Black Organized Crime

1
Black Organized Crime
2
Introduction

• Theres a great variety of black criminal groups
• some are home grown (e.g. the El Rukns)
• others are imported
• Theres no evidence of a clear structure
• no leadership role
• no affiliation with any organized crime group

3
Methods to gain control (1)

• Drugs distribution
• blacks were dependent on Italian criminals as
  drug suppliers until 1970
• they established working relationships with
  Colombian and Cuban traffickers
• Gambling
• take control over gambling houses

4
Heroin Business

• Important black criminal organizations in the
  heroin business New York Detroit Chicago
  Philadelphia Washington D.C.

5
Methods to gain control (2)

• Italian Irish criminal organizations
• had found jobs
• educated their children
• they moved away from the criminal neighbourhoods

6
Where did they live

• The majority moved south where houses were cheap
• Chicagos South Side Black Belt was the second
  largest Negro city in the world
• more than 300000 African-Americans lived there
• only New Yorks Harlem exceeded it in size

7
Where did they live
8
Drugs (1)

• Heroin
• West African countries have become important
  transhipment centres for heroin
• Nigerian couriers travel to Pakistan to obtain
  Heroin
• then continue on commercial flights to their
  final destinations
• or return to Nigeria to repackage the narcotics
  into smaller amounts to the West

9
Drugs (2)

• Nigerian students receive money for bringing in
  one hundred grams
• usually by swallowing heroin-filled condoms
• this connection is called the Nigerian connection
  
• most Nigerians earn about three hundred dollars a
  year
• theres also a lot of official corruption

10
Gambling

• Organization of gambling in the 1930s
• white gamblers were forced to pay protection
  money in black neighbourhoods
• Italian criminals will takeover gambling
  operations
• Italians moved in made those operations part of
  their organizations
• these takeovers did not mean that the blacks left
  the field of crime

11
The 3 most important black criminal organisations

• El Rukns
• Forty Thieves
• The Bloods and the Crips

12
El Rukns

• Its the best-known black organized crime group
  in Chicago
• The leader of this group Jeff Fort organized a
  coalition of twenty-one gangs
• this coalition is called the Black P. Stone
  Nation
• most dangerous street gang in 1968
• the leaders were the 21 gang leaders with Fort
  as the head
• this organization began to dominate large areas
  of the black community

13
Jeff Fort

• rarely spoke to anyone who wasnt part of his
  organization
• he was offered 2.5 million by the Libya
  government to plant bombs on American airplanes
• was convicted of participation in traffic of
  cocaine
• sentenced to thirteen years of imprisonment
• his gangs headquarters were destroyed
• many convictions (nineteen gang members)

14
Forty Thieves

• leader of this group was the legendary Madame St.
  Clair a black woman
• this group moved into the distribution of cocaine
  and provided the high society of New York
• the group operated in Harlem

15
The Bloods the Crips

• this group of Los Angeles has been expanding
  their operations and drug markets
• are heavily armed and quick to use violence
• new competitors youthful crack dealers
• these street gangs have entered the market
• use frequently hand-powered guns and automatic
  weapons

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The four most important leaders of the black
organized crime

• Nick Barnes
• Frank Mathews
• Charles Lucas
• John Johnson

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Nick Barnes

• dominated the heroin distribution business in
  Harlem
• is the best known black organized crime figure to
  the general public
• became very rich with drug traffic and he was
  called the king of Harlem
• in 1981 he began to cooperate with the police
• his testimony helped to convict 50 drug dealers
  and killers

18
Nick Barnes
19
John Johnson

• opened his own saloon and gambling house in 1890
• unique gambling place
• players did not gamble against the house
• they gambled against one another with the
  gamekeeper taking a part of every pot
• opened other gambling houses
• was described as the Negro Gambling King of
  Chicago but never gambled himself
• sold protection to over twenty Chinatown opium
  and gambling halls

20
John Johnson
21
Frank Mathews

• established a numbers bank in Philadelphia
• invested his profits into the heroin industry
• provided most of the local distribution of heroin
• expanded his heroin business into twenty states

22
Charles Lucas

• had the opportunity to become a major figure in
  the heroin business
• established a network made up of black Vietnam
  veterans
• personnel were selected because they were
  trustworthy