The Bloods are a primarily African-American street gang founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. It is identified by the red color worn by its members and by particular gang symbols, including distinctive hand signs.
Yardie is a term often used, particularly within the Caribbean expatriate and Jamaican diaspora community, to refer to people of Jamaican origin, though its exact meaning changes depending on context. The term is derived from the Jamaican patois for home or "yard". The term may have specifically originated from the crowded "government yards" of two-storey concrete homes found in Kingston and inhabited by poorer Jamaican residents, though "yard" can also refer to "home" or "turf" in general in Jamaican patois.
New Jack City is a 1991 American crime thriller film based upon an original story and written by Thomas Lee Wright and Barry Michael Cooper, and directed by Mario Van Peebles in his feature film directorial debut as he also co-stars in the film. The film stars Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Allen Payne, Chris Rock, Mario Van Peebles, Judd Nelson, and Bill Cobbs. The film was released in the United States on March 8, 1991.
The Black Mafia, also known as the Philadelphia Black Mafia (PBM), Black Muslim Mafia and Muslim Mob, was a Philadelphia-based African-American organized crime syndicate. The organization began as a small criminal collective, known for holding up neighborhood crap games and dealing in the illegal drug business, but at its height of operation in the early 70s until about the early 1980s, it managed to consolidate power and control a large portion of criminal activity in various African-American neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley, and South Jersey, including Atlantic City and Camden. In addition to drug trafficking, burglary, and armed robbery, the Black Mafia was also engaged in traditional organized crime activities such as extortion, racketeering, prostitution, loansharking, number running and other illegal gambling rackets.
Leroy Nicholas Barnes was an American crime boss, active in New York City during the 1970s.
The Crips is an alliance of street gangs which is based in the coastal regions of southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips were initially a single alliance between two autonomous gangs; it is now a loosely-connected network of individual "sets", often engaged in open warfare with one another. Traditionally, since around 1973, its members have worn blue clothing.
Guy Thomas Fisher is an American convicted racketeer who was once part of "The Council", an African-American crime organization that controlled the heroin trade in Harlem from 1972 to 1983. He became the first black man to own and operate the Apollo Theater in Harlem when he purchased it in 1977. On October 28, 2020, Guy Fisher was released from federal custody on a medical pardon.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, African-American organized crime emerged following the first and second large-scale migration of African-Americans from the South to major cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and later the West Coast. In many of these newly established communities and neighborhoods, criminal activities such as illegal gambling, speakeasies and bootlegging were seen in the post-World War I and Prohibition eras. Although the majority of these businesses were operated by African Americans, it is often unclear the extent to which these operations were run independently of the larger criminal organizations of the time.
Frank Lucas was an American drug trafficker who operated in Harlem, New York City during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen, as depicted in the feature film American Gangster (2007), which fictionalized aspects of his life. This claim is denied by his Southeast Asian associate Leslie "Ike" Atkinson.
The East Harlem Purple Gang was a gang or organized crime group consisting of Italian-American hit-men and heroin dealers who were semi-independent from the Italian-American Mafia and, according to federal prosecutors, dominated heroin distribution in East Harlem, Italian Harlem, and the Bronx during the 1970s and early 1980s in New York City. Though mostly independent of the Italian-American Mafia and not an official Mafia crew, the gang was originally affiliated with and worked with the Lucchese crime family and later with the Bonanno crime family and Genovese crime family. It developed its "closest ties" with the Genovese family, and its remnants or former members are now part of the Genovese family's 116th Street Crew.
Wallace Rice is a gangster who was part of the 1970s heroin trade in Harlem, New York. Rice was one of the seven members of The Council that included Leroy "Nicky" Barnes, known as "Mr Untouchable", its leader.
Hakeem Abdul-Shaheed, also known as Midget Molley, is an American convicted drug dealer and organized crime leader. He acquired the nickname 'Midget' from his family, in reference to his short height. He stands at 5'2".
A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin or narcotrafficker is a high ranking crime boss who controls a sizable network of people involved in the illegal drug trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they are normally not directly in possession of something illegal, but are insulated from the actual trade in drugs by several layers of staff. The prosecution of drug lords is therefore usually the result of carefully planned infiltration into their networks, often using informants from within the organizations.
Frank Larry Matthews, also known as Black Caesar, Mark IV and Pee Wee, is an American drug trafficker who sold heroin and cocaine throughout the eastern United States from 1965 to 1972. At the peak of his career he operated in 21 states and supplied drug dealers throughout every region of the country. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ranks him as one of the top 10 drug traffickers in U.S. history and he is estimated to have had $20 million in savings.
The US state of Georgia has seen a rise in the number of gangs over recent years, in the main focused on the illegal drug trade.
Barry Michael Cooper is a New York City-born American writer, producer and director, best known for his screenplays for the films New Jack City (1991), Sugar Hill (1994), and Above the Rim (1994), sometimes called his "Harlem Trilogy".
The Miami Boys was a drug organization composed of a loose-knit group of African-American drug suppliers and dealers from south Florida. Also known as "the Untouchables", the group started in the early 1980s and by 1986 the organization had spread to other cities and states throughout the Southeastern the United States.
The Nine Trey Gangster Bloods or Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods (NTG) are a violent set of the United Blood Nation street gang, which is itself a set of the Bloods gang. The gang operates on the East Coast of the United States.
The 10th & Oregon Crew, or 10th & O Gang, is a predominantly Italian American gang and organized crime group operating in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Active since the 1960s, the gang is associated closely with but independent from the Italian-American Philadelphia crime family. It is primarily active in South Philadelphia and certain working-class Italian-American neighborhoods in nearby South Jersey.
