Gangsters in BA?

[laureltp]

I just watched a documentary on the bloods and crips. It made me wonder if there were gangs here or if that's just us. Anybody know?

You would think with all the Italian immigrants there would at least be a mafia here (just kidding, anyone of italian decent, please don't get mad, my grandparent's are saltinos so i think that gives me some kind of right to pick on them a bit )

 

[SaraSara]

(just kidding, anyone of italian decent, please don't get mad, my grandparent's are saltinos so i think that gives me some kind of right to pick on them a bit )

What is a "saltino"?

 

[fred mertz]

All too often we read about the Chinese mafia here, who extort money from Chinese people, many of whom own grocery stores. I think that someone was killed, last week

 

[laureltp]

What is a "saltino"?

that's that half of my family's last name, I should have worded it better, sorry for confusing you! Tell you the truth, I am not sure if that's how it is supposed to be spelled when they got to the US from Italy they didn't speak English, not sure exactly what happened, must be they weren't understood right, so we have it spelled three different ways but it's all the same family....

 

[laureltp]

All too often we read about the Chinese mafia here, who extort money from Chinese people, many of whom own grocery stores. I think that someone was killed, last week

come to think of it I have heard something about that here.

 

[citygirl]

Supposedly (take with big grain of salt), the color of the signs on the chinese grocery stores indicates which tong/gang the owner is protected by (aka paying protection money to). I don't know if that's true but that's what someone told me.

I do believe a Chinese grocery store owner was killed in Palermo in the last few months and the rumor (again) was that it was because he didn't want to pay up.

I must admit the only gangs I've heard about are in the villas but those aren't mafia.

 

[JoeBlow]

I just watched a documentary on the bloods and crips. It made me wonder if there were gangs here or if that's just us. Anybody know?

In my years here, never heard of anything similiar. Nor did I ever hear of gangs in Mexico City (lived there for 3 years). In El Salvador the Marras are supposed to be like a typical US gang.

 

[laureltp]

Joe, so that's what I was wondering. After watching that documentary (actually called Made in America) I started to wonder if the gang thing was something that only happened in the US or if it was a global thing. Thanks for sharing.

 

[bsas]

Yeah, there's tons of organized crime in Buenos Aires. Watch out for the group known as the Polis. They go by Poli-cia and Poli-ticos. You can't always spot them by the color of clothes they wear, but I've heard they're prone to wearing mustaches - the bigger the better, and in the case of one notorious member, expensive Louis Vuitton bags and enormous amounts of makeup.

 

[Amargo]

There is also the mafia called "La Liga", google for it for more information. They are said to arrange auctions, buying property for nothing and reselling it later. Also threaten people at auctions, so that only their people get the properties.

There is also the Moyano mafia. They threaten everyone who doesn't join their "Union", block companies which not allow their "union". They are becoming so powerfull that even the KKs (pronounce it in Spanish) are starting to become uneasy.

There used to be an efedrina and gold mafias, I don't know much about them though.