The top-structure of criminal organizations can be compared to that of a holding company. It provides management, organization and financing, with a fairly wide range of criminal and semi-criminal products, like arms smuggling, drugs, prostitution, gambling and smuggling of human beings. At the operational level there is a wider diversification of branches and products. This way of looking at criminal organizations makes it clear that the difference between them and the legal economy is thin ice, especially in the upper echelons. This is not surprising.
Criminal economy is part of the official economy and related to it.
Corruption To bribe is easier than to kill. What's more, the risks of killing officials, especially police officers, are high. Corruption is the more sophisticated way. The bigger the criminal volume as part of the legal economy, the greater the criminal involvement in legal business. And when officials are aware of that involvement, or ought to be, there is by definition a case of corruption.