The activities of organized crime are not always easily defined. Groups can be extremely flexible and can often shift from one illegal activity to another very quickly. Investigations into organized crime are typically complex, taking police across jurisdictions and increasingly across international borders. The economic costs of organized crime are enormous, but it also has social, and health and safety consequences. Legitimate businesses suffer because organized crime creates competing businesses using laundered money.
Society suffers through a loss of tax dollars.
Insurance rates increase. Drug use leads to an increase in health care costs. In 1998, the Department of the Solicitor General commissioned an independent study into how organized crime affects our society. Money laundering is any act or attempted act to conceal or disguise the identity of illegally obtained proceeds so that they appear to have originated from legitimate sources. Up to 16,000 people may be smuggled into Canada every year.