As boss of the Westies, Coonan presided over one of the most violent street gangs in New York City during the late 1970s and 1980s, operating out of Hell's Kitchen at a time when the neighborhood's criminal landscape was particularly brutal. His organization's willingness to carry out contract killings eventually drew the attention of the Gambino crime family, with whom the Westies maintained a working alliance. That partnership, and the violence underlying it, ultimately provided federal prosecutors with the foundation for the racketeering case that ended with his 75-year sentence.

Over five years in the industrial city of Tolyatti, Rylkov carried out a sustained campaign of violence against children that went unresolved for much of the decade, a period when Russian law enforcement capacity was severely strained by post-Soviet upheaval. The scale of his offenses — dozens of victims across several years — reflects both the extent of his crimes and the conditions that allowed them to continue.

Over roughly two years in the early 1980s, Eyler conducted a pattern of killings across the Midwest that exploited the anonymity of interstate travel, targeting young men and teenage boys whose bodies were found scattered across Indiana and Illinois. The geographic spread of his crimes complicated investigations and allowed him to continue for years before his arrest. His case is further complicated by the question of an alleged accomplice, a claim he maintained to his death, and by the deathbed confession he entrusted to his attorney — a disclosure that named twenty additional victims but came too late for formal prosecution.

He inherited his place in one of the 'Ndrangheta's most prominent clans before he was even old enough to know his father, who was killed when Paolo was less than a year old. The De Stefano 'ndrina has long held significant power within the Calabrian organized crime structure, and his eventual position near the top of that hierarchy — reached after years as a fugitive — reflects how deeply dynastic succession runs through the organization. His arrest in 2009, made while vacationing with family at a Sicilian resort, underscored both the reach of Italian law enforcement and the degree to which figures like him had learned to move through ordinary life while remaining wanted.