The structure of American gangs (important)

Everywhere in the world is gone. It’s not easy for brothers. I’ve been looking for you for a long time. Please give me some sunshine

The largest East Asian gang organization: Yakuza

An East Asian gangster with a history of hundreds of years. It can operate openly in Japan. The Godfather is democratically elected and made public through press conferences. There are currently about 100,000 members, and the three largest gangs are the Yamaguchi-gumi (26,000 people), the Inagawa-kai (8,300 people) and the Sumiyoshi-kai (8,200 people). The annual income is more than 100 billion US dollars, 35% of which comes from drugs, and 20% is legal income from legitimate investments.

If someone is causing trouble on the streets of Japan, the first ones to arrive will not be the police, but Yakuza members. They will use the most brutal means to deal with troublemakers to maintain order on their territory; if a murder occurs, Yakuza will spare no effort to investigate the truth like the police, and then hand over the murderer to the real police. To reciprocate the favor, senior Yakuza members would recuse themselves before every government crackdown. Considering the police's reputation, they usually leave a few guns behind for the police to "confiscate".

Yakuza has a good relationship with the political circles. Behind every election, there are funds and votes from Yakuza. So when the Yamaguchi Gang godfather was imprisoned for murder, former Prime Minister Shinsuke Akishi and two former ministers jointly released him on bail. This incident shocked the world, but the Japanese took it for granted. In 1975, the Japanese police discovered a huge photo in the home of a Yamaguchi-gumi godfather. In the photo, the godfather was toasting with the then Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshi.

Yakuza and the authorities are not completely free of conflicts. When godfather Tian Ganggelu died of a heart attack, the Yamaguchi-gumi decided to hold a traditional Buddhist funeral in public, despite the police's repeated persuasion. In retaliation, police arrested nearly 900 Yamaguchi-gumi members. But on the day of the funeral, 1,300 followers from all over the country gathered in Kobe. About 800 riot police wearing helmets and holding shields were standing guard all around, and another 500 police officers searched everyone attending the funeral at the airport and train station, including Japan's top star Ken Takakura. Ken Takakura became famous in the Yakuza film "Abashiri Prison" and played the role of Tagang Gelu himself in "Tangang Life Trilogy".

After the funeral, 108 senior members voted for Takenaka Masahisa to succeed him as godfather. However, the second boss, Hiroshi Yamamoto, refused to cooperate. He held a press conference. He told the Japanese people that the time had come to fight for the truth, and officially announced: "I cannot agree with Takenaka to be the godfather of the Yamaguchi-gumi. This is my sincere and final decision."

2 A month later, Yamamoto and 18 other senior members formed the "Ichiwa" gang and took away half of the Yamaguchi-gumi members. In order not to let Yamamoto Hiroshi's limelight overwhelm him, Takenaka Masahisa held a more grand inauguration ceremony. More than 300 members participated, all wearing black suits, white ties and gold-plated gang badges. In a Japanese-style hotel, the former godfather's widow solemnly handed a dagger, a symbol of supreme power, to the new godfather.

It is very difficult to survive in the Japanese gang. In June 1993, Yoshiro Komiyamasa, a group leader of the Inagawa Society, shot himself because he was unable to meet the protection fee quota allocated by the organization. Before committing suicide, he called his mistress and said: "It is better to die than to be embarrassed and expelled from the organization because I can't borrow money." Three weeks later, a team leader of the Yamaguchi group also committed suicide for the same reason.

The most arrogant drug cartel: Medellin

Pablo Escobar was once selected as one of the seven richest people in the world by Fortune magazine. He has 40,000 His private army is well-equipped; his special plane is called the Skylark. This combat helicopter originally belonged to the Colombian Navy. It is equipped with multiple rocket launchers and Sidewinder missiles and is known as an "air tank." Escobar dispatched three fighter jets to make an emergency landing of the "Skylark" at his airport, becoming his private plane.

Escobar is the most arrogant drug lord in history.

The policeman who arrested him was shot dead within three days; the judge who tried him sent his semen-stained bra and panties to the judge's office after his wife was gang-raped; the Colombian Attorney General who wanted him was turned over by him A $100 million reward was offered for his capture, and he ended up dead on the street. In 1987, his brother Ochoa was arrested. The president of the Colombian Supreme Court who was in charge of the trial resigned, and the Minister of Justice had to cancel the arrest warrant.

But in the eyes of locals, Escobar is a hero. "The Colombian people have finally taken up a powerful weapon to fight US imperialism. We bear no responsibility for the 25 million drug addicts in American society!" Escobar said in an interview with the media.

The US government has always wanted to get rid of Escobar, which is not easy. In March 1984, under the command of U.S. military advisers, 5,000 Colombian government troops took a Hercules transport plane and headed straight for the Medellin Group's home base. With the air support of dozens of American-made F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters, 150 drug traffickers were killed and thousands more were captured.

However, Escobar’s counterattack was also extremely sharp. Just one month later, Colombia’s anti-drug commander, Justice Minister Lara, was shot dead. In May, more than 50 drug traffickers simply stormed into the Colombian Ministry of Justice building and tried to kidnap senior officials from the Ministry of Justice, Supreme Court, Supreme Prosecutor's Office and Anti-Narcotics Police who were meeting. More than 400 military and police officers fought hard, and the two sides reached a stalemate for a time. Subsequently, 300 drug traffickers carrying surface-to-surface missiles came for reinforcements. The fighting lasted until late at night, until the Colombian Defense Forces joined the fight. The drug traffickers left with 5 judges and 1 police chief, leaving behind the bodies of 34 police officers and 11 judges.

In 1989, NASA used the most advanced "Dapeng" reconnaissance satellite and infrared thermal imaging camera to determine the exact location of the Medellin Group, and the Colombian government launched the largest anti-drug operation in history: 200 special forces trained by the United States parachuted directly into Tiger's Lair. Thousands of officers and soldiers from the elite 14th Brigade of the National Defense Force surrounded them on the left and right sides, cutting off escape routes on land and sea. Finally, a bomber group of 50 F-16 fighter jets was formed to attack Medellin. The base was destructively bombed until it was leveled. However, Escobar and his men miraculously escaped and continued to struggle with government forces.

In 1991, the Colombian government accepted Escobar’s three conditions for recruitment: ensuring the legalization of his personal property; punishing police officers who violated the human rights of drug traffickers and their families; and building a building guarded by regular troops. special prisons to ensure their safety.

Gangs fattened on the border: Mexican gangs

In May 2003, U.S. Customs discovered 80 stowaways from Mexico on a truck, 18 of whom had suffocated. And die. Things like this happen every day, with "smugglers" from all over the world gathering on the Mexican border. People of all kinds who embrace the American dream tirelessly break through the border again and again and are expelled again and again. Statistics tell them that if they don't die suddenly on the way, they can enter the wealthy United States in an average of 7 adventures.

Drug trafficking is a repertoire on the U.S.-Mexico border, with more than $10 billion in drugs entering the United States from here every year.

Kidnapping is a traditional game of Mexican gangs. Kidnapping here ranks second in the world after Colombia. Carletri, the most wanted criminal arrested in 2000, has committed more than 20 major crimes alone. From the boss of the Mexican Chrysler Automobile Company to the president of the Presidential Hotel Group, anyone caught by him will never run away. Not even foreign ambassadors were safe from plunder. In November 2002, Spanish King Carlos officially visited Mexico. As the Spanish ambassador to Mexico was on his way to the airport to greet the king, thugs ransacked the car, which had a Spanish flag and diplomatic plates. Afterwards, the Spanish Embassy in Mexico said that they did not plan to report the case to the police because "it is a pure waste of time and will not lead to any results."

Culiacan, Guadalajara, Juarez, Matamoros, Sonora and Tijuana - these six major Mexican gang families control the United States and They are overwhelmed by the 3,200-kilometer-long border.

Drug dealers and organizers of illegal immigration are happy to gather around them and share the hearty scraps.

The Mexican government did not sit idly by. They paid heavily to hire two "Mafia nemesis" as consultants. One is former New York Mayor Giuliani, and the other is former Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando. But what was the result? Giuliani, who received US$4 million in consulting fees, believes that the first results will take at least three years.

Benefiting from the end of the Cold War: Russian gangs

After the end of the Cold War, Russian gangs I am finally free to compete with my foreign colleagues on their skills. The two sides cherished each other and felt that they had met too late. Russian gangs provide weapons to Nigeria, purchase drugs from Colombia, cooperate with the Italian mafia to launder money, and work with the Japanese Yakuza to develop the porn market. Their attempts to sell nuclear materials have always been a lingering nightmare in the mind of the US government. The director of the FBI believes that Russian gangs have replaced the former Soviet army and become a new threat to the European and American security systems.

In Russia, the gangs control everything. The "godfather of sports" Toktakhonov not only manipulated the referees at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics to order his athletes to win the pairs skating championship, but also extended his hand to the tennis world. Kafelnikov, Safin and Kournikova publicly admitted that they were friends with the "godfather of sports", but they all refused to go into details. The "Hot Girl" of Ku explained: "I am a Russian, and I want to go back there." The living people can only remain silent, and the sports people who dare to talk about the details are dead. In 1996, the general manager of the Spartak Professional Hockey Club was shot to death. Within a year, the head of the Russian Ice Hockey Association was in hell. Two months later, the general manager of Spartak Moscow Football Club also met with the King of Hell.

Online prostitution is a sign that Russian gangs have entered the information age. Although there are definitely women from good families on international marriage websites, if the person seeking marriage is too beautiful, there may be another mystery. Russia's "Pravda" said that cross-border marriages in the 1970s were controlled by Russian gangs. After a bride married to the United States became familiar with the local environment, she would get her sisters to go there and jointly develop the local market. Whether it is true or not is unknown, but there are indeed many girls with bright eyes and white teeth on Russia’s largest international dating website. If you are willing to pay $2,000, the website can arrange a "special" blind date trip for you.

Crime Capital - St. Petersburg

Russian President Vladimir Putin spent US$1.5 billion to celebrate the "300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg", and the heads of 44 countries also came to celebrate. But in the eyes of locals, this is a "crime capital".

In a new round of conflict that broke out in 2000, Kalush, the president of Baltic Oil Company, was killed in broad daylight in the city center, while the second-in-command of Russia's largest beer factory, 35-year-old Vo Erseman was also killed by a mysterious professional gunman at his doorstep. In 2002, St. Petersburg police seized more than 2,000 weapons, including more than 100 grenades and 21 machine guns. Local media believe that what the police seized is "not even the tip of the iceberg" compared with what the gangs hold.

In this crime capital, it seems hard for officials to stay clean. Rumor has it that St. Petersburg Mayor Vladimir Yakovlev won two re-elections with gang support. Even Putin, a president known for his innocence, seems inseparable. According to the US "Newsweek" report, US and European intelligence officials suspect that a Russian-German real estate development company in St. Petersburg is involved in underworld money laundering, and Putin served on the company's advisory board when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Although there is no evidence that Putin has benefited from this company, the pervasive smell of gangsters can still be smelled in these clues.

The notorious Chinese gang: Big Circle Gang

The earliest Chinese gangs were called "Chinese heroes". They were entitled to be proud. In the face of the police's indifference, they could only unite to deal with it. Outside of the local gangsters, they have no choice.

The earliest Chinese gang to appear in police files was the ABC (American-born Chinese) organization in New York's Chinatown in the 1970s. ABC fought a three-year war with the Mafia, causing the Gambino family to lose 37 of its capable men. According to FBI wiretap recordings of Paul Gambino, the godfather believed that the Mafia could no longer control Chinatown and should give up. In this way, ABC "liberated" Chinatown and gained a reputation in the underground society.

After losing its common enemies, ABC began to fight internal conflicts, and the civil war lasted for 10 years. It was not until 1985 that the US police successfully undercover and put all the bosses in prison in one fell swoop, and Chinatown regained its tranquility. But peace is short-lived, and conflict is the eternal theme. The failure of ABC provided an opportunity for another Chinese gangster to rise rapidly. Smuggling and high-tech crime became the new oil and water in Chinatown.

The Daquan Gang is only a gang in its early stages. It does not have a strict organizational structure, and most of its core members have military backgrounds. The Big Circle Gang first became famous in Hong Kong, and then moved to North America and Australia with the flow of immigrants from the mainland.

In the early 1980s, the standard equipment of the Big Circle Gang was the "Black Star" (May 4th pistol). Although the Black Star has poor directivity (it can deflect by 20 centimeters at a distance of 25 meters) and a bad grip angle (the muzzle of the gun is downward when held normally, so the wrist must be raised), its penetrating power is extremely strong and extremely Suitable for gangsters in close combat. At that time, the bulletproof vests of the Hong Kong police were absolutely shot and filled with holes when encountering the "Black Star". Therefore, experienced Hong Kong police turned around and ran away when they saw the "Black Star".

Canada is also the sphere of influence of the Big Circle Gang. On the list of the local Organized Crime Investigation Bureau, the Big Circle Gang has surpassed the Lotus Gang and the Vietnam Gang from Hong Kong and Taiwan to become the boss of Asian gangs. It teamed up with the local Hells Angels gang to control half of the wholesale drug market.

The Big Circle Gang is also famous in Australia. In 2002, the Australian police uncovered a drug trafficking case involving hundreds of millions of dollars, and found that 10 members of the Big Circle Gang were involved. They not only drove the Vietnamese "5T Party" out of Australia's Chinatown, but also launched a new round of opium war against local white people.

The think tank of the underworld: the American Jewish Gang

Behind every successful man, there is a Jewish think tank. George W. Bush's brain trust was Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz, and Luciano's Jewish brain trust was Meyer Lansky, the only foreigner to attend the Mafia National Congress. Although he did not have the right to vote, the Italian godfathers respected him very much because Lansky not only had a mind, but also controlled the Mafia's financial revenue and expenditure.

Lansky and Luciano's friendship dates back to childhood. When Luciano asked the Jewish kid for protection money, the answer he got was: "Put your protection money into your asshole, I don't need it." They became friends from then on. In addition to the same ambition and violence, they Both are calm career criminals. In the 1920s, Luciano and Lansky started the "Seven Group" and monopolized the moonshine market in New York. In order to maintain his friendship with Lansky, Luciano even killed his godfather, Masselia.

Under Lansky's planning, Luciano step by step transformed the mafia full of thug atmosphere into a well-organized modern society. When Luciano was imprisoned, Lansky managed to rescue him; when Luciano was exiled to Sicily, Lansky became his representative in the United States.

However, the friendship between the godfathers is based on strength. Although Luciano still had a strong influence in Sicily, remote control was not as good as being on the scene. Lansky began to quietly develop his own power. An important move was to invest in the establishment of the casino city of Las Vegas.

It was Benjamin Siegel, Lansky's childhood comrade, who made the suggestion; it was Lansky who was accustomed to pulling the strings behind the scenes who pushed the Mafia National Council to adopt the suggestion. In 1943, Siegel began building the first casino, the "Flamingo" Hotel, in the desolate town of Las Vegas.

However, the opening of the hotel in 1946 was a complete failure, and $6 million was wasted. What's even more fatal is that Siegel's girlfriend, Virginia Hill, had an extra $500,000 in her account in Switzerland. This angered Lansky and the Mafia. While he sold the bankrupt hotel for $50,000 to get rid of the creditors, he also urged the committee to pass the death sentence against Siegel.

Two years later, the hotel reopened. After the previous failure, this opening was a great success, earning $1 million in the first year. In the 1940s, this was equivalent to a year's protection fee income for the New York Mafia. More and more hotels were built that laid golden eggs. By the 1960s, Lansky and his Jewish gang had 17 casinos in Las Vegas, while the Mafia only had 11.

Lansky is also remarkable in that he always hides behind the Mafia. He has a share of all the mafia's income; but all the blows from the government and police fall on the back of the mafia.

Arrogant Canadian gangs: Hells Angels

In the 1960s, a group of American hippies who rode around on high-powered motorcycles coined the term. Wearing black leather jackets and bearded sideburns, these fat, rude, never-showered guys traveled along the highways across North America, terrorizing many quiet towns and cities and attracting many admirers. In the 1980s, the "Angels" who were tired of wandering established the Hells Angels gang in Canada, which has now grown to become Canada's number one gang. Headquartered in Montreal, it has about 40,000 members and its main business is drug trafficking.

In 1995, a turf war broke out in Quebec between the Hells Angels and another major gang, the Rolling Stones. The conflict lasted for 7 years. In the back-and-forth murder and revenge, 160 people from both sides went to hell. Due to the growing dissatisfaction among civilians, the Canadian police launched "Operation Spring 2001". More than 2,000 police officers arrested more than 100 "angels" overnight. The police hinted that if the fighting between the two sides continues, they will take more severe repressive measures. The calls for peace had an effect. On the afternoon of September 26, 2001, the two sides held a closed-door meeting in a court in Quebec. It's quiet and safe there. No one can bring guns into the courthouse, and police anti-crime teams don't visit the courthouse. Maurice Butcher, the godfather of the Hells Angels, and Fred Temmer, the boss of the Rolling Stones, each brought three assistants and reached a historic settlement in the solemn court. A spokesman for Quebec's Ministry of Security later confirmed the news, but stressed that the settlement between the two parties would not affect the police's response to violence. However, since then, the Canadian police have never conducted large-scale anti-gang operations.

Triad criminal activities threaten the world

Hong Kong triads are considered to be the largest in the world The most feared organized crime gang. The illegal activities of this secretive, well-organized gang with tentacles all over the world include drug trafficking, extortion, pornography, kidnapping, organized smuggling, various counterfeiting and fraud, pirated videos, loan sharking and gambling. One Western expert and author estimates that the Triads handle 90% of the world's heroin trade. Because the gang operates in a highly secretive manner, it is difficult to distinguish rumors from facts when examining the scope and extent of its activities. But Martin Booth, the author of the book "The Dragon Syndicate" (The Dragon Syndicate), tried to explore the gang culture of the Triad more deeply. Citing United Nations sources, he said the Triads are known to pose the greatest potential threat to the world.

It has existed since ancient times

The origin of triads can be traced back to the power of civil gangs in ancient Chinese feudal society. Booth's research in the book states that the first "formal" triad organization appeared in the ninth century AD. At that time, this secret gang mainly provided protection for wealthy families. The name "Triad" is believed to represent the harmony of heaven, earth and man.

The basis for the development of members in early secret gangs was mainly clan alliances, mutual protection and repayment of private debts or repayment of favors.

The Triads grew out of this gang and existed as a subculture for centuries. But in the 19th century, the Chinese court began to adopt a shoot-to-kill policy against the secret socialist gangs.

All over the world

As Chinese continue to immigrate to various parts of the world, the power of the Triads is also growing globally. Triads have taken root in many countries, including the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia and the United States, and in Hong Kong alone, there are 50 triad gangs. It is said that there are currently four triad gangs operating in the UK, the largest of which is called 14K.

In China, the power of triads has also increased in recent years. In early 2004, the Chinese government launched a campaign against organized crime gangs, reportedly arresting thousands of people believed to be triad members.

In other countries around the world, local police also find it difficult to deal with the Triad forces that have penetrated local society, because this organization usually only operates within the Chinese community. Victims of triads are often too frightened to report crimes to local police, and witnesses to the incidents, even if they do give evidence to authorities, often recant their testimony close to court hearings.