In the 15th century in spain there was the Garduna that was a pyramidal group which activities included street crimes like murders,extortions,pimping from carry murders of powerful people and search infos for blackmail import people and gave impunity to the street members.
The garduna was the mother of camorra,ndrangheta e mafia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThuggeeThe thugs was a criminal secret society of killers and robbers born in the middle age india. The made human sacrifices to goddess Kali and was completly disbanded by english army in 1857. The word Thug derive by their name.
