OFF THE WIRE
The second installment of this lost Jack magazine classic, moves onto Russian, South African and Asian gangs. The 28s sound particularly horrid...
Russian Gangs
The Uralmash Gang
They controlled the Russian province of Yekaterinburg. In 1992, war broke out with the Centrally family aided by gangs of Caucasians, and all was lost. When two of the gang’s hierarchy were killed, each had a memorial statue erected at $75,000 apiece.
The Lyubertsky Gang
A south-eastern Moscow outfit that started off as a street gang in the Seventies, but now specialises in extortion, contract killings and prostitution. In their spare time, their chosen hobby is dishing out severe beatings to hippies and punks.
The Malina
In the early Seventies, the Malina were the first wave of so-called Russian “mafia” to settle in America, led by Vyachaslev Ivankov, aka Yaponchik or “Little Japanese”. Setting up operations in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, they initially busied themselves with fuel-tax evasion and insurance fraud. The Russian mafia cells now fully operative in the US are involved in the standard drug trafficking, arms dealing and prostitution, but have also become adept at increasingly sophisticated ventures such as “internet protection racketeering”.
The Old Boys
The Westies
Undisputed lords of Hell’s Kitchen, NYC, from 1900 to the Eighties. Their most famous leader was Jimmy Coonan, inspiration for the film State of Grace, who took over in 1974. The gang killed and dismembered enemies, one victim’s head was placed on a shelf in bar and toasted by the drunken gang all night. After they were busted, Coonan and co helped bring down John Gotti.
The Oakland Sugar House Gang
Formed in Detroit shortly after WW1, their leaders were Harry Fleischer and Irving Milberg who were said to be “so tough they made Capone’s gang look like a kindergarten”. They teamed up with Sammy Cohen, aka Sammy Purple, to become the renowned and feared Purple Gang.
The Five Pointers
Along with rivals The Eastmans, they were the most formidable of the 1900s NYC gangs. Led by Paul Kelly (born Paolo Vacarelli), the gang averaged just 5ft 3ins in height, pomaded their hair, were clean-shaven, manicured and wore cologne and suits. A training ground for the Mafia, Johnny Turrio – a future boss of Chicago – Al Capone and “Lucky” Luciano all passed through.
The 28s are distinguished from internal prison rivals such as The 27s and The 26s in that they are all, to the last, raging sodomites.
The Car Barn Gang
Formed in 1911 by NYC’s most fearsome brawlers and hoodlums, they ruled 90th to 100th Streets, from Third Avenue to the East River. They erected placards saying “NOTICE – COPS KEEP OUT. No policeman will hereafter be allowed in this block. By order of THE CAR BARN GANG.” The cops took note.
South African Gangs
The Pagad
Responsible for the shooting and bombing on August 4, 1996 of notorious drug dealer and gang leader Rashaad Staggie in Cape Town, this clique is unique in that it is a quasi-political vigilante gang formed out of usually law-abiding Muslim South Africans.
The Numbers
“I am powerful, I am partly God,” says Mogamat Benjamin, leader of South Africa’s oldest and largest Numbers prison gang, The 28s. Benjamin is said to have killed more people than he can remember in 34 years behind bars, beheading one victim with a knife made from razor blades and cutting out the heart of another and then eating it. In doing so he apparently ingests their life force. Many gang members faces are covered in tattoos and to join one has to first commit murder. Formed in 1906 in a revolt by 28 black inmates, The 28s are distinguished from internal prison rivals such as The 27s and The 26s in that they are all, to the last, raging sodomites. New recruits become the sexual chattels of The 28s’ hierarchy and are known as ‘birds’. In South Africa’s maximum security prisons Numbers gangs control the lives of all prisoners – inmates with no gang affiliations get the hardest time, picked on by all and often denied basics like food. In the cells, the men of 26 and 27 sleep on the west side where the sun comes up and the 28s sleep on the east, because they are the “men of the night”, indulging in orgies with each other and their sex slaves.
The Ugly Cats
Formed in Cape Town in the Nineties, this Afrikaans-speaking gang struggle for lucrative protection, prostitution and drug rackets with other crews such as the 10,000 strong Hard Livings Gang and The Genuine TV Kids.
Caribbean Gangs
Yardies/Posses
In the turbulent Seventies, gangs of local Jamaican hard men were employed as muscle for many of the country’s political factions. In the 1980 election campaign, some 500 murders were blamed on such posses working for Michael Manley’s People’s National Party. Once organised, many a gang had little else to do after the elections, but continue as fully-fledged organised criminals. In the mid-Eighties they discovered an internationally desirable commodity sitting right on their doorstep – crack cocaine – and Jamaican posses soon moved abroad. The Shower Posse went into New Jersey, the Tel Aviv Posse acquainted themselves with Boston and the Dog Posse hit Philadelphia. Today, they are also firmly ensconced in the UK.
The former Indian religious sect strangled and robbed wealthy travellers, sacrificing their victims in the name of the goddess Kali. Founded in the 13th Century, the gang was eventually suppressed by the British in the late 1840s.
The SAD Posse
SAD (Search and Destroy) were a five piece Yardie firm operating in London who on May 30, 1993 ’steamed’ a blues party in search of two brothers. Unable to find them, the gang decided to rob the 100 guests, relieving them of their possessions as they fired numerous shots into the ceiling. Unfortunately, one member, Eaton Green, shot himself in the foot and was arrested. Even more disastrous was that the man in question had also been an undercover police informant for two years, his role to lure a massive Yardie gang to London as part of an ingenious police operation.
The Shower Posse
Hailing from Kingston, Jamaica, this bunch earned their sobriquet via their penchant for showering their adversaries with bullets. In 1995, the posse made their presence felt in Oakland, New York, shooting it out with the rival Dog and Tel Aviv Posses at a picnic attended by some 2,000 civilians. Three were left dead; nine were wounded and later 33 guns were found abandoned on the ground.
Asian Gangs
Quang Binh
The Vietnamese QB have operated in Berlin since the fall of The Wall in the lucrative tobacco smuggling industry. Now allied with the Chechen fraternity (favoured crime kidnapping), who provide extra clout for the Vietnamese.
The Thugs
The former Indian religious sect strangled and robbed wealthy travellers, sacrificing their victims in the name of the goddess Kali. Founded in the 13th Century, the gang was eventually suppressed by the British in the late 1840s.
The Tongs
These famed accomplices of the fictional Fu Manchu were no ancient Chinese order but a group formed in the California goldfields in 1847 to protect Chinese gambling and opium interests. They gained notoriety in New York’s Chinatown in the 1900s under Mock Duck, leader of the Hip Sing Tong. Moon-faced and overweight, Duck would stride into battle, chain mail beneath his Chinese silks, eyes closed, firing in all directions, and rarely hitting a thing.
The Wah Ching
A Chinese outfit from San Francisco that gained notoriety in 1976 by tangling with the Jo’Boys over the protection of local fireworks salesmen. Three Jo’Boys sprayed the Wah Ching HQ at The Golden Dragon restaurant with machine guns for a whole minute. Five died and 11 wounded, none of whom were gang members.
The Yakuza
Recognised as the Japanese mafia, these tough gangsters can trace their origins back to 1612 when swordsmen known as the kabuki-mono (“the crazy ones”) began plundering Japan. Nowadays they may wear suits but their game is the same.
