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

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.

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.

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

I had interactions with members of the terrorist organisation ISIS - they were surprisingly friendly even after I told them that I was not going to join Islam or their organisation. They also wanted to teach me arabic.

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.

My dad met a corsican bandit (Antoine) on the run in Provence sometime in the late 60es (edit : probably 1964). They were staying at a place in the hills (in the Luberon), I’ve been there, it’s remote, beautiful. He tells me how Antoine taught him to throw knives. He thinks Antoine had an affair/fling with my grandma’s friend who was staying with them at the time.
After a few days, one morning Antoine is tipped off by some guy (?). A short time later, police with dogs show up, even a helicopter. He had already fled in the forest and wasn’t found afaik.

My dad has kept a handful of 8mm reels from that time. I’m not sure if we see Antoine in them, I think he was being super cautious.

I looked him up, his name was Antoine Orsini. He was a suspected member of the gang La Brise De Mer : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_de_la_Brise_de_mer
Assuming that’s the same guy, at least the dates seem to coincide. Not big enough to have his own wiki article apparently…

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.

The overriding memory of that life was right at the beginning when an old timer that I’d just started to roll with told me this: “There’s no such thing as victimless crime - so choose your victims carefully.” That really stuck with me.

Having been a young white dude in the US, ive had all of the various christofascist or conservative terrorism organizations make a pass at me at one point or another.

Turning Point USA was recruiting from my school when I was a senior (right when it was starting up), a couple of the kids at my school were fairly well known for being in the KKK, and they tried to get basically every white kid at the school to come to their events. My college was a fairly small STEM college, so unless the FBI or the CIA count as organized crime, we didnt have a lot. After college the job market was still awful from Bush’s recession, I ended up with a job in a small town where the KKK, the Proud Boys, and the Republican Party held a weekly rally at the towns main intersection and liked to block traffic and generally be a nuisance…but the police chief liked to show up to the rallies (all 3), so you just learned to avoid certain areas on certain days.

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.

Years ago (early 90s) my mother had a female friend. The friend had an uncle “Tony” no idea if a real uncle or just friend of family.

My mother’s friend also had a sister who was engaged. One night sister and fiance got into a fight and it hit violent. Sister ended up in hospital for a week, several broken bones and multiple injuries. Somehow, “Tony” found out. The next morning the boyfriend woke up and left the house for work. He never showed up to work. He never was seen or heard of again. Maybe he’s buried, maybe he’s in the walls of a building or under the pavement of a road. I have no idea, but sister got a beating and when “Tony” found out he ensured the guy would beat anyone else ever.

Thought of another instance, even less details on this. Coworker was from Trinidad. One day he didn’t show up, ok cool everyone takes time off. Next day he is also not at work, I ask manager and told “he had a family emergency”. I think it was a week later he returned and I was curious and talked with him. He told me he had relatives in Trinidad and one started a new job at a port basically checking to make sure fees were paid and paperwork was filled out. There was a boat with a shipping container that was not documented and was not labeled. He opened container, supposedly top to bottom, front to back was white powder. I assume coke but could be anything. He closed the container and kept silent to not cause issues with the gangs. He went home, told family what he saw over dinner, then went to bar for a drink. Next morning he wasn’t in his bed. He wasn’t in the home. He told someone what he saw and that was a mistake. The ship was docked and allowed to leave. Maybe corruption, maybe not… Don’t know, don’t want to know.