat domain ## Definition **Transnational organized crime (TOC)** consists of organized criminal groups and networks operating across national borders or jurisdictions to generate revenue, power, or influence through sustained illicit activity. The FBI describes modern transnational criminal enterprises as fluid, globally connected networks involved in activities including drug and weapons trafficking, cyber-enabled fraud, money laundering, identity theft, human trafficking, alien smuggling, kidnapping, extortion, corruption, and murder. TOC matters to the counterterrorism ontology because it uses many of the same operational substrates: finance, logistics, communications, travel, facilitators, aliases, trusted access, cross-border movement, and network compartmentation. The overlap is infrastructural and methodological even when the governing criminal, intelligence, military, and diplomatic authorities differ. On March 19, 2025, the FBI renamed the [[wiki/Terrorist Screening Center|Terrorist Screening Center]] as the [[wiki/Threat Screening Center|Threat Screening Center]] to reflect an expanded watchlisting mission that includes transnational organized crime. The FBI tied that expansion to cartel and gang members covered by [[wiki/Foreign Terrorist Organization|Foreign Terrorist Organization]] designations while retaining the center's terrorism-screening role. ## Relationships - **federal lead organization:** [[wiki/Federal Bureau of Investigation|Federal Bureau of Investigation]]. - **screening nexus:** [[wiki/Threat Screening Center|Threat Screening Center]], [[wiki/Watchlisting|Watchlisting]], and [[wiki/Identity Intelligence|Identity Intelligence]]. - **network substrates:** [[wiki/Financial Network|Financial Network]], [[wiki/Logistics Network|Logistics Network]], [[wiki/Communications Network|Communications Network]], [[wiki/Travel Network|Travel Network]], and [[wiki/Facilitation Network|Facilitation Network]]. - **designation nexus:** [[wiki/Foreign Terrorist Organization|Foreign Terrorist Organization]]. - **collection:** [[collections/Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and the Intelligence Environment|Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and the Intelligence Environment]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [FBI — Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, section “Transnational Organized Crime”](https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches-and-testimony/oversight-of-the-federal-bureau-of-investigation-071223) (2023-07-12). - [FBI — “The Terrorist Screening Center Changes Name to the Threat Screening Center”](https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/the-terrorist-screening-center-changes-name-to-the-threat-screening-center) (2025-03-19). **As of:** 2026-09-23