In United States criminal law, a predicate crime, or predicate offense, is a crime that forms one component of a larger, more serious crime. Predicate offenses arise most often as building blocks of racketeering charges, money laundering charges and charges of financing terrorism, where prosecutors must establish the underlying predicate act before the larger offense can be proven. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Elements of OffenseTo violate RICO a person must engage in a pattern of racketeering activity, meaning at least two predicate crimes within 10 years 1 Notable ExampleBribery, blackmail, extortion, fraud, theft, money laundering, counterfeiting, and illegal gambling 1 Jurisdiction VariationUnited States: predicate offences for money laundering were initially created by the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 and expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act 1 Classification
Offense GradeSerious or Indictable Offense 1 Connections
Has Offense Grade
Entity-backed identity for the offense-grade enum value this offense already carries, resolved to a crime concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The offense-grade fact itself stays on the offense unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Predicate crime (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia, Predicate crime, lead section
a predicate crime or offense is a crime which is a component of a larger crime. The larger crime may be racketeering, money laundering, financing of terrorism, etc.
Lead section, RICO paragraph
a person must 'engage in a pattern of racketeering activity', and in particular, must have committed at least two predicate crimes within 10 years
Lead section, list of predicate offences
bribery, blackmail, extortion, fraud, theft, money laundering, counterfeiting, and illegal gambling
United States anti-money laundering paragraph
these offences were initially created by the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 and have subsequently been expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act
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