This study explores social causes of mafia-type crimes in Turkey. Some scholars view organized crimes and terrorism as different forms; however, others argue that there are some links between terrorism and organized crime. The most important link between the two crimes is grounded on economic gain. Organized crimes have spread out in Turkey very quickly by suppressing and threatening the public. In fact, organized crimes using violence, torture and threat against individuals have become a very important issue. The seriousness of the phenomena increased when the fact that PKK and other terrorist organizations have relationships which are grounded on economic gain. Mafia-type organizations utilized violence in order to gain profit, to collect tribute, to protect someone by pecuniary consideration and to collect checks and vouchers. The violence has become more intimidating when considering the use of a brutal terrorist organizations name. Therefore, they have become a threat for the Turkish public order, social relations and social peace. This study is the first study to explain mafia-type crimes by employing social disorganization theory. Negative binomial regression analysis is conducted to analyze the data. The analysis reveals that unemployment, poverty, and the number of religious institutions have turned out to be statistically significant effect on the occurrence of mafia-type organized crime in cities. However, family disruption, residential mobility, number of disorders and number of voluntary associations do not exert statistically significant effect on the distribution of mafia type crimes in cities.