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Five Points Gang

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The Five Points Gang was a criminal street gang, initially of primarily Irish-American origins, based in the Five Points of Lower Manhattan, New York City, during the late 19th and early 20th century. The gang had its origin in the various Irish immigrant and Irish-American gangs in the Five Points area. Paul Kelly, born Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli before utilizing an Irish-sounding name, was an Italian-American who organized and partially founded the more cohesive “Five Points Gang.” While the gang had some continuity with the prior Irish gangs of the Five Points, it eventually predominately consisted of the Italian immigrant and Italian-American gangsters that had begun to populate the previously mostly Irish-American Five Points. The gang eventually consisted largely of Italian-Americans and Italian immigrants living in the Five Points, though it continued to include Irish-American members and members of other ethnicities throughout its existence. Some of the gang’s members later becam...
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Paul Kelly

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Paul Kelly (born Francesco Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli; December 23, 1876 – April 3, 1936) was an Italian-born American mobster, who founded the Five Points Gang in New York City. He had started some brothels with prize money earned in boxing. Five Points Gang was one of the last dominant street gangs in New York history. Kelly recruited young, poor men from the ethnically diverse immigrant neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan. The Five Points Gang included some who later became prominent criminals in their own right, including Johnny Torrio, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Frankie Yale. At the peak of his criminal career, Kelly was ranked by The New York Times in 1912 as "perhaps the most successful and the most influential gangster in New York history". Kelly was said to support election of Democratic Tammany Hall politicians with his gang's activities at elections. After open street warfare with the Eastman Gang in the early twentieth century, which also had ties w...
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American Mafia

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The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society and organized crime group. The terms Italian Mafia and Italian Mob apply to these US-based organizations, as well as the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy, or ethnic Italian crime groups in other countries. These organizations are often referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra (Italian pronunciation: [ˈkɔːza ˈnɔstra, ˈkɔːsa -], "Our Thing" or "This Thing of Ours") and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original Mafia or Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia groups from Sicily operating in the United States. The Mafia in the United States emerged in impoverished Italian immigrant neighborhoods in New York's East Harlem (or ...
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Chicago Outfit

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The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or the Organization) is an Italian American Mafia crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, originating in the city's South Side in 1910. The organization is part of the larger American Mafia. The Outfit rose to power in the 1920s under the control of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone, and the period was marked by bloody gang wars for control of the distribution of illegal alcohol during Prohibition. Since then, the Outfit has been involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including loansharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption and murder. Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and the Outfit was next run by Paul Ricca. He shared power with Tony Accardo from 1943 until his death in 1972; Accardo became the sole power in the Outfit upon Ricca's death and was one of the longest-sitting bosses of all time upon h...
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South Side Compton Crips

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The South Side Compton Crips (also known as the South Side Crips) are a "set" of the Crips gang alliance, based in Compton, California. This gang is known for the murder of Tupac Shakur.
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Grape Street Watts Crips

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The Grape Street Watts Crips is a set of the Crips gang based in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The gang's rivalry with the Bounty Hunter Bloods has been described as being "the most violent and long lasting feud between two gangs that are in the Watts area."
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Crips–Bloods gang war

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The Crips and the Bloods, two majority-Black street gangs founded in Los Angeles (L.A.), have been in a gang war since around 1971. It has mostly taken place in major American cities, especially L.A., but is also present in Australia, Belize, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The war is made up of small, local conflicts between the two gangs' chapters, or "sets". In the 1970s, a lack of economic opportunities in South Central L.A. led to gangs like the Crips, who claimed city territory and guarded it from other gangs. The Bloods formed as defense against numerous Crip shootings. Both groups started extorting money from local businesses, and distributing crack cocaine. In the 1980s, the war reached other countries. By then, the gangs' members often identified themselves using clothing colored blue for Crips, and red for Bloods. Those wearing a gang's colors in an opposing gang's territory were often targets of violence; this trend ha...
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