Fairly pleasant, TBH.

I worked for a summer camp specifically for kids from some particularly dicey neighborhoods. Every so often I had to go set up shop in those neighborhoods to meet with parents and whatnot. Some guys in a local gang came to talk to me, learned I was there to offer something helpful to their kids, and from then out made sure I and my car were safe whenever I had to be in the area.

Nice guys, at least in the capacity I knew them.

I grew up in a town where it was general knowledge that retired Italian mobsters retired to.

They made sure that town was clean, safe, and with very little crime. Chased out encroaching gangs and were generally an overall positive for the community.

Since they stopped retiring there a few years ago, the town has gone to shit.

I went on a ‘Business Enterprise’ programme back in the UK in the very early ‘90s. Basically it was how to run a business 101. Six sessions on different things: accounting, HR, etc. etc.

One of the other guys on the course turned out to be the son of the biggest coke dealer in the city.

He was a nice kid. By the end of the course a bunch of us had bonded and someone invited us all to a house party.

The son of the coke dealer turned up with a briefcase literally full of cocaine. That was a fucking awesome party, let me tell you.

I would say ‘Nice try FBI’, but this was back when I was a child, so fuckit, here goes…

Back when I was only 7 years old (1989), living on a ~40 acre horse ranch/junkyard, my dad and his friend decided to teach me to drive a stick shift truck. Plenty of open space ya know, so yeah…

Anyways, dad’s friend literally told me to drive through the pond in the back end of the property. It was only a couple feet deep anyways, so it shouldn’t have been any big deal right?

Well, we did exactly that, drove through the pond, only for the truck tires to end up completely shredded. So like what the actual fuck?

Apparently I ran over a bucket to a bulldozer buried in the pond.

Well, as we came to find out later as time went on, the previous owner of the property had been stealing bulldozers and other county equipment, grinding off the serial numbers, repainting them, and selling them back to the county.

Yeah that caught up with him, I never actually met the previous property owner, but that motherfucker also had people removed from the gene pool if they reported him…

When my girlfriend’s dad was a kid he was once paid very good money to help unload crates off a boat and not ask questions

Also, and even less directly relevant to my life, I live a couple blocks away from a very famous dead gangster’s old hideout. One of the members of the gang, who lived down the street from me, went on to have a fairly iconic role in a classic mob movie

Years ago (early 90s) my mother had a female friend. The friend had an uncle “Tony” no idea if a real uncle or just friend of family.

My mother’s friend also had a sister who was engaged. One night sister and fiance got into a fight and it hit violent. Sister ended up in hospital for a week, several broken bones and multiple injuries. Somehow, “Tony” found out. The next morning the boyfriend woke up and left the house for work. He never showed up to work. He never was seen or heard of again. Maybe he’s buried, maybe he’s in the walls of a building or under the pavement of a road. I have no idea, but sister got a beating and when “Tony” found out he ensured the guy would beat anyone else ever.

Thought of another instance, even less details on this. Coworker was from Trinidad. One day he didn’t show up, ok cool everyone takes time off. Next day he is also not at work, I ask manager and told “he had a family emergency”. I think it was a week later he returned and I was curious and talked with him. He told me he had relatives in Trinidad and one started a new job at a port basically checking to make sure fees were paid and paperwork was filled out. There was a boat with a shipping container that was not documented and was not labeled. He opened container, supposedly top to bottom, front to back was white powder. I assume coke but could be anything. He closed the container and kept silent to not cause issues with the gangs. He went home, told family what he saw over dinner, then went to bar for a drink. Next morning he wasn’t in his bed. He wasn’t in the home. He told someone what he saw and that was a mistake. The ship was docked and allowed to leave. Maybe corruption, maybe not… Don’t know, don’t want to know.

I knew someone who lived in the same block as a well known motorcycle appreciation society. It was an incredibly clean and safe area. And the local dive bar was fun without a hint of shadiness or trouble. They did not shit where they ate.

I used to work in a prison (I was a civilian kitchen supervisor, not a guard), and I encountered a lot of gang members from a variety of gangs. Kitchen jobs are highly sought after by inmates, because not only are they among the highest paying jobs an inmate can get, but the job also comes with essentially unlimited food. Normal inmates walking down the chow line would get 2 pieces on fried chicken day, but some kitchen workers would down a dozen or more. I say that to say: The gang members I worked with were on their best behavior so they didn’t risk losing their sweet gig. All feuds were on pause in the kitchen. Gang members who would otherwise be at each other’s throats were laughing and joking with each other, playing Spades during breaks, and eating at the same table. They all treated me with respect, and I didn’t have any issues.

The ones who didn’t work with me, genpop inmates, well sometimes things got very violent. I saw more stabbings/slashings than I can count on both hands, and I didn’t even work there very long.

When I was in the military we sometimes had to work with the US. CIA, navy, that sort of stuff. When it comes to crime, they are very organized. Especially war crimes are their specialty.

Once in Somalia a US sailing yacht was captured by pirates. A US destroyer intercepted and opened fire without warning. The yacht was completely perforated, covered in blood. The US crew, of which they knew they were alive, well and on board, and the Somali pirates were splashed open by .50 cal fire. And because they killed the US crew on the boat, they bombed a village as retaliation, claiming they were pirates while there was clear evidence there were only fishermen.

This is just an example of the many war crimes I’ve seen them do.

Alright, I’ll bite. I got a favor from the mafia once. I had bought a motorcycle and the seller gave me an unsigned title, un-notarized. There was a Curio shop on our street - these ancient men ran it, but never sold a Curio, they did sell cigarettes and ran card games in the back of the shop. I told one what happened and he says "ah, don’t worry baby, Sam is a notary! SAM! This young lady needs something notarized. " So they signed the guys name and notarized it.
“What do I owe you?” “Nothing, honey, we do this as a favor for you, yes?”

I’m sure they are long dead now, and the curio shop some hipster bar or something . In their heyday they ran numbers and took protection money but had settled down, but it was funny, their job was sort of - if they could do it for you, and you could pay for it in some way, they would. So of course Sam was their crooked notary. And technically I owe the Mafia a small favor still.

Studied abroad, made some friends. One asked me to ride along to his work. His work wasn’t ahhh, ‘above board’ and he had pissed off his boss, so he took me along as insurance that he wouldn’t be treated badly as their govt would be very pissed to have a foreigner disappear as well. Holy smokes, that was an intensive language immersion experience.

The overriding memory of that life was right at the beginning when an old timer that I’d just started to roll with told me this: “There’s no such thing as victimless crime - so choose your victims carefully.” That really stuck with me.

About 15-20 years ago, we moved into a four-story apartment building with Italian restaurant and smoke shop (cigars) on the fist floor. Landlord didn’t want us to sign a lease, but it was too good a deal to pass up otherwise. When we moved in, we had my inlaws and their friend help us, then we treated them to a nice lunch at the restaurant. At one large table gathered a group of men that looked like they’d fit right in on The Sopranos, which made us chuckle. A few minutes later, my inlaws’ friend, a handyman and construction worker, went pale and quiet. My father-in-law asked him what was wrong. In a quiet voice, he explained that the plate glass windows at the front of the store were bulletproof windows. (In retrospect, I doubt windows that large could be bullet “proof”, but they were indeed very thick and had a very slight green tint to them.) The meal went fine, and we went on with our lives.

There wad no entryway for packages to be delivered, so they’d be dropped at the cigar shop. Someone there would text us for us to get the package. Everytime I went there, it looked like another scene out of The Sopranos: a couple older guys lounging in leather armchairs, cigars in hands or mouths, wide smiles and chuckles, as if by living there we were part of the family. And really, that was what it all felt like, that we were part of the family.

All of that was circumstantial, and we assumed they all just liked the aesthetic. That was, until years after we left, we saw a news article about how the FBI had raided the restaurant and cigar shop and arrested a mob boss.

I had interactions with members of the terrorist organisation ISIS - they were surprisingly friendly even after I told them that I was not going to join Islam or their organisation. They also wanted to teach me arabic.

A friend from primary school and his dad were in a biker gang. I was pretty close for a while, and saw some shit.