Guess Who? Betcha Wrong...

[kendoiwan]

Guess which country has the largest and most powerful organized crime mob in the world? I ask because lately there has been much talk of "civilization" and how uncoth america is, and how savage crime is as opposed to a natural human phenom. So come on folks, no google, no research, just your best guess... Who runs the crime world of the world?

[floyd]

i would guess russia

[Helios]

It is a toss up between Liechtenstein,Luxembourg,and Yap. However, the stone money thing makes crime tricky on Yap.

[kendoiwan]

So far not even in the ballpark folks...

[kendoiwan]

i would guess russia


Not a bad guess though...

[kendoiwan]

Wow all of the experts on Civility and Savagery and no one has a clue as to who can claim the single most largest crime syndicate in the world 40,000 members strong, and who's newly appointed leader makes John Gotti look like he hated the press?

[Ascending]

The Vatican?

[Lee]

I would have guessed it was some Eastern European nation, but I don't know how large thier organised gangs have gotten, as I think they tend to be organised into many smaller gangs.

Colombia is pretty bad, could be them.

I would have said Russia if Floyd hadn't already.

Maybe Nigeria? it is certainly one of the most corrupt countries in the world, if not the most corrupt.

One problem is that you are asking which nation has the largest organised crime mob, but most organised crime occurs across borders and is not of an individual country. Population sizes would also skew the figures, since a more realistic measurement of how prevelent organised crime is would be a precentage of population involved in organised crime.

*waits patiently for answer and resists the temptations of Google*

*also thinks that the question might be misleading and is waiting for a possible trick*

[kendoiwan]

Japan? I've heard that their mob is pretty harsh.


The winner...

[Lee]

The winner...Interesting.

[Conan]

you mean its not canada?

[kendoiwan]

Bonus points if you can name the organization and their new leader... I guess google is allowable since none of us are exactly japanese... and a cookie to the first person to see where I'm going with all this...

[Ka.avik]

The japanese "mob" is known in fiction to be mean -- but not large. Russia would have been my guess, but with the collapse of the iron wall, et al operating outside the law may no longer be necessary.

My guess then is that it is someplace with a lot of laws, a lot of people, a lot of money...

Washington DC has the highest crime rate in the nation, but I'm not sure even Sin City (nearly all of Nevada, but...) would put the USA at the top of the Most Mob-y list...

Kenya. My guess is somewhere in Africa, so I'll specify Kenya

EDIT: well, that was because K. hadn't responded to Jenitintin's guess, thus I wanted to guess "somewhere else" ...

[kendoiwan]

The japanese "mob" is known in fiction to be mean -- but not large. Russia would have been my guess, but with the collapse of the iron wall, et al operating outside the law may no longer be necessary.

My guess then is that it is someplace with a lot of laws, a lot of people, a lot of money...

Washington DC has the highest crime rate in the nation, but I'm not sure even Sin City (nearly all of Nevada, but...) would put the USA at the top of the Most Mob-y list...

Kenya. My guess is somewhere in Africa, so I'll specify Kenya

Right country wrong mob... and 40,000 members is the largest criminal organization on the planet...not exactly small...

[Ka.avik]

this is going to tie into the "help Africa" thread, isn't it?

//not sure how, but...

[panda]

Yamaguchi-gumi is the crime syndicate, and Kenichi Shinoda is the new leader.

Oh, and Yamaguchi-gumi only makes up around half of the country's "yakuza".

[coffeezombie]

The Yakuza is such a fixture in Japanese society that they even have their own dialect, I've heard.

[Claverhouse]

What about China and the quazi-Chinese states such as Singapore & Hong Kong ( yeah, I know it was retaken, but probably life goes on as before: the Tongs may have voluntarily surrendered all their power but I wouldn't bet on it. ) ? Including the other states since gangs in China would have links with gangs or their own sub-offices in those states. We know so little about China --- considering it's size perhaps few Chinese know that much about it's totality --- that the size of criminality there is unlikely to be fully recorded. They may make the Yakusa look like amateurs.


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[kwis]

From what Ive read(from a guy in the Yakuza) they seem to be more businessmen than stereotypical gangsters. Most people in Japan do not see the Yakuza as a problem because they are so deeply ingrained into their society and really arent violent unless you mess with them or they are really drunk. There are no gangwars because killing each other is a easy way to lose money. They even have vigilante's who get people back for petty crime because its bad for the businesses in their area.

[aether]

Are they the ones who cut off their pinky?

[Spartan26]

What about China and the quazi-Chinese states such as Singapore & Hong Kong ( yeah, I know it was retaken, but probably life goes on as before: the Tongs may have voluntarily surrendered all their power but I wouldn't bet on it. ) ? Including the other states since gangs in China would have links with gangs or their own sub-offices in those states. We know so little about China --- considering it's size perhaps few Chinese know that much about it's totality --- that the size of criminality there is unlikely to be fully recorded. They may make the Yakusa look like amateurs.


Claverhouse :ph34r:
There's been massive restructuring of the PLA. The best word is escaping me right now, but China has been divesting it - no wait, the amount of power the military has in government has been decreasing for the past decade. Primarily due the desire for open or less restricted commerce w/other nations, the PLA has been basically selling it's stake in leading industries. So say telecom for example, any foreign company wanting to do a joint venture behind the Great Wall would be dealing with companies owned by the PLA or often having a controlling minority interest. Needless to say, it raises a few eyebrows in the Commerce Dept when JPL tries to get technology transference approval to sell satellites to the People's Red Army.

But the PLA is so big and far reaching in scope that it'd be more like comparing certain business holdings to Haliburton and its relationship to the US govt. As I was saying about divesting power, the PLA's been divided up into 7 basic regions, with sub divisions. (There are a lot of other divisions based on other factors). But, even though there have been lines drawn essentially like a separation of Army and State, and Army and Commerce, the power infrastructure is still there. And, as a result of being stripped of authority, PLA generals have been weilding their own de facto power. In many ways for their own basic gain. Not like what union or pac would do but basically becoming their own Don.

I know there have been power struggles between the regions. Hollywood and Silicon Valley are extremely pissed about copyright infringement and pirating in that part of the world. This is a major concern for China. You can't have dealings w/the US if the companies aren't going to be protected. China's leaders can be well intentioned in taking steps to police pirating but if there's an underground that's been created out of restructuring, one whose infrastucture was designed by the ones doing the policing, it becomes next to impossible to control without returning power to the ones you wanted out in the first place.

Considering that China's appalling human rights' record that has caused many people and organizations both domestically and internationally to pressure the US not to give China most favored nation status, what would constitute a mob killing in NYC would be called expediency in justice in Beijing.

PS - I would've said Japan if I had seen this thread earlier.

[Claverhouse]

That is interesting Spartan, but, um we were comparing nation's gangsters and brigands: the government of China and the People's Army are not quite the same thing, if only because they represent the law that the others break...

Otherwise, if you counted the People's Republic as illegitimate bad guys, ( as I am quite sure many unforgiving elderly Americans still obsessed with the Cold War do ), no doubt they'd be the biggest criminal gang in history.



Claverhouse :ph34r:

[Spartan26]

I got a little side tracked in my explanation to complete my point. Part of China's organized crime world grew out of this separation of power.

[Ka.avik]

rereading Kendowain's posts, it looks lt looks like Kenya, not Japan, has the largest mob. "right country, wrong org." but, 'the winner' doesn't have a ? at the end...which makes it look like that's the 'winner' ...

Now I'm confuzzled

[kendoiwan]

Yamaguchi-gumi is the crime syndicate, and Kenichi Shinoda is the new leader.

Oh, and Yamaguchi-gumi only makes up around half of the country's "yakuza".


The man in the pink dress wins! And I said wrong mob because I was unaware that Yamaguchi-gumi was a faction on the Yakuza... Kenichi Shinoda is 63yrs old. A true career crook. Like a goddamn ceo!! Why would you think this would tie in to the help africa thread? :blink:

[Ka.avik]

Why would you think this would tie in to the help africa thread? lets see...




Kenya. My guess is somewhere in Africa, so I'll specify Kenya Right country wrong mob... and 40,000 members is the largest criminal organization on the planet...not exactly small... "right country", here, equals "Kenya" Since I don't know the organizational name of the spammers/919 folk, I just named the japanese crowd -- which was going to be my first guess...but you hadn't responded yet to the guess of "japan" so, as I stated above, I guessed somewhere else...

and aether: yes, sometimes. According to hollywood, my source of knowledge on the subject...

[Jacque]

Modern biological warfare owes its existence to the Yakuza.

Using their international connections, they collected - thus ressurrecting - some of the deadliest human diseases from remote regions for the Japanese military who engineered even deadlier strains. After the war, the Soviets and Americans (the U.S. at the time was still fixated on strapping bombs to bats) got their hands on it and well...the rest is history.

Not that the Russian mafia couldn't open Pandora's box with nuclear technology, which they're probably already doing. As for what the Yakuza could be doing now, I don't let the anime get to my head. ;)

That reminds me, we pardoned many Japanese war criminals so they could further advance our technology in biological warfare. The same kind of people that tested germ warfare on children by lacing candy with anthrax. :rant: See how it works. If the Kurds had been gased with better technology, 'Chemical Ali' would be working for us.

[panda]

The man in the pink dress wins!
It was a tutu!

To anyone interested, here is a link to a nice little history of the yakuza: http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/gang/yakuza/1.html

As someone who has lived in Japan, let me say that the "yakuza" (very interesting etymology, btw) are alive and well.

[Hustler]

The man in the pink dress wins! And I said wrong mob because I was unaware that Yamaguchi-gumi was a faction on the Yakuza... Kenichi Shinoda is 63yrs old. A true career crook. Like a goddamn ceo!! Why would you think this would tie in to the help africa thread? :blink:

That's actually incorrect. If you want to know who the REAL leader of the Yakuza is, start by poking around on the Forbes billionaires list. See if you can find him!

[kendoiwan]

That's actually incorrect. If you want to know who the REAL leader of the Yakuza is, start by poking around on the Forbes billionaires list. See if you can find him!


Hustler :ph34r: contributing something productive and only semi-vague to a thread?! I guess the subject matter piqued his interest. :whistle: Who are Kiyoshi Takeuchi and Eitaro Itoyama? *Jeopardy folks*

[Claverhouse]

Modern biological warfare owes its existence to the Yakuza.

Using their international connections, they collected - thus ressurrecting - some of the deadliest human diseases from remote regions for the Japanese military who engineered even deadlier strains. After the war, the Soviets and Americans (the U.S. at the time was still fixated on strapping bombs to bats) got their hands on it and well...the rest is history.

Not that the Russian mafia couldn't open Pandora's box with nuclear technology, which they're probably already doing. As for what the Yakuza could be doing now, I don't let the anime get to my head. ;)

That reminds me, we pardoned many Japanese war criminals so they could further advance our technology in biological warfare. The same kind of people that tested germ warfare on children by lacing candy with anthrax. :rant: See how it works. If the Kurds had been gased with better technology, 'Chemical Ali' would be working for us.
The Allies didn't really need much help in developing biological warfare --- ( just as the Germans allegedly had huge stocks of nerve gas, Tabun & Sarin, which like the mysterious WMD of Saddam were never used when it was necessary to use them if possessed ) Churchill for one had 'Operation Vegetarian':


AS THE world recoils (http://www.sundayherald.com/19248) at the horrific possibility of al-Qaeda terrorists waging anthrax war against United States citizens, the Sunday Herald can reveal that Britain manufactured five million anthrax cattle cakes during the second world war and planned to drop them on Germany in 1944.The aim of Operation Vegetarian was to wipe out the German beef and dairy herds and then see the bacterium spread to the human population. With people then having no access to antibiotics, this would have caused many thousands --- perhaps even millions --- of German men, women and children to suffer awful deaths.

The anthrax cakes were tested on Gruinard Island, off Wester Ross, which was finally cleared of contamination in 1990. Operation Vegetarian was planned for the summer of 1944 but, in the event, it was abandoned as the Allies' Normandy invasion progressed successfully.

Details of the wartime secret operation are contained in a series of War Office files (WO 188) at the Public Record Office in Kew. Some of the files are still classified. The man whose task was to carry out Operation Vegetarian was Dr Paul Fildes, director of the biology department at Porton Down near Salisbury in Wiltshire. Fildes had previously been in charge of the Medical Research Council's bacterial chemistry unit at Middlesex Hospital.

In early 1942, Fildes began searching Britain for suppliers and manufacturers of linseed-oil cattle cake to make five million small cakes. Large quantities of the bacillus itself had to be produced, while special containers to carry the cattle cakes had to be designed and made. Some RAF bombers had to be modified to deliver the anthrax-infected payload. And all of it had to be done as cheaply as possible.

The raw material for the cake was provided by the Olympia Oil and Cake Company in Blackburn. The contract to cut the cattle cake into small pieces went to J & E Atkinson of Bond Street in London, perfumers and toilet-soap manufacturers and suppliers to the royal family. The Atkinsons calculated that they could produce 180,000 to 250,000 cakes, each 2.5cm in diameter and 10 grammes in weight, in a 44-hour week. The price was to be between 12 and 15 shillings per thousand . The firm pledged to deliver 5,273,400 cakes by April 1943. By the middle of July 1942, the Atkinsons informed Fildes that Òwe are now producing at the rate of 40,000 per day.

The anthrax was manufactured by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at its veterinary laboratory in Surrey. An Oxford academic named Dr E Schuster was set to work devising the pump to inject the bacilli into the cattle cakes. The Porton Down scientists settled on cube-shaped cardboard containers, 18cm square, to carry the infected foodstuff.

Each held 400 cakes. They would be fitted with a steel handle of a size which enables the operator to grasp the handle without difficulty when wearing thick leather or moleskin gloves. Thirteen women were then recruited from various soap-making firms, sworn to secrecy and given the job of injecting the cattle cakes with anthrax spores.

At the same time, Fildes and his team were working on the best way to deliver the diseased cattle feed to the German herds.

The RAF's research unit came up with a simple solution --- easily made wooden trays that fitted on to aircraft flare chutes. Their Bomber Command Lancasters, Halifaxes and Stirlings were chosen for the job.

By the beginning of 1944, Operation Vegetarian was ready to go. It was crucial to mount any attack in the summer months. Fildes said: The cattle must be caught in the open grazing fields when lush spring grass is on the wane. Trials have shown that these tablets are found and consumed by the cattle in a very short time. Cattle are concentrated in the northern half of Oldenburg and northwest Hanover. Aircraft flying to and from Berlin will fly over 60 miles of grazing land.

Fildes calculated that, at an average ground speed of 300mph, the distance would be covered in 18 minutes. If one box of tablets is dispersed every two minutes, then each aircraft will be required to carry and disperse nine, or say 10, boxes.

One Lancaster bomber returning from a raid on Berlin would be able to scatter 4000 anthrax-infected cakes over a 60-mile swathe in less than 20 minutes. A dozen aircraft would have been enough to litter most of the north German countryside with anthrax spores. Operation Vegetarian was a seriously deadly project.

But, by the time Fildes's operation was ready to go in the summer of 1944, the Normandy invasion had taken place and Allied armies were crashing through northern France and up through Italy. The war against Nazi Germany was instead being won by conventional means. At the end of 1945, five million anthrax-infected cattle cakes were incinerated in one of Porton Down's furnaces.

14 October 2001


You Bad, Me Good.



Claverhouse :ph34r:


Incidentally, in Britain, Porton Down's known not only as a centre for hideously torturing animals for military science, but since the 1950s for torturing and having unavoidable fatalities with British servicemen.

Also. Saddam didn't 'gas the Kurds': it seems to have been Iranian gas during the war with those villages caught in the middle. Dunno who supplied the gas to the Iranians. Reagan probably.

[kendoiwan]

It was a tutu!

To anyone interested, here is a link to a nice little history of the yakuza: http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/gang/yakuza/1.html

As someone who has lived in Japan, let me say that the "yakuza" (very interesting etymology, btw) are alive and well.


Ok, ok... the man in the pink tutu... interesting read too...

[Hustler]

Hustler :ph34r: contributing something productive and only semi-vague to a thread?! I guess the subject matter piqued his interest. :whistle: Who are Kiyoshi Takeuchi and Eitaro Itoyama? *Jeopardy folks*

Now you're just guessing in the dark. Do a little research, and you'll find out the real answer. You'll also be intrigued to see power games in action on a massive scale in criminal enterprises. I mean, maybe you will be intrigued. I was.

[kendoiwan]

Now you're just guessing in the dark. Do a little research, and you'll find out the real answer. You'll also be intrigued to see power games in action on a massive scale in criminal enterprises. I mean, maybe you will be intrigued. I was.


Ofcourse I'll be intrigued... but I take issue with your guessing in the dark comment both men are multi-billionares affiliated with the yakuza... I may be incorrect but they both are in the ball park as you laid it out(not that you're predisposed to being helpful anyway :ph34r: )... that being said I'll continue on...

[kendoiwan]

only other name I turn up is Yoshiaki Tsutsumi and I can't confirm if he's alive or dead... so unless you want to sell me a vowel Vanna....

[Jacque]

Churchill for one had 'Operation Vegetarian':

I remember thinking to myself when I found about Gruinard Island and that side of Churchill: "Hitler may've been a nut, but Churchill was nut without worldly ambitions."

[Claverhouse]

:)

Certainly a surprise for the Red Army as it swept through Poland and Prussia.
'Excellency, three divisions have started coughing'



Claverhouse :ph34r:

[Ka.avik]

You'll also be intrigued to see power games in action on a massive scale in criminal enterprises. I mean, maybe you will be intrigued. I was.
Being intrigued by power plays is such an ESTJ thing.

//poking fun at Hustler, who thinks all motorcycles are an SP thing ...

[kendoiwan]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16414406%255E2703,00.html

So if you know something they don't Hustler now is put up or shut up time...

[kuranes]

On the subject of gangs, its interesting to see that Nicky Barnes is finally getting out of prison. He's the guy that the song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" was based on, and possibly "Superfly", although there are other contenders for the latter role - such as Frank Lucas. Bumpy Johnson preceded them, and was heavier in his day.

Check out www.ganglandnews.com

How big are the Asian triads? I always thought they had a lot of guys in them.

[kendoiwan]

Let me find out... whatchu know about some Nicky Barnes... :ph34r:

[kuranes]

I don't know him personally. Guess he turned government informant and will be given a new identity. He was an interesting guy, though.

[kendoiwan]

I don't know him personally. Guess he turned government informant and will be given a new identity. He was an interesting guy, though.


He's ghetto lore, so I'm just suprise his name has found it's way to your lips is all...

[kuranes]

I knew about him way back before he was on the cover of the NY Times magazine . . . . . . . I always thought he had a lot more class than somebody like . . .say . . .Jeff Fort.

[Hustler]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16414406%255E2703,00.html

So if you know something they don't Hustler now is put up or shut up time...

I know you can't believe everything you read. Billionaires list, kendoiwan, billionaires list.

[booyalab]

I know you can't believe everything you read.
unless it's in the form of a post by you, right?

[Zero Angel]

I know you can't believe everything you read. Billionaires list, kendoiwan, billionaires list.
For the benefit of use all, be more specific. You can't expect people to listen to what you say if you make no real attempt to back it up.