Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Dmitry Taratorin
[REGNUM] In Ecuador, the local underworld has challenged the official authorities. And declaring itself as a real alternative force, it requires “recognition.” This doesn't happen very often in Latin America. At one time, the legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar actually declared war on the Colombian government. He was killed in the end. But he showed that “it was possible.”
In Mexico, the bloody confrontation has been going on for years. One of the most striking and scandalous examples of the demonstration of the power of drug cartels happened not so long ago. The “Battle of Culiacan” took place on October 17, 2019. Then the military arrested the son of the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Guzman Lopez. But the response to this was immediately full-fledged hostilities - hundreds of militants attacked government and army targets using armored vehicles, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. When the bandits took several hostages and began to threaten the neighborhood where military families lived, the authorities backed down. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered the release of Guzman Lopez.
At the time it seemed like a sign of weakness. But exactly a year ago, Lopez was arrested again and sent to a bunk in the Altiplano maximum security prison.
What is the reason for such power and audacity of the Latin American underworld? Of course, it is not only and not so much the fault of hot blood, but above all the enormous resources that are at their disposal thanks to drugs. These two factors, plus the social problems of the continent, gave rise to such a phenomenon as cartels.
But they should not be confused with the mafia, and it, in turn, with such a phenomenon as megagangs. And although they all actively interact (primarily on the basis of the transit and sale of drugs), these phenomena have different genesis. And it is worth understanding it in order to understand when and under what circumstances they acquire such power that they risk waging wars with states. How they themselves become quasi-states. And why, for example, the Kazan boys would never become a mafia, but they could easily become megagangs.
In the 90s, a horror story called “Russian Mafia” became popular in the West. But, in fact, it did not exist and could not exist. The Russian underworld was initially very unique.
To understand its nature, it is worth turning to “Kolyma Tales” by Varlam Shalamov. In his time, thieves were a completely antisocial caste.
If we take the Sicilian Mafia or the Neapolitan Comorra, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta or even the Japanese Yakuza, then these are alternative forms of socialization, and not at all a complete denial of the generally accepted human, as in the Russian case.
The mafia does not draw such a sharp line between itself and the world of “suckers” (frayers in the Shalamov period) or “chushpans” in the Kazan version. On the contrary, it acts as an alternative to the state institution for the establishment of order. She grows out of the Family. And this is very typical for Italy.
Until recently, the Yakuza generally had official offices. And they represented a kind of “samurai matrix” in a collapsed form and adapted to modern times.
The thieves, according to Shalamov, are “not people” at all. At the same time, it is extremely characteristic that they call themselves “people.” From which it clearly follows that others are not considered as such.
The thieves, according to Shalamov, are a “damned order.” They are hostile to all social institutions, including the family. They view suckers as completely alien, as pure food supply. And the state for them is an absolute enemy. That is why the famous “bitch war” happened, when the thieves who took part in the Great Patriotic War, as soon as they again found themselves in places not so remote, were harshly charged by their former colleagues for treason to the “order,” calling them “bitches.”
But it never occurred to anyone to charge the legendary Mafia boss Salvatore (Lucky) Luciano for actively facilitating the landing of American troops in Sicily in 1943. The logic of the Mafia was simple - Mussolini persecuted its members very harshly, so why not contribute to his overthrow.
But the Mafia, in principle, precisely because of its “family” genesis, does not see anything catastrophic in its interaction with the authorities (not only its corrupt members, but with its institutions). After all, Cosa Nostra (the name of the mafia in the States) is translated from Italian simply as “our business.” This is a kind of family business.
In Sicily and the southern regions of Italy, criminal communities acted as substitutes for the state due to its inability to control certain regions and/or zones of human activity.
Everything was different with us. Beginning with Peter the Great, the state sought complete control. Zones where there would be space for the formation of some semblance of a mafia simply did not arise.
Therefore, by the way, initially the word “thief” in Rus' meant a rebel, a person who went against the state system itself and everyone who is loyal to it. And the one who simply steals was called a “thief.”
Mega gangs are another matter. Here they could theoretically have developed in the 90s. A couple of decades earlier, they began to appear in the United States. The most serious ones are in Los Angeles. The prefix mega indicates that the gang has more than 10 thousand members. There they consist mainly, again, of Latinos and blacks, between whom there are permanent wars. However, there are also white ones. The most famous is the “Aryan Brotherhood”, which arose as an intra-prison association, but has long since acquired serious influence outside. However, this is a dynamic process - someone’s star rises in the criminal sky, and someone else’s falls.
But it is characteristic that most of the megagangs were formed on the basis of street gangs, from guys “from the area”, just as in the case of the boys from the most popular series of last year. Many people even “sew on” it in about the same way, if not tougher.
For example, in Mara Salvatrucha (one of the largest and most brutal mega-gangs) this is called a “jump in”, when brutal blows are rained down on the newcomer from all sides for a period of time determined by the elders. Mara Salvatrucha was originally created by immigrants from El Salvador. But now, when, according to various estimates, there are from 50 to 100 thousand people in it and it operates in several countries, there is no need to talk about monoethnicity. And here we come to the important difference between such structures and the same mafia. Megaband is a new identity. Mara Salvatrucha's code of honor is simple: "You live for God and Mother, and you die for the Gang."
So, why didn’t “Universam”, “Hadi Taktash” or “Tyap-Lyap” reach the same level? Fortunately for ordinary Russian citizens, they simply didn’t have time.
To form a megagang, you need a special breeding ground: a ghetto atmosphere, a lack of real social elevators and trust in authorities, a large number of passionate boys, plus a resource for development and growth (most often drugs).
And the first four components were adjusted for Soviet specifics. A resource in the form of money from “protected” businesses also appeared in the early 90s. And the state at that time practically “gone away.” But unlike Latin America or Italy, the power vacuum was very short-lived. The state returned too quickly, interrupting the process of building criminal empires and forming alternative identities.
However, this does not mean that the threat has been removed once and for all. The notorious AUE (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) has all the prerequisites and generic characteristics in order to, in the right case, develop into a fan of mega-gangs. Perhaps this seems fantastic to residents of megacities who did not live in the 90s. Therefore, the story of the “boys” Marat and Andrey is just a well-constructed film script for them. And the events in Ecuador are simply something from a completely different bloody and exotic life.
But the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, once told the writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky in order to dispel his illusions: “Russia is an icy desert through which a dashing man wanders.”
The phrase may seem overly pessimistic. However, let's reformulate it slightly: when a power vacuum is formed in Russia, it gives rise to an icy desert, from which a dashing person emerges with the most evil intentions. Does this sound more realistic?
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[TacticalHermit] Central American Criminal Insurgencies/Gang Profiles
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
...every time you hear the phrase 
[Canada Free Press] In a startling revelation, Guatemala’s president announced in the country’s largest newspaper that nearly 100 ISIS terrorists have been apprehended in the impoverished Central American nation. Why should Americans care about this?
[WASHINGTONTIMES] An MS-13 member who goes by the gang name "Animal" received a 40-year prison sentence this week for a conspiracy that included the murder of a 15-year-old boy, the U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts said Tuesday.
[Breitbart] A top special forces colonel for the Guatemalan Army is facing various charges in his own country for allegedly laundering money for the