“I wanna join a gang,” he said. “I’m bored,” he said. “I’m gonna earn some cash. It’ll be easy.”
And then they told him he had to eat a human heart.
Oh golly gosh, what a predicament for a newbie. But that’s just how it goes with some gangs,
and as you’ll see today, it could be worse than eating a heart.
Initiation isn’t always easy. After all, gangs want to know you’re serious about joining up.
But we’ll forgive you for thinking that eating human hearts is just another myth
that is cooked up on the internet and later spread around by the tabloid media. It’s not.
The gang in question is the Knights Templar, and we’re not talking about those guys from
the 12th century who went on violent crusades in the name of Christianity.
We’re talking about guys who, rather than walk around with red crosses talking about Jesus,
traffic white powder across borders. They’re a Mexican Cartel out of the state
of Michoacan. They do all the things cartels do, traffic drugs, extort, kidnap and kill.
Still, the Knights Templar is quite unique among the cartels in Mexico. For one thing,
they have a really strict code. That code is very loosely based on the original Knights Templar,
so even though kidnap and murder, there’s also supposed to be a bit of chivalry in the gang.
They wrote their code in a short book called “The Code of the Knights Templar of Michoacan.”
Let’s have a look in there. The book says they can’t take drugs.
Drugs are bad. Instead, they have to put their efforts into fighting against “poverty, tyranny,
and injustice.” We should just state here that they traffic drugs. They just don’t take drugs.
Here’s another rule, “I swear and promise to always seek to protect the oppressed,
the widow and the orphan.” Another goes, “For the use of deadly force,
the council's authorization is required.” They also pledge to “Fight against materialism.”
They say they are a product of a corrupt country. A cartel expert explained. “They
seek to take justice into their own hands in a Mexico where no functional justice system exists.”
They still commit a lot of violence and reap the rewards of crime. In June, 2011,
they hanged 21 dead bodies of their enemies on the same day.
Their motto could be, “Thou shalt kill, if thou gets told to.”
As for the initiation, it now sounds quite believable that they’d go to more lengths
than other gangs. Initiation rituals tend to be secret, just like in the Italian mafia,
but things get out now and again. Former members have said the recruitment
ritual sometimes consists of dressing up as one of those European Knights.
The Mexican authorities said the former leader, the now murdered Nazario Moreno,
told new members they had to make a blood pact. That meant eating human hearts. Alfredo Castillo,
who works for the federal government, said, “At an initiation ceremony they used the organs,
in this case the heart, and forced people going through this initiatory process to eat it.”
You have to wonder how they got their hands on hearts, but it really shouldn’t pose too
much of a problem for killers. Mexican government officials also said they took
the hearts of people who’d been kidnapped as part of an organ trafficking business.
Some of the victims, according to those officials, were kidnapped out of a school.
That’s grim, super grim, but as you’ll now see, getting into gangs all over the world
can be a really messed up matter. The Numbers Gang in South Africa
goes back a long time, and we are talking possibly as far back as the 19th century.
If you’re in the gang, you’ll be part of the 26s, the 27s, or the 28s. Once you’re in prison in some
places in the country, it might be hard not to be in the gang unless you can somehow find a way
to appease them. If you are in, you will have to prove yourself lest you become a kind of slave.
You might join as a 26, which according to the experts, means you’ll focus more
on making money than spilling blood. Saying that, one Numbers Gang-dedicated website wrote,
“Although it is the softer option of the gangs, they do have a history of blood wars and must
take blood in order to obtain a higher rank.” That same website says the 27s are the enforcers
and the 28s are the bloodline of the other gangs. They are apparently the dominant gang and sort
out issues when things get out of control. You can join in the Gold or Silver line. Silver,
unfortunately, might mean you act as a female member. You know what that means.
But you can also move up the ranks, although that could require stabbing or killing a
prison guard or another person – sometimes some dude who doesn’t want to join a gang.
A new recruit will be given a job such as cleaning. He might also become a slave.
But all the time, he’ll be watched by a person called the “die glas”, or binoculars.
The die glas at some point will ask the recruit this question, “I am going to ask
you a question. Think very carefully before answering. It is raining. You are standing
under an umbrella. I say to you, I am getting wet; I may get sick. What are you going to do?”
He can either say, share my umbrella, or, I’ll just put mine down and come into the rain with
you. The first answer means he’ll become a slave and the second means he’ll stand by him and fight.
The gang member will then be asked to stab either a prisoner or a guard, or the warden. He has to do
it. The length of the knife will be chosen, which will denote if the stabbing should cause injury or
death. Either way, they will be spending a lot more time in prison, if not their entire life.
Then there is a “day of rites” when the prisoner will get smacked over the knuckles with a pipe.
The gang “doctor” will then look at him and shout one of two things:
“This man's pulse beats twice a year” or “This man's pulse beats three times a year.” Three
times means joining the Gold Line and twice means the Silver Line. The academics didn’t
state if this is related to how the guy reacts to being smacked with an iron bar.
A senior member will then say, “From today you are no longer a franse (non-gang member). You
are a 28. You will never swear at your brother. You will never hurt your brother. You will never
do anything that reflects badly on the camp. If you leave the camp, you leave by your own blood.”
There’s more to it, including learning the gang language and code called sabela.
They will still have to “put work in” and if they don’t, the punishment is often a brutal
beating with sticks and padlocks or their throat slit. Then there’s the “slow puncture” torture,
which we can’t describe here. Just imagine the worst thing you can.
This research goes back a few years, but it’s said the rituals today are pretty much the same.
Now for something completely different. Japan’s Yakuza gangs aren’t really known
for out-and-out violence. They’re your smart kind of gang, embracing the sensible thing
of trying to keep your head down while making money from illegal activities.
Still, they have a very strict code of ethics.
First of all, they cover their bodies with tattoos.
The tattoos tell a story using symbolic pictures, but they also stand for loyalty and courage.
After all, if you’re gonna ink much of your body you better be dedicated to the cause.
When you join you join as a child “kobun” and you have a father “oyabun.”
You’ll drink from a special cup during a ceremony, and you’ll share cups with your father.
This all sounds pretty great so far, getting one of those really cool tattoos and having a drink.
But for all you guys out there thinking how you’d like to join and make some fast cash,
you need to know that you cannot have any more contact with your family once you are in.
You are a yakuza, and your only loyalty is to your boss. Imagine telling most
American gang members they had to lose their family for good. It’s a big deal.
And if you mess up, you can’t just say you’re sorry. You have to show
that you’re sorry. This often means having your finger partly chopped off (yubitsume).
Mess up again and lose another finger or more of the same finger. You’ll never play golf the same
again. In the past, it meant the person would not be able to use their sword properly again.
You have to do the amputation yourself and try not to look like a wuss when you’re doing it.
Once you’ve finished, you wrap your finger in white cloth and present it to your boss.
You don’t hear much about Asian organized crime gangs but make no mistake, they are very powerful.
They control much of the world’s drug trade, even though a while back Turkish gangs took
over the heroin trade in Europe and Latin American gangs did the same in North America.
The Asian gang that ran that heroin trade was the Chinese Triads. They’ve been around since the 18th
century and today do business all over the world. Like other gangs, they employ young thugs, but the
higher-ranking guys look like regular businessmen. They have members that are not initiated called
“Blue Lanterns” but if you want to be more than an associate, you have to go through the motions.
There are lots of ranks, ending with the “Dragon Master” at the top.
There’s the Mountain Master and next to him the Incense Master. It’s this guy that enlists
recruits into the gang. Again, this goes back years, but some structure still exists today.
If things are traditional, incense will be burned at the ceremony,
and the initiate will have to drink the blood of an animal. He will then recite a bunch of oaths,
and then the paper on which the oaths are written is burned, presumably because this is all secret.
We found them, though, and here are a few examples:
1. After having entered the Hong Gates I must treat the parents and relatives of my sworn
brothers as my own kin. I shall suffer death by five thunderbolts if I do not keep this oath.”
4. I will always acknowledge my Hong brothers when they identify themselves. If I ignore them,
I shall be killed by a myriad of swords.” 17. If I have wrongly taken a sworn brother's
cash or property during a robbery I must return them to him. If I do
not I will be killed by five thunderbolts.” You get the idea. If you read the rest, it
basically states that if you lie, cheat, do harm to wives or children, inform, not help in times of
need, or even talk to outsiders about your gang, you will get the thunderbolt or sword treatment.
That of course means death by bullet or knife. But what about American gangs,
how do they initiate new members? The prison gang turned organized
crime outfit, the Aryan Brotherhood, asks new members to take an oath, too.
That means acknowledging that it is blood in and blood out. This means you have to beat, stab,
slash or kill someone to get in. They sometimes call this putting work in. You can never get out,
well, you shouldn’t get out. If you try, it means you’ll die for it.
For the first year, new members will be on probation. During that time,
they might have to hurt someone. They might also be asked to read their favorite book,
“The Art of War.” Or the book by that wily dude Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince.”
Like other gangs, newbies might have mentors and join a family. There are rules, but on the whole,
it’s nowhere near as structured as those Asian gangs we’ve just talked about.
Even less structured are the Crips, also in the USA, but rather than being organized crime,
these gangs are small. They often fight each other, too.
It doesn’t seem like there is much of an initiation for the Crips, but if one happens,
it might include getting “jumped in.” That means agreeing to have the poop beaten out of you by a
bunch of the gang members. As for females, they might get to choose between being jumped in or
being sexed in. You can guess what that means. A former gang member in the US and now a
leader in crime prevention said it differs from gang to gang.
He said: “The process for identifying
as a Crip varies from self-identification to any number of initiation rituals
(saying an oath, getting jumped in, committing a crime, going through a probationary period,
being nominated by a current member, family ties, place of residence may all factor in).
As for the Bloods, which had a long rivalry with the Crips, initiation might also mean getting
jumped in. One person said sometimes it lasts for a symbolic number of seconds. With both gangs,
you might also have to go on a bit of a criminal mission to prove you are dedicated.
As for over the pond in the UK, London is notorious for organized crime groups, such as
the Turkish mafia, the Albanian mafia, but also old-school English and Irish crime syndicates.
Then there are the street gangs,
which have been wreaking havoc not with guns but with knives for a while now.
Unlike many street gangs in the US, they don’t strictly adhere to having a certain ethnicity.
All people are welcome. As for initiations, they also don’t really have them,
although there are reports of late of new recruits stabbing a random person in the
street to get “notches on their blade.” In 2021, there were reports of innocent
folks just walking down the street and getting stabbed to death because someone in the gang
was being initiated. In one case, a mother walking down the road with a pushchair was
stabbed in the leg. She didn’t die, thankfully. What this amounts to is the absolute opposite
of a code of ethics. Shame on them. Couldn’t they just beat each other up like the US street gangs?
On that bleak note, now you need to watch “What Makes Someone Join a Gang?” Or,
have a look at “The Japanese Yakuza - Most Dangerous & Powerful Gangs In The World.”