What was your experience with organized crime like?

What was the work you did?

Hey, let’s not forget the victims of trafficking that got to become indentured farmers at the behest of criminal overlords in jurisdictions where cultivation is criminalised.


Let’s not forget the militias that get armed via resin and kiff sales.


Let’s not forget the corner boy who gets nanked for slinging off the wrong curb.


I wish the ganja business people were more like their target audience in demeanour; but criminals always going to criminal.

From me.

He dealt in drugs and kept in his lane, but knew how to get pretty much anything for a price. And I became part of that anything.

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 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.

For first situation, fuck people who beat their partners. This wasn't a "I was drunk and slapped them" situation which is also horrible and should never be done... She had i think a broken arm, 3 broken ribs, nose broken, and life long issues with her hip after that. This was a serious assault. I don't technically know if "Tony" was part of a "family" but this was ny/NJ in late 80s early 90s and he was a older Italian man who wore suits but I never saw go to work and I was simply told to show him respect and don't ask too many questions (I was a child, maybe 7 or 8 when this occurred).

For second situation, if someone has money and power to have a shipping container full of "drugs" yeah... They have money and power to disappear a person.

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

North Oak comes to mind but that's in America from what I remember

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.

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'm French from the north and heard of him. If that's true that's pretty cool.

Just in case, not to be confused with the more notorious Alain Orsini who died this january, assassinated by a sniper while attending his mom's funeral... I know it sounds like a movie

What have you heard about him ?

Wait, did the bus driver take off without getting his money or not?