

L.A. Gangs Seek Profit in Peace - cwan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126213528444809699.html

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dmix
This has to be influenced by The Wire.

CSI teaches murders how to not get caught. The Wire shows how drugs can be run
like a serious business.

In the show the top dealers from all the different neighbourhoods meet up in
hotel conference rooms to organize deals and prevent turf wars.

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brown9-2
_The Wire_ premiered in 2002, and the New Day Coop (what you refer to with the
hotel conference rooms) really started around Seasons 2 and 3 (2003 and 2004).

So why did this idea take five years to reach the streets then?

I think this theory is a little too cute to be true.

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dmix
If you want to get particular, I'll abide.

How do we know that it took five years for these gang collaborations to
happen? Maybe it took 5 years for it to progress to them high-fiving and
hugging in public.

My original point was that it may have helped the criminals become comfortable
with the idea. Of course it didn't instantly end decades long feuds after an
afternoon of watching season 3 of The Wire.

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mickt
Plus, change take time, even I'd imagine in organisations such as gangs.

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aaronbrethorst
This reminds me simultaneously of Dr. Dre ("The Day the Niggaz Took Over" from
The Chronic [1]) and a recent report stating that the average Afghan makes
more money siding with the Taliban than they do with the U.S.-backed Karzai
government [2].

[1]
[http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=...](http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=dr.+dre+the+day+the+niggaz+took+over&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

[2] [http://washingtonindependent.com/70114/we-pay-afghan-
soldier...](http://washingtonindependent.com/70114/we-pay-afghan-soldiers-
less-than-the-taliban-does)

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kentosi
I wonder if this type of morphing from street gangs to smarter criminal
business units the way the mafia started in Europe?

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jakarta
Perhaps these street gangs have learned from their drug suppliers?

When drug cartel planes out of Colombia started getting shot down as a result
of anti-drug operations, the cartels started pooling cocaine shipments
together in airplanes as a means of sharing the risk amongst each other.

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pavel_lishin
That doesn't sound like a great idea. If you're one of 10 cartels, it seems
like your chances of being shot down are 1/10. (Not really, but let's just
posit that the gov't can shoot down one plane a day.) If you pool everything
together on one plane, suddenly your odds of making some deer and coyotes very
jittery shoot up by 10.

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jakarta
Only a finite amount can be pooled on a plane though. So instead of possibly
losing 100% of your shipment if you are one lone cartel flying your cocaine to
the US and it is shot down, you can now only lose 10% of your shipment.

This could be one of many reasons why VCs team up and do deals together.

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theprodigy
I wonder if there is a criminal management consulting service that exists.

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mickt
Or HR consulting?

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pavel_lishin
So when can I expect to be able to stop by a Cosa Nostra franchise?

