Maffi / Zhao



Based out of the continent of New Kala'uun is the Twi'lek mafia clan: Maffi and its non-Twi'lek subdivision: The Brotherhood of Zhao.

IC
Thematically Maffi / Zhao is an Underworld Organized Crime Syndicate with galactic reach, a plethora of operation types and business opportunities. It is dedicated to the advancement of the Twi'lek criminal agenda, and has made a place for itself in the thriving underworlds of most major systems including Corellia, Coruscant, Kashyyyk, Etti IV, Bonadan and Tatooine. Based out of New Kala'uun, Etti IV the Maffi Syndicate has only grown since its recent inception under the rule of Tyy'sun Eson after his fall from the leadership of the shadowy Black Sun Syndicate.

OOC
For the MUSH, Maffi / Zhao org provides a place to RP the underworld in a story-focused fashion, bringing the fringe to life in a unique, mafia style fashion. We provide an antagonist to the heroes of the galaxy and seek to be known as one of the best orgs for RP and dramatic story out there with an underworld theme.

IC Operations
The Maffi Syndicate dips its lekku into every convievable operation in the Galactic Underworld. The following is a list of its more successful and focused operation types. Use this information as inspiration for your role-play on the grid. All information found in this section is OOC only - your character only knows what they have encountered ICly or have been told personally.

Illegal immigration
Illegal Immigration is a huge forum for money making and obtaining cheap labor from the myriad Sentients across the Galaxy. Moving from one system to another is something many beings cannot afford, or do legally, or do at all due to various circumstance. That is where Maffi comes in. Maffi can transport many beings secretly off world, smuggling them away and to whatever system, and across whatever political borders these immigrants wish. They pay what fees they can and are smuggled into worlds and deployed en mass by ZSS freighters, or other deceptive means of transportation. The amount of currency generated by this practice is immense - but so too are the opportunities to control the illegal immigrants.

For example, if a small load of would be immigrants wishes to relocate to a distant world illegally, Maffi can provide that transportation, smuggle the beings into the target system, and then charge them a set price as a debt. This price will typically be more than the illegal immigrant can pay, and so Maffi will then inform the Sentient they are required to work off their debt by contributing to whatever labor is required in the criminal practices Maffi is involved in within that system. Often this is prostitution, theft, manual labor, battle against rival entities, drug running etc. Once the immigrant has payed off the debt, they are left alone and set free to make their own way within the system. This form of exploitation is very common, provides for cheap assets, and illegal immigrants do not go to the local authorities from a combination of the fear of deportation and violent retribution from Maffi.

Slaving
Slavery is a reality, not just within the Twi'lek culture, but in the Galaxy at large. Maffi has operations both trading in Sentient slaves, capturing potential slaves, and laundering the profits of other slaver groups through reinvestment. There are various forms of Slavery in the Galaxy and this section will describe a few.

Traditional Slavery is the most commonly notorious form, involving unwilling captives who's lives have been forcefully dedicated to the labor put forth to them by their owners and masters. Often Sentients such as Twi'leks are taken from their homeworlds and smuggled to other worlds where they are either sold off or used by their captors. The slave market, while a dark and ominous trade, is non-the-less a very real operation. Some of the work the slaves of Maffi might be made to do include Mining, Drug running, Prostitution, various forms of Manual Labor or servitude.

Debt Bondage accounts for much of the slavery within the Corporate Sector but also many less financially wealthy systems and worlds. It is a classic form of slavery, ussually associated with loan sharking. The original debt, which may have started out as a small and manageable one, through exorbitant interest or "extras" entangles the borrower in a way they never understood or foresaw. It is typologically similar to the sweat-shop or sex worker, whose earnings are withheld to repay their trafficker; the mule who is forced to carry drugs to repay a debt to Maffi loan sharks; or the small Tatooine or Nar Shaddaa business owners who are forced to borrow at impossible rates from the Maffi becuase bank loans are not available, and who eventually have to perform criminal "favors" in return.

Punishment Within Maffi of those members who have betrayed the Syndicate, or fail to meet expectations has sometimes, but rarely, been employed in the form of temporary terms of slavery to other Maffi members or operations. All Sentient rights and authority is stript of the being in volation and they are then shipped to the facility or owner to which they will spend a set amount of time working off their punishment. Needless to say, members of the Maffi who undergo this punishment learn their lessons quickly, and are not privy to future failures lightly.

Trafficking in Sentient Biology
Maffi also exploits another desperate Sentient condition - illness. Acting as middleman for those who need organ trsnplants, Maffi charges high prices to the patient needing an organ, and underpay or dupe the organ donor. The sale of Sentient body parts is illegal in most systems, though in some, including Tatooine and some lower levels of Nar Shaddaa, organ sales are carried out fairly openly. Some philosophical and religious minded cultures prohibit the mutilation of the body, so their populations often contain a constand demand for organs.

Although hearts, livers, lungs and lekku are sometimes sold, kidneys are the most popular organs for trafficking as there is a great demand for them, and they can be supplied by a live donor. Occasionally kidneys from cadavers are bought illegally, but survival rates for patients who recieve a kidney from a live donor are far better, so the market in Human and other Sentient organs is a profitable one. Traffickers naturally prefer not to pay for the organs they sell. IGN and other investigative and news organizations have repeatedly investigated cases of young Sentients apparently killed for their organs, especially in Independent worlds and various slums of the more powerful Systems.

Illagal Arms Trade
Arms trafficking has a long history, but during the last 15 years due to the Galactic Civil War it has mushroomed into a transgalactic business on a huge scale, largely controlled by organized crime groups. Maffi has its lekku dipped into this process and is experiencing dividends. The opening of borders, the collapse of currancies and the growth of terrorist groups with access to funds have all played their part. With the breakup of the Empire, some systems found themselves in possession of vast supplies of weapons. These weapons have found their way across the galaxy and into the underworld and a veritable market has formed in the years to follow.

Selling Arms to Both Sides. Maffi arms dealers are rarely concerned with the politics of the wars in which their weapons are used. Maffi sold arms to the Yasko government in the Yanti system and to the Blarge group that opposed it. The complexity of bank arrangements that Maffi create to cover itself and the lack of intragalactic law enforcement make it a highly profitable business.

Diamonds, Gemstones and Prescious Metals
Diamonds, gold and platinum are high value, intergalactic acceptable mediums of exhange, second only to hard currany in terms of their convenience for illegal trading. Unlike weapons, diamonds require no end user certificate and are vitually untraceable. Many of the smuggled diamonds and gems are used to fun the illegal importation of weapons and drugs. Outer Rim systems are often divided between private armies who fund their military operations with smuggled diamonds and gold. The people subject to these warlords are forced to mine the commodities to perpetuate the fighting. Maffi's own supply of slaves and manual laborors and mines are also put to use in the same way.

Smuggling diamonds and gems is quite simple. Bags of uncut stones are transported from their place of origin, split into smaller packages and shipped to one of the major diamond markets, such as Nar Shaddaa or Coruscant's undercity. In the last 10 years, Diamonds and other gems have replaced gold and platinum as the most smuggled commodity becuase metals are difficult to refine and transport.

The Starship Racket
There are two main types of ship thieves. The first is the joyrider who looks for vehicles to steal as a form of temporary transportation, and who then abandon them. The second is the professional who steals specific vehicles and ships to order, either to export or to sell on, having changed its identity, for example, the ship may be re-hulled, re-sprayed, modified and resold with different transponder codes and identification numbers.

The creation of the New Republic and the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War, along with the opening up of new borders has made the work of Maffi in stolen ships and vehicles much easier. Huge bulk frieghters through ZSS like Remittance allow stolen ships to be moved around the Galaxy easily and speedily. A stolen ship can be taken across several systems before the owner has realized it has been taken and informed the local authorities. Intergalactic ship crime is organized, complex, lucrative and growing.

Examples of the Maffi Racket include the movement on Tatooine of a large number of land speeders which had been stolen from Coruscant; a number of stolen Lambda shuttles shipped back to Corellia and sold at prices lower than their market value and the storing on the Smuggler's Moon of YT-1300's and Sarhdak Light Cruisers enroute to the far Outer Rim territories.

Smuggling Rare Animals
The illegal trade in animals is worth billions of credits each year. It is said to be the third most lucrative form of Galactic smuggling after drugs and arms. Most of the smuggled animals go to scientists or pet collectors, though there is an increasing trend for them to be sold for fur, potions, or ornaments. Most rare animals are sold to the Corporate Sector market, though they are also popular with New Republicans and Imperials.

Rare animals are ussually cuaght by local poachers who are paid a trifling amount by Maffi for their efforts. Maffi then smuggles the animals abroad. The animals often die on the jouney, which is hardly suprising given that they are often stuffed into small bags or containers. Animals are also sent by mail, and sales may be arranged over cyberspace.

The reason for the smuggling and sale of these animals is very simple: profit. Some breeds of rare creatures can sell for as much as 70,000cr. In CSA markets green Rykrits and Stoopa Birds are sold alongside Yellow Snakes. On Coruscant one can buy Haphogs and small jungle finches. Advice about how to smuggle them home is often thrown in for free. Many of the animals come from the Mutanda Jungle. The variety of illegal animals available for purchase around the Galaxy is endless and continues to increase.

Protected Animal Meat
During a check of the cargo on a transport from Mutanda to Coruscant in 13 ABY, customs officers found several duracases leaking blood. Inside they discovered 2.5 tonnes of meat in 56 bags. Womp rat, antelope, chicken, prok, bat, fish, live crabs and snails, Nabooian sheep carcasses, and "Mut Meat" are just some of the delicacies illegally imported into Coruscant.

The term "Mut Meat" is used to describe the flesh of animals which are killed illegally, notably endangered species such as Kashyyyk gorillas and chimpanzees, which are being hunted to extinction. Meat smuggled into Coruscant via Corusca starport can be found for sale as far away as the undercity and Abbysal Ruins and is regularly found openly for sale in the Subteranean Bazaar.

It is estimated that many tonnes of illegal meat products are smuggled into the New Republic each year. There are obvious health risks to the final consumers in this trade. The meat is not transported in refrigerated freighters unless ZSS has utilized a few of their better outfitted YT-1300's for the haul. Animals often carry infectious deseases while other animals may carry snapeworms, giadia and malisarmonella.

Throughout many areas of the Outer Rim, mut meat is important as a source of affordable food and only secondly as an opportunity for trade. As the availability of mut meat declines, more species are hunted, and commercial trading is replacing local consumption. Rykrit used to be popular on Ryloth, but since numbers have declined hunters now go for animals that were at one time taboo, such as hippokatamus and zooopasha donkeys.

Indeed Maffi not only makes it possibel for hunters to access new areas, but also supply transport, ammunition and guns.

Extortion and Protection
Both Extortion and Protection are crimes with long histories and are lucrative sources of revenue for Maffi. Extortion is demanding money from an individual or a business, which, if not paid, will result in the individual or business being physically or financially harmed. Protection is money paid on a regular basis to Maffi to "protect" the individual or business from other criminals. In many cases the percieved 'other criminals' is a threat staged by Maffi itself to frighten the subject into compliance.

Extortion can range from the school bully demanding another student's lunch money to a mob such as Maffi extracting payment from immigrants newly arrived in the Corporate Sector or New Republic. Protection can be the local store paying 100cr a week to a Maffi cell or a large employer paying hundreds of thousands to ensure harmonious labor relations.

Case Study: In 13 ABY, Maffi helped newly arrived Twi'leks in New Kala'uun to find homes and work. The head clan of New Kala'uun was becomming infiltrated by Maffi members, the foremost of which was Tyy'sun Eson. By 14 ABY Tyy'sun had become the chairman of the Headclan and filled the New Kala'uun continent and offices with many of his criminal associates. Many Twi'lek immigrants, especially from Ryloth, are leaned on to pay a percentage of their weekly wage to Maffi extortionists, fearing violence and the loss of their jobs. Small businesses such as grocers, the apothacary and tattoo shop also pay "protection."

However Maffi is not confined to New Kala'uun. There are Maffi cells in nearly all major systems led by Lieutenents of varying degrees of power and influence. The Abbysal Ruins sector of Coruscant is one such breeding ground of Maffi influence that is growing today, and small businesses in the lower parts of the undercity are feeling the brunt of maffi Extortion and Protection.

On Bonadan, in the Corporate Sector Maffi wanted to make all importers and freighters pay a percentage to guarentee trouble-free loading and unloading of their goods. Violence and terror was the order of the day. One Resources Division man had his head pushed into a lighted stove to encourage compliance with the Maffi demands.

Blacmail
Blackmail is a simple crime. Maffi threatens to expose a Sentient's guilty secret unless money is paid or favors are granted. The payment or favor can be a "one off," or demands may carry on for an indeterminate period. Maffi is in control once the victim has agreed to their terms. The expression "blackmail" derives from the extortionist practice of threatening a victim by sending a letter with the imprint of a black hand on it. In the modern Galaxy, where politicians and public servants often lead lives under the continual gaze of a public fascinated by scandal, the least indiscretion, if disclosed, can lead to ruin.

Therefore, Maffi exploits the weaknesses of those that can grease the wheels of its illicit activities. This is particularly true of the Outer Rim where the salaries of officials are low and the rewards for cooperating with criminals high. The "gift" of a luxury speeder or of a vacation in return for a small favor may lead to an increase in the favors demanded in return. Similarly, the "honey trap," where an apparently happily married official is lured into a sexually compromising situation and then treatened with public humiliation unless favors are granted is an oft-employed tactic of the Maffi Syndicate.

The geographic region of the Galaxy determines the nature of the blackmail. In the Corporate Sector, where profit is the law - Executives are blackmailed with the threat of exposure to the CSA of their own financial crimes. In the New Republic, where politics abound and Senators from countless worlds are steeped in public scrutiny and democracy - Character assasination is the key.

Greenmail
Greenmail takes part of its name from the color of standard Corporate Sector credit chips. It describes the practice of buying shares in a company that is the target of a hostile takeover bid, and threatening to support the predator unless a financial reward is recieved. The payoff can be in cash or the purchase of the shares at an inflated price. It is in fact corporate blackmail, but it is legal.

Given the huge amount of revenue Maffi often times commands via its many operations and the fact that they need to launder those funds, in the less well-regulated financial markets of the Galaxy there are Maffi-backed corporate raiders who are manipulating their assets in just this way. The essence of greenmail is that it is not technically illegal and it offers another point of entry for dirty money into a cleaner arena of operations.

Credit Laundering
In some circumstances, depending on the laws of a system, the greatest problem facing Maffi cells is how to legitimize their profits. In systems where banking is in its infancy, the simplest solution is to take over a bank. This is the case in some Outer Rim worlds where Maffi cells have bought or coerced their way into small banks and bureaux de change, which they use as conduits through which to process their cash.

For example providing illicit spice earns large amounts of cash that needs to be "cleaned up" in Emperial, CSA or New Republic controlled worlds where spice is highly illegal to smuggle and trade. The cleaning or 'laundering,' as it is known, requires that the money passes through some apparently cash rich legitimate business, such as a restaurant, shipping company, charity or a bank.

In the current underworld climate, Maffi credit laundering is a complex process, involving shell companies, tax havens, orders for non-existent products or services, corrupt or inept officials, bribery and huge amounts of credits moving in and out of bank accounts all over the Galaxy and Corporate Sector at mind-bumbing speed. One such operation is through Schaum, Yfarg, Welbig, Fabrico and Associates - a large Twi'lek based company from Ryloth which re-invests Maffi slave trade profits in the Corporate Sector. Sarhavian Eson is one of the enablers of this particular example.