83 Ruthless Facts About The World’s Most Vicious Mobs and Gangs

There is a pirate 'stock exchange' in Somalia where locals can invest in pirate gangs planning hijacking missions

2. A group of unpaid volunteers travels around Detroit mowing and cleaning neglected parks. They call themselves "The Mower Gang".

3. A Russian hitman named Alexander Solonik (AKA Superkiller) assassinated 30 mob bosses. After leaving contract killing, he becomes Russian mob boss. He was assassinated 2 years later.

4. In an attempt to shut down the MS13 gang in the early 90's, illegal members were deported to their home countries. Instead of shutting down, deportees gained territory upon their return home and now MS13 has over 100,000 members worldwide and is one of the largest, deadliest gangs.

5. A pizza delivery guy named Brian Wells had a bomb collar attached to his neck and was forced to rob a bank by a gang. Shortly after robbing the bank, he was arrested and handcuffed by police, but the bomb detonated, killing him.

There is a charity in the United States which offers discounted tattoo removal for former gang members.

7. The most powerful gangs in the United States have a presence in the US military. Gangster Disciples, Crips, Bloods, 18th Street, Nortenos, Black Disciples, Surenos, Latin Kings, Vice Lords, African Nations, Aryan Nations, Aryan Brotherhood and Ku Klux Klan graffiti has been documented in Iraq.

8. In 1880, an Australian outlaw and his gang (Ned Kelly) smithed steel suits out of ploughshares and held off the Victorian Police with their bulletproof armor

9. America's first serial killers, the Harpe Brothers, were kicked out of pirate gang for being too brutal they would throw their victims off the cliffs of Cave-In-Rock, Illinois

10. The FBI likely encouraged myths about Ma Barker being a criminal mastermind to justify shooting her during the shootout between the Barker-Karpis gang and the FBI. She likely never had any involvement in the gang's crimes.

In 1995 a pizza driver, Tariq Khamisa, was killed by a 14-year-old gang member. The victim's father reached out to the perpetrator's grandfather and together they started a forgiveness and youth outreach project that has reached 350,000 children.

12. Chinese Triad members tried to shakedown and extort Michael Bay during the filming of Transformers 4

13. French criminal Albert Spaggiari was caught after his gang stole 60 million francs worth of valuables from a bank. At his trial, he distracted the judge, jumped out of a window and escaped on a motorcycle specially set up for him. He was never caught again and died a free man.

14. Libyan dictator Gaddafi gave the Irish Republican Army four tons of Semtex. The IRA sold the plastic explosive to FARC in Colombia with bomb-making technology and training, charging $1 million per class for 28 classes

15. To be inducted into the infamous biker gang Hells Angels, newbies must never wash their uniform (the biker jacket and jeans) even after they have been covered in urine and feces of acting members.

The Yakuza operate openly in Japan: they have offices, make charitable donations, and even have large investments in mainstream companies

17. The Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) have been sending debtors to work the extremely hazardous cleanup at Fukushima to pay off their gambling/drug debts. Most don't have the proper training to do the job right.

18. In 1976, a Japanese ultranationalist porn actor died after flying a plane into the house of a yakuza don to punish him for accepting millions of dollars in bribes from Lockheed & betraying the samurai code

19. Meth was invented in Japan. At first, it was used to curb hunger and energize Japanese citizens. Later It was given to Kamikaze pilots, soldiers, and wartime factory workers. It is now controlled and distributed by the Yakuza.

20. Yubitsume is the Yakuza ritual of chopping off part of one's pinky as either punishment or an apology. The reason for amputation of the little finger makes a proper grip on a samurai sword impossible, weakening him in battle and forcing the person to be more reliant on his boss for protection.

When Super Famicom (SNES) first launched in Japan, Nintendo had to ship the consoles in the middle of the night so the Yakuza didn't hijack them

22. When Eisenhower planned to visit Japan in 1960, the government called on yakuza bosses to lend tens of thousands of their men as security guards

23. Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, the CEO of Olympus was fired when he discovered that $1.6 billion of the company's money had been paid to the yakuza gang.

24. A young American applied for and got a job as a reporter reporting in Japanese at the biggest Japanese daily, and went on to uncover a deal between a major yakuza boss and the FBI.

25. Due to homosexuality being depicted in American Me, the Mexican Mafia retaliated by murdering three of the movie's consultants