some gangs don't even sell drugs.....smh
gang members have brains to venture outside the dwindling profits of drugs sales
Sure, some gangs have branched out into other things at times - identity theft, sex trafficking, weapons trafficking, etc. But you can look at the vast majority of cases involving street gangs, prison gangs, and OMG's. Virtually across the board their core business, often their only business, revolves around the drug trade.
Look at the LA suburbs like Bell, that had politicians skimming millions off the top. Not sure if there's any direct evidence of the cartels being involved with that, but it just goes to show how easy it is. Cartels could easily buy off politicians in these towns that are 99% Latino. There's your diversification in the rackets. Sky's the limit when you have politicians in your pocket.
So why mention it?
It's not that we haven't seen cases of political and police corruption involving Hispanic OC groups. The Cuban Corporation and certain Latino areas of New Jersey had this. But it was on a limited scale and not the kind of institutionalized corruption that the Mafia was able to take advantage of. That kind of corruption, at least in relation to organized crime, doesn't exist in the US anymore. Law enforcement is entirely different now and there is much more transparency in politics.
In the mob's infancy, bootlegging was the primary racket. Alcohol is "drugs", and it was illegal then, which made it an illegal drug, just like cocaine or heroin. Exchange booze with the drugs of modern day and you have your parallels between the mob and the cartels.
The parallel only goes as far as alcohol and drugs. Have we seen cartels here in the US become diversified like the Mafia did, ie not only being involved in narcotics but gambling, loansharking, extortion, fraud, labor racketeering, infiltration of legitimate businesses, etc?
The answer is no.
In Mexico itself we have seen the Zetas and some smaller cartels diversify into other things like kidnapping, extortion, immigrant smuggling, etc. But Chapo reportedly kept his Sinaloa group for doing this, choosing to focus on drug trafficking alone. Easier to do when you have the biggest slice of the pie.
Ivy the mafia before prohibition was only composed by street gangs with the the prohibition the mob started to do milion and become more organized in the Outfit case Torrio and Capone used the power and the money for buy the political influence and the power on the unions.
Same thing for the ms 13 when will create a drug pipeline from los angeles to New York with hundred milion a year can easly bribe cops and politicians and for the unions,gambling ecc simple they made more money with the drugs.
So let me get this straight. We've seen far more sophisticated, far more powerful and connected, and far richer DTO's in the past not be able to duplicate the kind of wide-ranging influence the Mafia has had, but MS-13 is going to come along and somehow accomplish this? It's not going to happen. Some of you guys spend to much time in dream land, where wild theories, conjecture, and "what ifs" rule, and not enough time in reality.
