AHC: Create Native American Mobsters
- Thread starter SPJ
- Start date
Are there any big cities where a significant minority of the population is American Indian? It seems to me that the best way for ethnic-based organised crime to arise is for there to be a large-ish number of people in an urban setting, preferably ghettoised into one small area.
NothingNow
Banned
Maybe Oklahoma city after an Oil Boom?
People come in to work in the accessory industries following the oil money, and a lot of them are Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, etc. Soon enough Street gangs form, and if they get organized, and start running clandestine things, running stills and breweries out in the countryside during prohibition, controlling gambling in the city, and procuring women and all that.
And if you need to bring someone in, with the money you'd have, hiring from the rez would be easy.
If they can keep the italians out, and get their own people into office, or buy out elected officials they could keep it going for more than a few years.
This. Combine it with smuggling networks for opium being brought in from the Canadian Prairies through Lakota territory smuggling networks, and marijuana and cocaine being brought up from Mexico, and an "Oklahoma Sin City" could be very interesting
NothingNow
Banned
Why smuggle pot over the border? It's an actual weed out west. Plant the outer dozen rows of a field with corn or something, and then plant pot in the rest of it. And then just harvest it like you would anything else. It's not very hard, and would be something done on the rez, where one can almost by default exploit the dislike of outside law enforcement by the general population, and bring money into the community, thus gaining a bit of respect and popularity, (like Pablo Escobar in a way.)
Interesting idea. Could it be done as a summer crop in Lakota and Navajo territory, where state and Federal agents might have substantially less reach? That, combined with moonshine production.. Daaamn son
I can just imagine Bureau of Prohibition agents pursing Navajo gangsters on horseback through the Grand Canyon, to their huge liquor stash. Then, they get ambushed
A lot of Navajo were relocated to LA in the interwar period, IIRC. Many Navajo have historically struggled with alcohol abuse. Maybe during Prohibition, you get a major Navajo-led concern smuggling tequila in from Tijuana, that quite naturally expands into extortion, gambling, etc. In fact, maybe they link with with Bugsy Siegel, et al, when Vegas gets going, or even get the jump on him and establish the Nevada concerns first.
So the Navajo syndicate's power arc stretches from San Diego (for Tijuana-based smuggling), through LA, Nevada, and into the Four Corners region. The Baja may develop into a strong Navajo extraterritorial base with more corruption and less oversight, like Cuba for the East Coast/Florida mob in the 50's. When Italian and Jewish mobsters start comimg west in a big way in the 40's and 50's, they'll have a war on their hands.
Also interesting to consider - the Navajo relationship with LA and San Francisco-based Asian mobsters such as Triads and Yakuza. In LA, they overlap and both constitute "the other"; this could either lead to a strong alliance or some nasty internecine violence.
NothingNow
Banned
Interesting idea. Could it be done as a summer crop in Lakota and Navajo territory, where state and Federal agents might have substantially less reach? That, combined with moonshine production.. Daaamn son
I can just imagine Bureau of Prohibition agents pursing Navajo gangsters on horseback through the Grand Canyon, to their huge liquor stash. Then, they get ambushed
Yeah, pretty much any southwestern or High Plains Reservation could work for that. But then you're crossing tribal lines, and loosing that common identity. Unless you've got some Osage or Cherokee gangsters running the scene in Oklahoma city, and when there's too much attention focused on the Osage reservation, they start scouting out in the hinterlands, and start a deal with some Navajos or Utes, that gets the ball rolling for the whole wider network.
Canada has native American gangs, and they very ruthless, and some of them are extremely well organized.
Wolfpaw
Banned
Really? The Mafia sure as hell wasn't founded in densely populated cities. Organized crime/mafias/mobs can grow whenever there is a security vacuum due to an absentee state, urban or rural.
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Of note is that the Cosa Nostra was at least started in the countryside. The Camorra of Napoli may have been urban from start, thought, as possibly Yakuza of Japan.
The Central American Narco Cartels and the big US biker gangs like the Mongols and Hell's Angels weren't urban either.
Thinking of biker gangs could we have rural Native American mafias involved in the meth trade?
Maybe between California and north up and some of the 'Sun Belt' inner cities...
Winnipeg was known as the "Paris of the Prairies" for a time. If they can link up with American gangsters in the Midwest they could have a lot of success in smuggling alcohol.