Cártel de Michoacán Nueva Generación
Written by: Ouzo
Now you might've noticed that since the Teocalli Arcology set up a bunch of new gang-members started making a little trouble all around Raleigh, except around the arcology itself. See, when Aztechnology set up shop in Raleigh, they wanted a way to keep the corporate citizens scared of the outside, endear outsiders to the supposed safety of arcology-life and take care of any problems too dirty for the Teocalli to be caught associating with. Enter the Cártel de Michoacán Nueva Generación, or the CMNG. As far as the public, they're just another group of well-armed and vaguely ethnic gangbangers causing trouble in the CAS, but what Azzies don't want you to know is that these guys are based out of the Teocalli and indirectly funded by the higher-ups as deniable assets, causing trouble for everyone Aztechnology doesn't like and making sure trouble stays away from the publically accessible parts of the arcology. The income they bring in from dealing illicit goods, protection rackets and 'the harvest' - their term for pulling cyberware off of poor slots - is just a bonus. Word of advice, guys: the CMNG might be more focussed and professional than your average gangbanger, but they're still a bunch of violent, drugged-up psychos with access to whatever guns, magic and chrome Aztechnology is willing to let them have. Only reason I walked in on so much of their drek and got away with it is because they thought I was a naive idiot who couldn't cause trouble if I tried. Which is fair.Structure
The lower echelons of the CMNG follow a pretty boilerplate system of delegating tasks, with rank-and-file goons working for lieutenants who in turn report to their superiors and so on. Further up and away from the public eye, the leadership takes on a more professional, 'corporate' vibe to communicate and facilitate with the Teocalli's officials, quarterly reports and all.
Identifiers
The CMNG are a pretty unique bunch, in that the higher-ups go out of their way to make the cartel look as unprofessional and cartoonishly ganger as they can get away with. For the grunts, this is as easy as recruiting from the local talent-pools of violent thugs, but for the people in the know of the cartel's true intentions, it's a pretty elaborate setup: programmable LED tatoos all over their body to rock the look on the clock but still look presentable off-hours, high-end cyberware with detachable gold-filgree panelling, even going out of their way to beat up their tricked-out rides a little so they don't look too good looking.It flies over the head of most folk, including Lone Star, but if you pay attention to these staged busts you'll notice a few faces making multiple appearances under different names, most likely dedicated fall-guys.
Wouldn't DNA testing picki up on these things?
Could be they have some kind of DNA scrambling gene-therapy set up for the important fall-guys, while the less important guys have to deal with being 'repeat offenders' when the profiles match.
Assets
Despite being an Azzie-funded cartel, the CMNG understandably avoid publically using anything made by Aztechnology, bad publicity and all, and instead they procure all their guns and cyberware from other manufacturers through black-market connections for the lower echelons. A lot of their stuff what you'd expect a small-time cartel to have, a lot of old small-arms and yerzed out tuners, kept in whatever safehouses they can squat in. That said, they also have the occasional 'peacock piece', guns and chrome made from one of Aztechnology's higher-end manufacturers, to play the 'all publicity is good publicity' card and associate the expensive stuff as being in-style for the gang-leaders who 'make it'.
History
Just as a foreword, even with Ouzo's insight and our own digging, a lot of this is still speculation, so take all of this with a grain of salt.The CMNG doesn't have a great deal of history, having been formed by committee the early part of this decade by the Teocalli's higher-ups as a covert means of dealing with external problems plaguing other Aztechnology corporate-residences at the time while still allowing for a degree of plausible deniability. A lot of the founding members were selected from corporate citizens with security and military backgrounds, prioritising ones with records of excessive violence or criminal activity, but in order to keep things authentic, they also recruited members of ghost-cartels and other criminal outfits that were stomped out the prior decade, taking them out of prison (or bloodsports, in some case) in exchange for being the face of their controlled opposition.
The Azzies did a good job of giving these guys new identities and handing their old ones to corpses, but the devil's in the details: They might look completely different, but they took their old behaviors and tactics with 'em into the CMNG, most obviously with the talents they brought from 'Escuadrón de la pasión', and their very distinguishing method of executing finks.The CMNG have been playing the long game since, setting up safehouses and low-profile businesses in the outskirts of the Concrete Forest and slowly moving inwards once they got some purchase on Raleigh's underground market. There's been a few slip-ups along the way - in part because a lot of the recruits don't know the real goal of the cartel and have too many big ideas/ambitions - but they've recently been making some scrapes against some of the bigger name groups, which sounds to me like they're ready to make some bigger waves...
"No Compromise."
Founding Date
2073
Type
Illicit, Syndicate
Alternative Names
Michoacán New Generation Cartel, the CMNG
Demonym
Micho/Michos
Location
Notable Members
Peace
The Black Unicorns have been making particular use of the CMNG as a deniable asset of their own, albeit from a very safe distance. The GMNG, respectively, are content in allowing this to happen as another means of sourcing income.
Cease-Fire
Although none of the CMNG's founding members are connected with the Pack's predecessor group, Los Decas, relations between chilly at best despite growing business relations between the two.
Aggression
The Corsairs and the CMNG have been quietly sniping away at eachother for a while, as the latter makes continued attempts at usurping the former's growing monopoly on smuggling and transportation networks.
Hostilities
The Aoyama used to think of the CMNG as being another group of useful idiots, until the latter took advantage of the former's underestimation and made off with some prime product. The two are keeping it out of the public eye for their own reasons, but the violent clashes speak for themselves.
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