In the minds of the biggest criminal organizations in the world, it doesn't matter who is in front, because the important thing is to guarantee yourself above all else.

Be it family, friends or loving companions, the members of these gangs are extremely capable of acting for the benefit of the environment in which we live or for their own benefit, whatever the cost.

This group, which, fortunately, is the exception, knows very well what it has to do to manipulate others, use the weaknesses of others to its advantage and, to the detriment of others, obtain inestimable power.

So invaluable as to create huge criminal factions.

If this subject is of interest to you, then be sure to read our text.

Below, we list the 15 biggest criminal organizations in the world because, for better or for worse, we really like the villains.

Born in 1968 inside a prison in Northern California, USA, Nuestra Familia is a half-American, half-Mexican criminal organization.

Inside the prison, this gang controls the drug and sex trade, while cultivating the reputation of not forgiving anyone, not even the members themselves.

Considered one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world, Nuestra Familia is so strong within itself that gang members make a pact that the organization must come above everything else, including their wife and children.

By your logic, you owe your allegiance to the group until death, so handing over a partner is completely out of the question.

Nuestra Familia's main sources of income are related to the distribution of drugs both in prison systems and in local communities.

In addition, part of their income comes from extorting street drug dealers.

Also known as MS-13, Mara Salvatrucha is a gang created in Los Angeles, USA, in 1980, whose objective is to protect immigrants from Latin America who enter the American territory.

Formed mainly by Salvadorans, this group operates not only in the United States, but also in Central America, Spain, the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Canada.

With over 50,000 members, they are particularly known for their large amount of chest and face tattoos. Among them, the symbol "MS-13", which can be tattooed even on the forehead.

The list of Mara Salvatrucha's illicit activities is long: it ranges from arms smuggling and drug sales to murder, witness intimidation and extortion.

To carry them out, it is not uncommon to see members prowling schools in search of children for crime.

If the dimensions of the MS-13 are impressive, then those of mungiki will leave you speechless.

This gang that grew out of the slums of Kenya has around 100,000 members who are known for their brutality and cold-heartedness.

No wonder Mungiki is considered one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world.

Banned in 2002 due to its extreme violence, the Mungiki sect is accused of having beheaded dozens of people and hanging their heads on poles in the 2007 presidential elections.

This is because this gang has been a strong opponent of the Kenyan government since the 1990s and, through its brutality, has tried to frighten voters and pressure them to vote for their leaders.

If this is already too cruel, know that the sect does not stop there.

She is also accused of making her members practice genital mutilation and, once part of the group, there is only one way to leave the mafia: by dying.

If you've watched the movie “The Godfather”, you'll understand perfectly what Cosa Nostra is all about, one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world.

With about 250,000 members, it is an Italian mafia, being a faithful representative of the most traditional secret society dedicated to crime.

Cosa Nostra was founded in the first half of the 19th century in Sicily, Italy, and its main “code of honor” is the law of silence – if you break it, this would mean your execution.

Although it is an organized crime group, this mafia is active not only in various illegal fields but also in public sectors.

Such is its power that, when the government decided to put an end to the Mafia, Italy saw several important figures assassinated.

There were more than 200 people, including prosecutors, police chiefs, judges and politicians.

The attack that caused the most commotion, especially in the media, was against Judge Giovanni Falcone. 

In this case, it is not one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world, but two: the Crips and the Bloods.

Despite having originated in the same place at the same time (California, 1960s), these two gangs are rival groups that are involved in more than 5,000 murders in the last 20 years, in addition to endless threats, robberies and drug trafficking.

As far as the Crips are concerned, this gang was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969 by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, two fifteen-year-old African Americans.

What was initially a neighborhood youth group has grown into one of the largest and most powerful street gangs in the United States, surpassing 18,000 members.

As for the criminal organization Bloods, it also emerged in Los Angeles, but a year earlier, and today has 25,000 to 30,000 members.

While the Crips are identified by wearing blue, the Bloods, in turn, red. In addition to color, this gang is also recognized by its symbol with the fingers that spells out the word “blood”.

If it were here in Brazil, California could ask for music at Fantástico.

This is because, in addition to the two largest criminal organizations in the world mentioned above, the region was also the birthplace of Hell Angels, the biggest – and most controversial – motorcycle club on the planet.

And then you must be wondering: why is this club on this list?!

Well, what you don't know is that the US Department of Justice and the FBI describe them as a legitimate organized crime group.

Hell Angels are heavily associated with crimes such as drug dealing, theft of goods, and extortion.

However, its more than 250,000 members claim that they are just a team of motorcycle enthusiasts who get together to organize social events, fundraisers, organize parties and motorcycle entourages. Really?

A aryan brotherhood is another in a series of criminal organizations that originated from biker gangs.

Founded in 1964 at San Quentin State Penitentiary, California, it is a white supremacy and organized crime gang in the United States with about 20,000 members inside and outside prisons.

According to the FBI, the Aryan Brotherhood is estimated to represent less than 0.1% of the prison population, but is responsible for up to 20% of murders in the federal prison system.

This is largely due to the organization's policy that requires each new member to kill another prisoner at the behest of the mafia.

Today, its main illicit activities are vehicle theft, armed robbery, hiring professional killers, drug trafficking and prostitution.

His performance got so great that another faction, called the Texas Syndicate, was created to protect Hispanic inmates.

Who watched the Netflix series Narcos, whose cast had the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura interpreting the drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, he understands very well the dimension of the Medellin Cartel.

Even, most likely, this criminal organization is the one that has the most news.

The Medellín Cartel was a very well organized network of drug traffickers, originating from the city of Medellín, Colombia.

Created by Pablo Escobar in 1972, this organization came to an end in 1993 when its founder was cornered and executed on December 2nd of the same year.

At its height, the Medellín Cartel shipped around 15 tons of cocaine a day across Colombian borders, which represented more than US$ 60 million.

The volume was such that, in the 1980s, drug exports surpassed coffee.

O Los Zetas it's another drug cartel, only this time Mexican, being named as one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world.

The group, which was formed in 1999, is best known for committing violent crimes in Latin America and for turning Mexico into a war zone.

Unlike the Medellín Cartel, Los Zetas remains active to this day and operates in drug trafficking, illegal oil transport through gas pipelines and kidnappings.

For this, the organization recruits ex-soldiers to employ in its operations the strategies used in the former employment of its new members.

In addition to involvement with former soldiers, the cartel is recognized as the most violent of all for committing atrocities such as mutilation, decapitation, torture, dismemberment and exposure of its victims on public roads.

All this brutality has only one purpose: to intimidate his opponents and opponents.

Although Los Zetas is one of the biggest criminal organizations in Mexico, there is one even bigger in the country: the Sinaloa Cartel.

Considered the largest drug cartel in Mexico, the group is a key player in the business formed by illegal drug producers in South America and in the North American market.

Based in Culiacán, Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel was founded in the late 1980s by Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo, who began his criminal career in the Guadalajara Cartel.

Today, it is the largest organization in the Americas and ranks fifth among the largest in the world.

According to authorities' estimates, it is estimated that the Sinaloa Cartel moves around US$ 3 billion per year thanks to the smuggling of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin over land or through tunnels into the US – many through the Arizona desert.

In our top 5 of the biggest criminal organizations in the world, another legitimate Italian mafia could not be missing.

Originating in the region of Calabria, the Ndrangheta It is Italy's second-largest mafia by financial transactions, but has built its fame by establishing international ties with cocaine cartels in South America.

Considered the most powerful italian mafia because it is within the articulations of the state, the Ndrangheta controls most of the clandestine transatlantic drug market that supplies the Europeans.

Its revenue from illicit activities is estimated to be over US$ 4.5 billion per year.

Unlike other mafia organizations that have a pyramidal leadership system, the 'Ndrangheta groups are based on blood families (called 'Ndrine). There are between 50 and 200 of these families, totaling approximately 6,000 members.

If Ndrangheta is considered the most powerful Italian mafia today, Camorra is right after her.

Possibly founded in the mid-17th century within a prison in the city of Naples, this criminal organization is allied with the Sicilian Mafia and is also present in countries such as France, Holland, Romania, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Morocco.

Over the course of the century, the Camorra expanded its activities and embraced the country's politics, establishing a constituency among the poorest population. Over time, the mafia has weakened, but it continues to operate based on old ties to local governments.

As far as financial movement is concerned, the Camorra is the most profitable of all Italian mafias.

This organization alone has gross annual revenue of more than $4.9 billion, which is the result of activities such as extortion, sexual exploitation, drug and firearms trafficking.

Chosen as one of the most famous gangs in the world, the Yamaguchi Gumi is a transnational criminal organization originating in Japan.

Despite the uncertainty about their origin, the yakuza derive from two classifications: dokai circle, those who sold illicit, stolen or poor quality goods; and the okada, those who engaged or participated in games of chance.

Yakuza activities refer to crimes such as extortion, gambling and prostitution, but their main source of income is drug trafficking.

It is estimated to be the second highest earning organization in this type of activity in the world, earning around US$ 6.6 billion per year.

Its 500,000 members are notorious for their strict codes of conduct and highly organized nature, and they have a large presence in the Japanese media.

Including, part of its fame came from the fact that the organization was associated with violence and terror, practicing acts such as the elimination of family ties in favor of the mafia, the amputation of fingers and tattoos carved by the most painful method possible.

Obviously, a list of the biggest criminal organizations in the world could not fail to mention a Russian gang, right?

In our case, the chosen one was the Solntsevskaya Bratva.

Unlike the Yakuza, the Solntsevskaya Bratva has a decentralized structure, which makes the group difficult to dismantle.

With this, its operations are expanding year after year, as well as its revenue, which reaches around 8.5 billion dollars just from the drug trade.

Broadly speaking, Solntsevskaya is made up of 10 semi-autonomous brigades that operate minimally independently of each other.

However, the limit of this independence comes up against the board formed by 12 members, who are responsible for gathering all the resources obtained from illicit activities and supervising them for the best benefit of the institution.

Finally, we could not end our text without mentioning a typical Brazilian criminal organization, could we?

The First Capital Command (PCC) is a faction that commands rebellions, robberies, kidnappings, assassinations and drug trafficking.

Although it operates mainly in the state of São Paulo, it is present in 22 of the 27 Brazilian states, in addition to neighboring countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay and Colombia.

With around 30,000 members, with more than 8,000 members in the state of São Paulo alone, the PCC is considered one of the largest criminal organizations in the country.

Even in July 2020, the group engineered a bank attack, in the style of the series La Casa de Papel, in the city of Botucatu, in the interior of São Paulo, to recover its lost income after the seizure of its drug shipments.

This way, the text about the 15 biggest criminal organizations in the world comes to an end with a lesson: when in doubt, don't come across these guys.