Organized Crime in Night City

The Italian Mafia
"The Stidda"
Don Bruce "Boss" Skiv

The Stidda is one of the oldest criminal organizations in Night City, dating back to before the turn of the century. The Stidda control all criminal activities on the north side of town. Major operations include prostitution, smuggling (not cyberware or weapons, the Yakuza specialized in that), racketeering, loan-sharking, and information distribution/blackmail. The Mafia has extensive corporate partnerships, including Balboa Aerospace, their largest front company. The Mafia also serves as the enforcement arm of several labor unions, which puts them at odds with the Yakuza, which often serves as the Corporations’ union-busting enforcers.

Bruce "Boss" Skiv is a middle-aged man who believes in tradition so long as it doesn’t interfere with practicality. Many of the rituals and traditions of the old mafia are gone in favor of a more corporate, streamlined organization. Bruce started as a street hustler, and he remembers his roots. He’s very fair to the little guy, which makes him popular with the street-level rackets under him.

The Stidda is a younger cousin to the traditional La Cosa Nostra, or Sicilian Mafia. It was founded in the early 90’s as a less tradition-bound, more flexible alternative to the aging LCN. While the LCN has become nearly extinct due to Corporate-backed law enforcement, the Stidda has been flexible enough to maintain operations beyond the scrutiny of the Corporations.

The Japanese Yakuza
"Inu Clan"
Oyabun Hichigo Kanzaki

The Yakuza controls crime on the south side of town. Their rackets specialize more in smuggling and distribution of illegal weapons and cybernetics than in the vice and racketeering of the Mafia and Triads. The Yakuza are the most technically proficient of the Big Three, dealing extensively in computer, bio-tech and high-tech crimes. They are also much more closely connected to the corporations than the other two, especially the Japanese corporations. The Yakuza also serve the corporations in union-busting operations, which often puts them at odds against the Mafia, which works for many of the unions.

Oyabun Hichigo Kanzaki is a stern patrician leader, impeccably dressed in grey suits and easily mistakable for a high-level corporate. He insulates himself from the actual workings of the Yakuza, leaving most of the operations to his son, Shin. Shin, unlike his father, is very progressive and rebellious. A lot of his operations deal with new crimes and applications of old crimes other organizations hadn’t yet thought of. Shin is more ruthless than most Yakuza Oyabuns, which hasn’t earned him a lot of respect with other Yakuza clans. Hichigo permits such rebellion because he knows he is to retire soon and Shin will take over.

It is tradition to not kill non-yakuza, or Katagi. Instead, they relied on torture, humiliation, and intimidation to achieve their goals. Yakuza are free to kill each other, however. Shin Kanzaki has, himself, ignored this tradition several times and encourages it’s disregard among his Wakashu, or enforcers.

The Chinese Triads
"Weng Fang Tong"
Dai Lo Dai David Ling Po

The Triads control most of the crime on the east side of town. They are the smallest of the big three, but perhaps the most traditional and secretive. Of all the big three, the Triads are the most involved with Vice. Illegal drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. though all three deal in prostitution and extortion. They maintain an extensive illegal drug import and distribution network and therefore control, with the other two organizations, the docks. The Triads also deal in human slavery and sexual crimes. The Triads have maintained a strong presence in Night City by keeping the scope of their operations small but extensive. They have kept out of white collar crimes for fear of raising the ire of the corporations like the Russians did at the turn of the century. They tend to work the little guy and keep their operations on a street level.

David Ling Po is a well educated but ruthless criminal figure. He immigrated to America with his family in 2014 to attend Stanford University, where he graduated with honors. He maintains a facade of a respectable businessman, but secretly runs the largest Chinese mafia organization on the West Coast. Shortly after graduating from Stanford, Ling Po started a shipping and import business. Along with legitimate shipping, he also smuggled cheap illegal Chinese products. He quickly began organizing immigrant smuggling operations as well, shipping refugees from Hong Kong to America, then forcing them to work for him once they arrived. The result was little more than slavery, but he was good to his workers, and they appreciated his assistance despite their exploitation. Often, immigrants would work hard and earn enough to buy themselves out of Ling Po’s patronage, but would willingly remain associated with him out of a sense of appreciation.

The Columbian Cartels

The cartels’ influence anywhere has been curtailed by several military actions against them by the U.S. Government. It is rumored that these actions only happened due to corporate influence in an attempt to eliminate uncooperative competition from the shipping and distribution of new synthetic substitutes like Synth-Coke produced by corporate laboratories. As a result, the Columbians are no longer major players in organized crime.

The Russian Organizations

The Russians, though very powerful in other parts of SoCal, were one of the first targeted and eliminated by the Corporations in their clean-up of Night City. The Russians penchant for White Collar crimes and scams made them a priority target for the Corporations, who were most often the victims. As a result, the Russians are not major players in organized crime in Night City.

The French Mafia
The Union Corse
Patron Renee’ Focault

The French Union Corse has extensive operations on the East Coast, dealing almost exclusively with smuggling into and out of the more controlled economies of the European Community. The Union Corse is a very corporate mafia, staying away from the street-level dealings of the Triads and concentrating on more White Collar crime. The only reason they have not been targeted by the Corporations is because they often work as tools for the Eurocorporations, much like the Yakuza does for Japanese corporations. The Union Corse is the only Mafia organization with a political agenda, often funding or organizing terrorist actions against non-European corporations.

Being relative newcomers to the international criminal scene, the Union Corse hasn’t made many inroads on the West Coast. It currently has no presence in Night City but has plans to establish operations there in order to gain access to Asia.

The Urban Youth Gangs

The urban street gangs, so prevalent in the late 20th, suffered a major blow with the collapse of the Columbians. Their primary source of income, and need for organization, cocaine, dried up with it’s elimination by the U.S. Government. The coordinated urban gangs like the Crips and Bloods began to factionalize, splintering into smaller and smaller organizations. Today, urban gangs lack any kind of cohesion. Small, specialized gangs, most with a differentiating "schtick", roam the streets and stake out small territories. Many of these smaller gangs work as enforcers for other organizations, such as other crime syndicates or corporations. The landscape of urban youth gangs in 2020 more closely resembles the 1950’s Sharks and Jets than the 1990’s Crips and Bloods.

For more information on real-life organized crime around the world, visit the Organized Crime Home Page.