The book Judas Pig - written by a former member of the so-called Canning Town Cartel in East London and Essex and one of the major organized crime groups in the UK - describes quite a few exploits of the Provo's. In Northern Ireland the Provo's were involved in poker machine rackets as well as construction racketeering and in Republican strongholds in Belfast they ran stuff like black taxi rackets as well. The Provo's "confiscated" tons of narcotics from smaller drug traffickers in Northern Ireland, which they then sold off to organized crime groups in the UK and Ireland, including major London-based crime firms. They had their own "interrogation chambers" hidden in desolate farmhouses; one scene described how a guy was interrogated for three weeks straight, he was tortured, had his teeth pulled out, his limbs smashed and broken with sledgehammers and after he finally gave up all the information they needed they put a burlap sack over his head, told him they were gonna let him go, led him out of the house and then unsuspectingly while the guy was thinking his ordeal was over and done with they blew his brains out.

Even into the 90's the Provisional IRA was nothing the mess with.