TbN-Crime

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Crime

The main thing to understand about crime in Tucson is this simple rule:

It is always about the drugs.

The incessant demand for illegal drugs in America in general and Southern Arizona in particular is the financial engine by which all organized crime operates.

It is rare for drugs to actually be produced in Arizona. Effective enforcement measures make large scale production extremely rare these days. Even trailer meth labs are hard to find since controls on precursor chemicals were put in place. Exactly two meth labs were found in Arizona between 2006 and 2009 (one of which is fictional and happened in Coyotes). Cocaine is neither cultivated nor produced in Arizona. Small-time marijuana growers can't produce anywhere near the weight demanded by the market. Virtually all drugs sold in Southern Arizona, whether for retail or for re-transport are prepared in Mexico and smuggled across the border.

The Montes de Oca Family

This tangled crime family and their associated street gangs are the major players throughout Tucson and Southern Arizona, and also exert considerable control over the vast and violent Phoenix drug market as well.

Current Events

Between 2008 and 2009, the Montes de Oca crime family fought a war on two fronts.

First, after a mishap led them to believe that their supplier, the Trans-Mexico Shipping cartel, was attacking them, they opened up a war fought primarily in Sonora against their former partners. Second, after this war shut off their drug supply temporarily, the Original Mexican Mafia (or OMM), a California drug gang, believed they could move in on Southern Arizona business interests.

The Montes de Ocas won both wars, through a combination of murder, torture, intimidation and spending an enormous amount of money. The FBI rolled up the remaining OMM operatives in a sweep in spring 2009.

The tangled family tree of the Montes de Ocas is not worth reproducing here. Suffice to say that anyone drawn into their family circle of sex, violence and addiction rapidly escalates until they are just like the rest. The organization is equally chaotic, with scheming lieutenants and soldiers constantly looking for an opportunity to move up.

The top two, a half-brother and -sister, Jose and Julieta, got where they are in part because their superstition led them to locate and bribe occult practitioners to aid them in their rise to power. Julieta's pet fortuneteller, Katarine Dospoy was murdered on orders from Jose's ritual magician Stuart van Deusen when she refused to help van Deusen with a demonic plan.

The Montes de Ocas have connections with several Latin street gangs, including Barrio Libre Brown Mexican Pride, who retail drugs throughout Southern Arizona. Horribly racist, they do not deal with African-American gangs either in Tucson or Phoenix.

The Montes de Ocas recently began to use the Santomaro brothers as their primary drug transporters for outlying and out-of-state movement of product. (The Phoenix dealers are sophisticated enough to have their own transportation network.) What they don't know is that the Santomaros are being tracked by the FBI.

More information is on their own page.

The Gomez Family

A minor crime family of primarily historical importance, the Gomezes were crucial players in the drug game throughout the nineties, until the Montes de Ocas killed virtually everyone connected to drugs, relegating the Gomezes strictly to bringing immigrants across the line. They were the protagonists of Coyotes.

Law Enforcement

Law enforcement is horrendously overmatched by the drug war and tends to focus on two things: bodies, and drugs on the table. Those with a birds-eye view of the situation that have some knowledge about how things are (such as TPD Detective Patricia Simon) lack the departmental power to actually make changes. That said, they're good at solving murders and hauling massive amounts of drugs off the street. This never changes anything.

The Tucson Police Department is the primary direct law enforcement organization in the Tucson area. The Pima County Sheriff is also very active in the outlying areas. However, the border is home to many law enforcement organizations: the Cochise and Santa Cruz County Sheriffs, the FBI, the Border Patrol, other Homeland Security agents, and in Mexico, the judicial and preventative federal police, as well as the state police of Sonora.

NPCs

Here are some NPCs that can be used in crime games. (Those directly associated with the above organizations are listed there.)

Major Players

Minor Players

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