ring 復習
密輸が横行しているようです。
Gangsters, Grandmothers and Gold: Japan’s New Crime Wave
TOKYO — Sometimes the perpetrators are gangsters. Sometimes they are rather less accustomed to the criminal life. In one case, the ringleader of a middle-aged, female crime ring was said to be a 66-year-old woman.
An old-fashioned crime is experiencing a resurgence in Japan: gold smuggling. The authorities say they are contending with a startling rise in the amount of gold being brought illegally into the country. The smugglers — an array of professional criminals and enterprising amateurs — profit by dodging import duties and taxes, in some cases worth millions of dollars. Arrests have jumped 40-fold in just a few years.
（一部抜粋）
文中に何度か出てくるringに注目しました。
『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版，大修館）で調べたところ、数ある意味の中に「（私利などを得るための）徒党，一味，一団」が載っておりました。
Oxford Dictionary of English(Second Edition Reserved, Oxford University Press)にも、 "a group of people engaged in a shared enterprise, especially one involving illegal or unscrupulous activity"という定義がありました。
以上から文中では「密輸集団」のことを指していると考えられます。(Gomez)
