When I was in the military we sometimes had to work with the US. CIA, navy, that sort of stuff. When it comes to crime, they are very organized. Especially war crimes are their specialty.

Once in Somalia a US sailing yacht was captured by pirates. A US destroyer intercepted and opened fire without warning. The yacht was completely perforated, covered in blood. The US crew, of which they knew they were alive, well and on board, and the Somali pirates were splashed open by .50 cal fire. And because they killed the US crew on the boat, they bombed a village as retaliation, claiming they were pirates while there was clear evidence there were only fishermen.

This is just an example of the many war crimes I’ve seen them do.

Studied abroad, made some friends. One asked me to ride along to his work. His work wasn’t ahhh, ‘above board’ and he had pissed off his boss, so he took me along as insurance that he wouldn’t be treated badly as their govt would be very pissed to have a foreigner disappear as well. Holy smokes, that was an intensive language immersion experience.

Nonexistant

Alright, I’ll bite. I got a favor from the mafia once. I had bought a motorcycle and the seller gave me an unsigned title, un-notarized. There was a Curio shop on our street - these ancient men ran it, but never sold a Curio, they did sell cigarettes and ran card games in the back of the shop. I told one what happened and he says "ah, don’t worry baby, Sam is a notary! SAM! This young lady needs something notarized. " So they signed the guys name and notarized it.
“What do I owe you?” “Nothing, honey, we do this as a favor for you, yes?”

I’m sure they are long dead now, and the curio shop some hipster bar or something . In their heyday they ran numbers and took protection money but had settled down, but it was funny, their job was sort of - if they could do it for you, and you could pay for it in some way, they would. So of course Sam was their crooked notary. And technically I owe the Mafia a small favor still.

Pick your battles, know who you’re up against, respond accordingly. I’ve never been in a “gang” but I have been in a crew that tried to keep our community and our peers safe. Our local ethnocentric gangs are Bosnians and Russians. They kinda do their own thing and mostly run gambling houses and sex trafficking, and while I don’t abide the latter, I also know enough to not push it. South Siders, our local HA sub-chapter, and the various white nationalists are a different story. We’ve fought those fuckers in alleys, kicked ass and had my ass kicked. We ran the Hammerskins out of town and I’ll always be proud of that fight. But, no ego, all these people are dangerous. I’ve had friends die over these battles. One had his head stomped into an unrecognizable goo by some South Siders over a drug deal, another was trafficked by bikers from the time she was 12, and another had a biker dad that used him to move product in his teens and ended up in prison because he was the fall guy. There’s some smart, terrible, morally bankrupt folks out there.

Back in 2010-ish, or so, I was on my way home from work, and I was dropped off in front of a hospital in Querétaro, México, because the bus stop was there.

“Lots of military here today” I recall thinking as I walked up to a group of military personnel always there. I see them being very antsy and all walking around and all of the sudden it’s shouting and one guy just runs to an army hummer, pulls out rifles and literally throws them at guys standing next to him. They all immediately get armed, start pointing their rifles in my general direction while doing that “aiming while running” thing and shouting “EVERYBODY ON THE GROUND NOW”

So I had some 20 odd armed soldiers with their rifles aimed in my general direction running at me while I’m shitting myself with all colors of the rainbow. I hide behind a small security building, quickly looked around and saw a small bus, my bus, arriving. I jumped in, told the driver to floor it, and he just looked at me, and told me he wouldn’t go anywhere untill he had my 5 pesos ( about 20 dollar cents at the time) for the ride.

I actually had to quickly explain to him that there was a district possibility we could all be dead in the next minute if he wouldn’t drive.

Turns out that they had the injured son of a narco in that hospital, and rumours started flying that either his buddy buddies would come to get him out or his not so buddy buddies might come to take him out, and the soldiers panicked.

Nothing really bad happened that day, but the road in front of the hospital was blocked off completely for the day. I still have the news paper somewhere in Mexico about that day.

Crazy shit

I’ve dealt with a number of these who were coming from north African countries. Their hash was good, reasonably priced, and they were friendly. What can I say 🤷

I used to work in a prison (I was a civilian kitchen supervisor, not a guard), and I encountered a lot of gang members from a variety of gangs. Kitchen jobs are highly sought after by inmates, because not only are they among the highest paying jobs an inmate can get, but the job also comes with essentially unlimited food. Normal inmates walking down the chow line would get 2 pieces on fried chicken day, but some kitchen workers would down a dozen or more. I say that to say: The gang members I worked with were on their best behavior so they didn’t risk losing their sweet gig. All feuds were on pause in the kitchen. Gang members who would otherwise be at each other’s throats were laughing and joking with each other, playing Spades during breaks, and eating at the same table. They all treated me with respect, and I didn’t have any issues.

The ones who didn’t work with me, genpop inmates, well sometimes things got very violent. I saw more stabbings/slashings than I can count on both hands, and I didn’t even work there very long.

Never worked for the government so idk.

About 15-20 years ago, we moved into a four-story apartment building with Italian restaurant and smoke shop (cigars) on the fist floor. Landlord didn’t want us to sign a lease, but it was too good a deal to pass up otherwise. When we moved in, we had my inlaws and their friend help us, then we treated them to a nice lunch at the restaurant. At one large table gathered a group of men that looked like they’d fit right in on The Sopranos, which made us chuckle. A few minutes later, my inlaws’ friend, a handyman and construction worker, went pale and quiet. My father-in-law asked him what was wrong. In a quiet voice, he explained that the plate glass windows at the front of the store were bulletproof windows. (In retrospect, I doubt windows that large could be bullet “proof”, but they were indeed very thick and had a very slight green tint to them.) The meal went fine, and we went on with our lives.

There wad no entryway for packages to be delivered, so they’d be dropped at the cigar shop. Someone there would text us for us to get the package. Everytime I went there, it looked like another scene out of The Sopranos: a couple older guys lounging in leather armchairs, cigars in hands or mouths, wide smiles and chuckles, as if by living there we were part of the family. And really, that was what it all felt like, that we were part of the family.

All of that was circumstantial, and we assumed they all just liked the aesthetic. That was, until years after we left, we saw a news article about how the FBI had raided the restaurant and cigar shop and arrested a mob boss.

This one time, I tried telling some mob guy that he was funny.

He did not take it well.

But turns out he was just fuckin’ with me.

I worked for about a year with the son of a former mob boss from a big American city.

Had to google the name as it wasn’t notorious or well known. Turns out he was one of the better bosses, and was known for keeping the peace and having a low profile.

Still think he went to prison though

Very pleasant for me, my girlfriend in the late 90s and early 2000s was a mildly upmarket dealer, and I got work through her contacts which was usually safe. I ended up doing a lot of work through her dealer, who was the big fish in a town of about 300K people.

I got nice presents, got paid to chaperone his daughter and her friends for a week (free holiday!), got better work contacts for myself, very cheap electrical goods, free drugs, and had a favour I never got around to calling in.

I did spend a day digging up his garden looking for a nine bar of resin that he’d buried while high, which was hard work (we didn’t find it), and there was a time I was interviewed by police while I was hiding enough speed in my house that it’s sale could have bought said house, but it was otherwise just an informal business relationship with occasional blowjobs.

10/10 would do again.

I had a friend who lived deep in the ghetto. So deep she was swarned by cops on multiple occasions while going home because “the only reason a white person would be in this area is to buy drugs.”

Her next door neighbor was the largest xanax dealer in the city, and there were a few sell houses on the street.

Everyone there was amazing. They were all super friendly and we got invited to parties and BBQs constantly.

Fairly pleasant, TBH.

I worked for a summer camp specifically for kids from some particularly dicey neighborhoods. Every so often I had to go set up shop in those neighborhoods to meet with parents and whatnot. Some guys in a local gang came to talk to me, learned I was there to offer something helpful to their kids, and from then out made sure I and my car were safe whenever I had to be in the area.

Nice guys, at least in the capacity I knew them.