Jaaba Crime Empire

The Jaaba Crime Empire is a criminal organization based in Tanqutařa, engaged in a wide range of activities, including but not limited to protection racketeering, extortion, slave trade/trafficking, drug trafficking, illegal gambling, prostitution, assault and murder.

Founding and Rise
Founded some time after the First Spice War (711-718), The Jaaba Crime Family originally started out as just one of the many street gangs of Tanqutařa, sucking in all the hopeless youth and seducing them to a life of violence and crime in the absence of better alternatives in those economically and morally troubled times. This originally minor street gang suddenly rose to prominence in the aftermath of the Second Spice War (730-735) under the leadership of the ruthless Qrolba Jaaba. Jaaba's thugs were ruthless in consolidation, either vassalizing or - if they showed defiance and open resistance - completely eliminating rival gangs; however, they also knew when to be diplomatic, playing both sides during the Spice Wars, trying to make friends both in the colonizers' camp (such as Morshu) and the resistance's side (such as the infamous nativist Pepetoka rebel Caca Ngafëťa).

At its height, the tentacles of Jaaba's criminal enterprise reached all the way to Gatsam (Shár Empire), Chen Pyon (Týrýng), Gabyr (Gabyr) and Copperport (Etrand) - wherever there was illegal drug trafficking or slave trade, it could be guaranteed, that Jaaba was taking quite the cut of the profits.

Stagnation and Decline
Qrolba Jaaba was both a ruthless and a diplomatic leader, and his leadership style served him well during the beginning of his leadership: his ruthlessness helped him consolidate his criminal empire and either eradicate or absorb/vassalize other rival crime gangs; his diplomacy earned him many friends and allowed him to make alliances and business deals with legitimate world leaders. However, later in his life, this style of leadership seems to have become counterproductive: his ruthlessness boiled over into paranoia and even his most loyal followers feared being accused of being a traitor and purged as a result (which, according to some turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy that led to his poisoning, if we don't believe the official story of him dying peacefully in his sleep); his "diplomatic" maneuvers were increasingly seen as two-faced attempts at appeasing two fundamentally opposed parties, causing his former foreign allies to lose trust in him and cut their ties with him.

Much blood was spilled in a desperate attempt to halt - or at least slow down - the criminal empire's decline, but ultimately, Qrolba Jaaba died, leaving his successor, the decadent Nawqi Jaaba - who took over after a brief succession crisis - to inherit an empire in decline.

Present-day state of affairs
Today, the decadent Nawqi Jaaba leads the Jaaba criminal enterprise - he leads an empire in decline, but an empire none the less, still powerful and influential enough to teach a lesson to any foolish upstart who isn't discrete enough to hide in the shadows until the time has come to dethrone the decadent crime-emperor.