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Vinson: The prisons and the graveyards are full of boys who wore the crown.
Marlo Stanfield: Point is: they wore it. It's my turn to wear it now. Tell our people to tool up.

The friction between two (or more) rival crime factions has broken out and exploded into all out warfare. This can happen between two groups of the same type/nationality (for example two Mafia families going at it) or between multiple nationalities (e.g., The Mafiya taking on a Yakuza group). Two groups of Gangbangers getting into a turf war to settle things once and for all also counts, as does The Syndicate clashing with another Syndicate or group.

This may be portrayed as an organized crime version of Feuding Families, and as with many portrayals of Feuding Families both sides are evil, while sometimes the conflict is a more black-and-grey between Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters and Ruthless Foreign Gangsters. Sometimes, the war comes from conflict between two factions within a single group, which tends to be a particularly bitter and usually short conflict. In this case it often doesn't matter who wins or loses, as the victor usually finds that their criminal empire has been smashed beyond repair by the conflict.

You'll often see characters express an apparently sincere desire to avoid a mob war — members of these criminal gangs are frequently portrayed as businessmen obsessed with profit, and they know well that a mob war is bad for business. Mob bosses and their henchmen will often invest significant time and energy into finding all sorts of ways to strike back at the opposing side without triggering a full-on war. They usually fail, for reasons of dramatic necessity (in which case an Escalating War is the result).

Expect to see at least half of the Guns and Gunplay Tropes put into effect, as well as lots of Stuff Blowing Up and lots of Gorn. Compare Enemy Civil War, which is when Mooks from the same faction are duking it out within their ranks, though there can be some overlap.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • In the Cowboy Bebop episode "Ballad of Fallen Angels", Spike's former mentor Mao Yenrai is killed in Vicious' introduction scene for trying to make peace between the Red Dragon Syndicate and another mob. Later, in "The Real Folk Blues (Part 1)", the Red Dragons have a mini-civil war when Vicious launches his coup.
  • Black Lagoon: This is a constant threat in Roanapur, as there are a number of criminal factions that tolerate the presence of the others, at present. However, it is noted that potential mob conflicts solve themselves once a third party gets involved: Roberta in the "El Baille de la Muerte" arc and Hansel and Grettel in the Vampire Twins arc. During the "Fujiyama Gangster Paradise" arc, Hotel Moscow also engages in a mob war against the Yakuza when visiting Japan, using more brutal tactics than the Yakuza are used to.
  • In the Gungrave anime, the out-of-town Lightning organisation's attempt to take power from Millennion.
  • Baccano! has several, most notably the one between the Gandors and the Runoratas in the Drugs and Dominoes arc. Likewise, there's serious bad blood between Jacuzzi's street gang and the Russo mafia family set up in Chicago, and part of the reason Jaccuzi's hitched a ride on a transcontinental train to New York is to escape their interest.
  • Essentially the plot of the second season of Durarara!!, and also a part of the back story for several characters.
  • Several arcs of Tokyo Crazy Paradise center on potential or actual mob wars, sometimes with Psycho Serum-fueled monsters.
  • Happens in Heat Guy J.
    • The head of the Wei family is not happy that Clair has been made head of the Leonelli family (One, it interferes with the Wei family's power, and two Clair is nucking futz.) He tries to absorb the Leonelli family into his own, and when that fails, slights Clair (and tries to poison him) at a luncheon/dinner. An all-out fight ensues, with great losses on both sides. Clair responds by sending a tanker truck full of napalm to the Wei family's district. Daisuke stops him, though. (In the manga, he dispenses with the napalm and has his girlfriend build a sexy gyndroid to seduce and strangle Wei. There is also no explicit mention of an all-out mob war, though that could simply be because the manga is so short.)
    • Happens again in a later episode. Clair has gone into hiding after being framed for a crime he didn't commit, and the Vita Board members want the money he has stashed away in a safe that opens via retinal scan. Each faction is out for its own interests, and fight against each other in an attempt to locate Clair and take his left eye.
  • Common in Reborn! (2004), considering its settings.
  • The titular "False Love" in Nisekoi between Raku and Chitoge is deliberately set up to avoid a mob war between the criminal syndicates run by their respective fathers.
  • One was briefly mentioned in Bungo Stray Dogs called 'The Dragon's Head Conflict'. It's said to be a conflict between multiple mobs, under which the Port Mafia. The Conflict is elaborated on some more in Dead Apple.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Happens within the mafia-yakuza-esque business organization Teiwaz, when Jasley Donomikols teams up with a Gjallarhorn commander to take out rival gangster Naze, and later tries to go directly for McMurdo himself. Jasley's attempt to usurp power gets quashed pretty quickly however, when McMurdo makes a deal with Gjallarhorn that cuts Iok off from helping Jasley and has Tekkadan resign as a Teiwaz subsidiary so they can go after him.

    Comic Books 
  • Sin City occasionally features this, most notably with the Old Town Girls once resisting attempts from the mob to invade their turf and later striking back at The Mafia for the death of one of their own when she had been just an Innocent Bystander.
  • If a hero operates in a city and the series lasts more than 60 issues, this WILL be a storyline. Batman and Spider-Man have both had multiple mob wars in their respective series. Batman's most notable was "War Games", which is started by his own plan being used by Stephanie Brown. Spider-Man's was most likely when The Kingpin was thought to be dead and all of New York City was crawling over each other to replace him.
  • An early Savage Dragon storyline featured a mob war among superpowered criminals.
  • The Punisher's origin came when his family was killed in a botched mob hit during one of these.
    • On occasion, Frank has tried to take out the Kingpin, only to be prevented by the fact that killing the Kingpin would spark a gang war with inevitable civilian casualties (or Status Quo Is God).
    • The Punisher MAX: Frank's assassination of the centenarian Don Cesare at his birthday party (along with a great deal of the Cesare capos and soldiers) sparks multiple mob wars over the course of the series, all of which he does his best to encourage as it's less work for him.
      • The Cell is the MAX version of the Punisher's origin: Frank gets himself thrown into Ryker's so he can get at the five men indirectly responsible for the death of his family (the don's consigliere put a hit on him via his own hitman, and the two bodyguards opened fire at random when their boss was down but not out, killing Frank's family).
      • Nicky Cavella was an up-and-coming capo with a psycho rep who had the bright idea to intimidate the Triads by murdering their leader's sons. What he thought would send him on the fast track to promotion instead got him Reassigned to Antarctica as the dons thought he went too far (and ended up causing the Mob War he thought he was preventing). With Cesare's death, the dons were desperate enough to bring him back to deal with the Punisher. His even brighter idea was to desecrate Frank's family by pissing on their bones, filming it, and mailing the footage to the local news, to which Frank responded by hitting the Mafia even harder. Cavella was deserted by his goons once they realized he simply didn't have the intelligence to be a leader and ended up gutshot and dying over a few days.
    • During The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank arc, Soap persuades Frank to rescue a capo held hostage by South American narcotraffickers, as only his authority can prevent a brewing Mob War from spilling into the streets and harming innocents. Frank agrees, and once the mob boss is back in New York, he calls a meeting to discuss how to get back in the game instead of attacking each other for money and territories: killing the Punisher. Frank then calls the mobster, asking if he ever questioned Frank's motives. That is, less "prevent a mob war" and more "have all the Mafia leaders in the same room at the same time". Cue Frank, holding a belt-fed machine gun.
    • In another, Frank goes to Ireland to stop a shipment of drugs from coming in. He finds that the local drug-running Protestants and Catholics are quite happy murdering each other without his assistance.
  • The inspiration of the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles storyline "City At War" harks back to the one done for the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, concluding its run. However, here, the storyline involved splinter factions of the Foot attempting to gain supremacy in New York before Karai took over.
  • Family: Silver Odysseus is hoping to incite a gang war that will engulf the city between his brother Gio, the current Don of the Odysseus family, and Cane, an up-and-coming gangster.
  • All-New Ultimates: Pretty much the main point of emphasis for the New Ultimates as, unlike the previous iteration who dealt with terrorists and invasions, the new Ultimates are more street level and focus on super powered gangs.
  • The first story of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen climaxes in an aerial gang war fought between Professor Moriarty and Fu Manchu.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): All of Boston ends up in the crossfire of the fight between Paulie Longo and Julianna Sazia for control of the mob. The war looks a bit different from the stereotypical since while there are plenty of guns Paulie hired a powerful Black Magic user to back him up and Widow Sazia started hiring henchmen with lots of body mods, she also threatened several of Paulie's supporters into becoming her cyborg henchmen.
  • Star Wars Expanded Universe: The main Myth Arc of Star Wars: Bounty Hunters is a conflict between the Mourner's Wail and Unbroken Clan crime syndicates, which has been ongoing for over a decade. Though this gets superseded during the Bat Family Crossover War of the Bounty Hunters, when both groups are targeted by the restored Crimson Dawn. And then in the miniseries Crimson Reign, the latter triggers a galaxy wide war between every criminal organization by means of a few targeted assassinations and spreading the rumor that the Empire is seeking to replace the Hutts as their main underworld contact with whoever proves themselves strongest.
  • One breaks out in the Astro City arc "The Dark Age" between a half-dozen gangs. It's made much more complicated because one gang has hired a psychotic assassin, another gang is led by a telepathic Brain in a Jar, and there's a vengeful Anti-Hero with a Touch of Death who wants to kill them all.
  • Parodied in Giraffes On Horseback Salad. While the Surrealist Woman is imprisoned, Jimmy, Groucho, and Chico start spreading madness throughout the city in an attempt to normalize surrealism. They are opposed by the Realists, led by Linda, Michael, and their socialite friends. The Realists use weapons modified to shoot food, confetti, paint, and rubbish, while the Surrealists retaliate with circus animals, tentacled eyeballs, and other indescribable apparitions.

    Fan Works 
  • In Hunters of Justice, after the Kingdom of Mistral is bottled by Brainiac, Professor Lionheart is found dead and the entire kingdom is consumed in a power struggle among the many criminal elements spreading from the Wretched Hive of Mistral's lower levels. The two biggest names in the war are Sienna Khan and the White Fang against Lil' Miss Malachite and the Spiders.
  • In Risk It All, there's been long-standing friction between the Snake-Flower Triads and the mafia led by Black Mask for some time before the start of the story, as shown by how quick Black Mask is to shoot Ren. Due to being mistaken for a member of the Triads in his vigilante identity, Ren inadvertently reignites war between the two factions, starting with Black Mask's lackeys trying to shoot up a diner.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Black Mass, the story of Whitey Bulger and how he built a crime empire in Boston, starts off with Bulger and The Irish Mob going to war with The Mafia in Boston. Whitey wins, after helping the FBI arrest the Italians, and takes total control of organized crime in the city.
  • In the Chuck Norris movie Code of Silence, a gang war breaks out between the Colombian Comacho mob and the Italian Luna mob after the Italians kill eight Colombians during a drug deal involving an undercover police officer.
  • A Fistful of Dollars, the first film of the Dollars Trilogy, features this with the Baxters and the Rojos, two families vying for control in a small town.
  • Gangs of New York - In the movie it's immigrant Irish gangs vs. native-born Americans. In the book, it's basically every immigrant group vs. every other one. One memorable passage is about a street in the Lower East Side where all the Irish immigrants lived across the street from all the English immigrants. They'd go to work, go to their various pubs, get hammered, and then spill into the street and brawl almost every day.
  • This happens in The Godfather when Sonny decides to "go to the mattresses" after the attempt on his father's life, although there is remarkably little violence seen on-screen. The story of the mob war is told through newspaper headlines while Carmine Coppola plays on an out of tune piano.
  • In another Norris movie, The Hitman, there's a mob war between an Italian gang from Seattle, a French gang from Vancouver, and a recently arrived Iranian gang.
  • B-movie Hollow Point featured a Syndicate with Italian, Russian and Chinese wings that all distrusted each other and, after being pushed by the protagonists, collapsed into fighting each other.
  • Last Action Hero: Sicilian mobster Vivaldi is plotting to kill off the Turelli Mob with a gas bomb, after making a fake peace with them.
  • The title character of Lucky Number Slevin becomes the pawn of two mob bosses hostile to each other. The key plot element is that it is still a Mob Cold War and neither is willing to start a shooting war yet. The protagonist is useful since it can be made to look like he acted on his own and not on the orders of one of the mob bosses. Unfortunately for both mob bosses, said protagonist isn't the useful idiot he appears to be.
  • Meet the Feebles has a brief but action-packed one: Mr. Big has one of his goons, Louie, sell Mr. Bletch borax, telling him it's cocaine. When Bletch finds out, he has Louie killed and his cronies take him to the docks where the actual drugs are. They fight Mr. Big's gang, killing all but one of them, and later kill Mr. Big himself (though not before one of Bletch's goons gets killed as well). In the end, Bletch successfully obtains the drugs and has Trevor sell one to one of their employees.
  • A gang war kicks off in Miller's Crossing. Tom Reagan plays all sides against the middle in an effort to keep his friend Leo O'Bannon in the driver's seat. He succeeds, but is beaten up so often it's a wonder he can still walk, and ultimately gives up the girl, his friendship and position in the mob.
  • Predator 2 is set in Los Angeles during a Heat Wave and a gang war between Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels. Which makes it the perfect safari destination for an alien Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
  • One of the first gangster films ever made, The Racket (1928), has a war between rival bootlegging gangs as a plot point.
  • Romeo Must Die featured a Chinese Mob and an African-American Syndicate on the edge of war.
  • In Scarface (1983), a mob war is part of what allows Tony Montana to rise to the top of the Miami drug trade. Later when Tony's standards get in the way of him doing business with The Cartel, his group gets wiped out in what is not so much a mob war as a Mob Curb Stomping.
  • Scarface (1932) also features a city-wide war, although it's far more violent and destructive than the remake's, with many of the onscreen events being based on infamous gang murders in real life.
  • Sicario: Day of the Soldado: The U.S. government attempts to incite an inter-cartel war in Mexico in retaliation for their ties to terrorist groups, kidnapping the daughter of one of the cartel's leaders in a False Flag Operation.
  • Chicago was being torn apart by the violence between different mobs in The Untouchables (1987). (And in real life).
  • There are many Yakuza movies dealing with these, some outstanding ones are Kinji Fukasaku's Yakuza Graveyard and the Battles Without Honor Or Humanity series and Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine.

    Literature 
  • A major component of the ongoing plot of web serial Barkwire.
  • In The Dresden Files: Small Favor, the possibility of a mob war breaking out in Chicago is the least of the problems caused by the disappearance of Marcone, albeit still one of great concern to Dresden, and something which he uses to secure cooperation and a vital clue from one of Marcone's employees.
    • Marcone's rise to power was caused by a power vacuum from the aftermath of a mob war.
  • This is an important running sideplot in the web-novel Domina. Gang politics are not the focus of the story, but multiple characters are still gang members, which influences their actions one way or another.
  • The Han Solo Trilogy: The Desilijic and Besadii Hutt clans both have attached crime syndicates, with an old rivalry. During the books they fight over control of the spice trafficking trade.
  • Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest, written in 1929, is possibly the ur-example of this trope, and is thought to have inspired Kurosawa's film Yojimbo, which in turn has been remade in different settings many times.
  • During the events of RWBY: Roman Holiday, a war between criminal organizations in Mistral provides Lil Miss with the opportunity to expand her organization elsewhere, triggering further wars as a result. She begins expanding into Vale, eventually triggering a war with Vale's dominant crime organization, the Xiong family. It comes to a head at Trivia's family estate until Neo and Roman find a way to end it for good.
  • The Ink in Skate the Thief is noted to have secured its stranglehold on vice in Caribol against a rival gang known as the Claws at some point in the past; presumably, this was not a peaceful conflict.
  • The Swedish Stockholm Noir trilogy centerers on different attempts to remove the iron grip the Serbian mob holds on Stockholm's underworld by Swedish, Arabic, Chilean and other Serbian elements.
  • The second book of The Witchlands has two pirate groups go to war over who gets to claim Owl for the Big Bad.
  • Steven Brust's Yendi is about an all-out Mob War between Vlad's organization and a neighboring Jhereg crime boss.
  • Jade City: The conflict between the Mountain and No Peak clans is the primary plot of the book and both sequels. Featuring both many Supernatural Martial Arts fight scenes throughout the city of Kekon and less direct methods like the rival clans making covert deals with the Expys of Cold-War era United States and USSR for financing.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The threat of Tony Soprano's New Jersey mob family breaking out into open civil war or becoming embroiled with one of the New York families hangs overhead in several seasons of The Sopranos. In the last half of season 6, an open war breaks out between the Soprano crew and the Lupertazzi family under Phil Leotardo.
  • A major subplot in the second season of Rome deals with the various groups of the Roman underworld vying for control after a Power Vacuum opens up. This includes an all out showdown between the gang Vorenus created, (but being led by Pullo at that time) and another group.
  • Virtually the entire plot of Seasons 6 and 7 of The Shield is the Strike Team trying to start a Mob War in order to use them to kill off the other side. Throughout the series though, Vic and the Strike Team try to prevent mob wars as they obviously produce murders and cost everyone money.
  • In an episode of Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior, the 1920s Mafia went up against the late 1940s Yakuza in a five-on-five battle royale. Mafia won.
    • In an episode of the second series Jesse James and his gang go up against Al Capone and his cronies. Jesse James won, with his brother Frank surviving as well.
  • The Wire:
    • At the beginning of the series, due to either a Great Offscreen War or a constant series of small territorial expansions, Avon Barksdale and his crew are firmly in control of the Westside of Baltimore, including controlling several housing projects where they supposedly sell their product 24/7. At the end of the first season Avon goes to jail and in the second his Number Two Stringer Bell is unable to hold onto their all important drug connection that keeps them supplied, causing the Barksdales to start losing their grip, leading to other crews muscling in on their territory. Most notably there is a very anti-climactic shootout between Bodie's crew and the newcomers, where both gangs fail to even scratch the other side, but a stray bullet hits and kills a small kid, pissing off Stringer, who explains that the police attention from killing a kid is bad for business. Eventually Stringer solves by making an agreement with their Eastside rivals led by Proposition Joe, although he has to keep Avon in the dark for awhile because Avon can't stand the thought of cooperating with the Eastside crews.
    • Season 3 revolves around a turf war between Avon Barksdale's drug organization and the organization of Marlo Stanfield, a new independent crew from the Westside that strives to outdo the Barksdales in both ruthlessness and brutality. Both sides take casualties, but the war comes to an abrupt end when the Major Crimes Unit arrests Avon and most of his gang in a weapons stash house.
    • Season 4 sees Marlo working to maintain and expand his turf, using his enforcers Chris Partlow and Snoop to execute rival dealers as well as associates who have become liabilities.
  • Sons of Anarchy has an ever-shifting balance of power between the eponymous motorcycle club, their Mexican equivalents, the local neo-Nazis, the nearby black and Chinese gangs, and a splinter faction of the IRA.
    • Keeping the Sons out of a mob war is a recurring theme in the series. They are quite satisfied with the status quo and an open conflict with any of the other factions is likely to severely weaken the club or even destroy it. They are very good at finding out the weakness of an enemy and striking a mutually beneficial deal to avoid a war.
    • The Sons were involved in a bloody mob war years before the series began and although they won, they came out of it very weak and still feel the effects of it.
    • When Clay gets the Sons involved with a Mexican drug cartel, they end up in the middle of a mob war between two rival cartels and a Son is killed in an ambush.
    • Tig gets the Sons into a mob war when he accidentally kills the daughter of one of LA's biggest drug lords. Subverted in the end because the drug lord finds the Sons to be too useful to destroy, calls off the war and instead settles for personal retribution on Tig alone.
    • After many years of casualties and setbacks, the Sons try to get out of the gun trade for good by hooking up their Irish supplier with the most powerful black gang. This shift in the balance of power is unacceptable to the Mexican and Chinese gangs, who soon join forces against the black-white alliance. Jax then provokes a war with the Chinese because of a personal vendetta.
  • The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action" does this in satirical form, featuring a planet where the government is modeled on Chicago mobs of the 1920s, and mob wars are thus a form of political conflict.
  • Hill Street Blues: Frank Furillo spends much of his working life trying to prevent one of these from kicking off in his precinct, with mixed results.
  • On Graceland Mike, an undercover FBI agent, inadvertently triggers a mob war when he convinces gang leader Bello to buy his heroin from a different supplier. The Mexican drug cartel who used to supply Bello takes this rejection badly and sends in a group of hitmen to kill Bello and wipe out his operation.
  • The main Story Arc in the third season of Boardwalk Empire is a mob war between Nucky Thompson and Gyp Rosetti. Gyp is backed by Joe Masseria, and Nucky gets help from Al Capone.
  • Justified has had a number of these. The first season features a three way conflict between Boyd Crowder's vigilante cult, his father Bo's meth runners, and the Miami Cartel. The second season sees Boyd, out to take over his father's business, clashing with the Bennett family. Season 3 sees Boyd competing for influence with Robert Quarles and the Detroit Mob, while seeking to avoid an all out war. Season 5 has numerous confrontations between Boyd, Hot-Rod Dunham, Boyd's cousin Johnny, and the newly arrived Crowe family. In each case, you can count on Raylan Givens and the other US Marshals to be caught in the middle.
  • Meldrick Lewis intentionally starts one in the Mahoney organization on Homicide: Life on the Street by spreading rumors among the various factions. It actually blows up in the squad's face, although unlike ex-partner Kellerman - who had previously roiled things by killing Luther Mahoney - Lewis keeps his job.
  • Law & Order: The first-season two-part episode "The Torrents of Greed" had Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone unintentionally start a war among New York City's Mafia families when he got so close to indicting a major Mafia boss that the man killed his own brother-in-law to save himself - and was then killed by his own sister, the dead man's wife.
  • Gotham spends most of its first season hovering under the threat of, and having a few near brushes with, one of these breaking out between rival crime bosses Falcone and Maroni. Cobblepot states that such a conflict is inevitable, and that when it happens "blood will run in the streets". And in the penultimate episode, he ensures it happens, staging a False Flag Operation to make Maroni think Falcone tried to kill him, and kickstarting the war.
  • The second season of Fargo focuses largely on a war between the Gerhardt Crime Family in Fargo and the Kansas City Mafia. The Gerhardts are trying to keep their territory while Kansas City is trying to usurp it from them. In the end, Kansas City wins through almost no action of their own. The local representative of the Kansas mob is killed and most of their men either dead or arrested, but the Gerhardts' internal strife and their betrayal by Hanzee Dent at the Sioux Falls Massacre wipes out the remainder of their gang and leadership.
  • Arrow: This is Helena Bertinelli's plan to avenge her fiancé Michael, who was killed by her father because he thought Michael was a mole for the FBI (he wasn't — Helena was the one talking to the feds). She weakens his organization by anonymously assassinating several of his key officers and men, and then kills the head of the Triad (the prime suspects for the assassinations, of whom Frank Bertinelli personally accused right to their faces) to instigate the war. With the Bertinelli Family as weak as it is, they would assuredly be wiped out. Both Oliver and the police want to prevent this, as while a mob war would wipe out one of the organizations, it would also likely involve several innocent lives getting stuck in the crossfire as well.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Daredevil (2015): Wilson Fisk gets into one with the Russians due to Matt Murdock busting up their operation. After he kills Anatoly for interrupting his date with Vanessa, he uses some machinations so that Vladimir will prepare his men to go to war with Fisk, not realizing Fisk has sent suicide bombers to take out him and his men. At the start of season 3, there's brief retaliation from the Albanians for Fisk's snitching on them to Ray Nadeem in the form of an ambush on the motorcade transferring him to the Presidential Hotel (what prompted said transfer, though—Fisk being shanked—was actually something Fisk arranged for Jasper Evans to give to him).
    • The Punisher (2017): It had been revealed in Daredevil (2015) season 2 that Frank Castle's family was killed in an apparent gang shootout between three rival gangs. Which then turned out to be a police sting gone south, and which was ultimately revealed in Frank's own show to have been all a False Flag Operation sanctioned by William Rawlins to take out Frank, who he thought had leaked a tape of the torture of Ahmed Zubair.
    • Luke Cage (2016): The gangsters in Harlem are as much at war with each other as they are with Luke Cage. Season 1 sees a gang war between Cottonmouth and Domingo break out after some Harlem youths shoot up a gun deal between the two. Season 2 revolves around Harlem being the subject of a war as the Brooklyn-based Stylers decide to go to war with Mariah Dillard as Bushmaster seeks revenge for the deaths of his parents at the hands of Mariah's grandparents. After Mariah is arrested, there's another gang war that breaks out as the Koreans and Italians and Puerto Ricans fight to take control of Mariah's turf, which is resolved by Luke taking over Harlem's Paradise.
    • Iron Fist (2017): Season 2 reveals that, with the destruction of the Hand in The Defenders (2017), a power vacuum has been left in the Chinatown criminal underworld. As a result of this, the Golden Tigers and Yangshi-Gonshi triads start fighting for control of the neighborhood. Which comes to a screeching halt as Davos starts killing people on both sides, causing them to ally against him.
  • Narcos:
    • While Escobar is a rival to the Cali godfathers, for much of the series they maintain an uneasy detente. However, throughout season 2 he is also fighting off splinter groups of his own cartel, all the while the government is on an endless hunt for him. Cali also gets involved indirectly, as Medellin's fall would give them a virtual monopoly over the Colombian cocaine market.
    • In season 3, after Gilberto Rodriguez is imprisoned, the vassal Valley North cartel smells blood and turns on the Cali Cartel, carrying out assassination attempts on both Miguel Rodriguez and Pacho Herrera. Despite Gilberto's pleas, Miguel orders to fight back.
    • In season 5, tensions between the Tijuana and Sinaloa chapters of the Guadalajara Cartel reach a fever pitch, with the final straw being Sinaloa building a tunnel on Tijuana territory to skirt the 10% tax Felix placed on them. A series of killings and reprisal killings ensues, until Felix puts a stop to it by decapitating the Sinaloa organization, since he can't afford to lose the west coast corridor.
    • In season 6, the plazas have become their independent Cartels, but Tijuana and Sinaloa start another war after previously agreeing to a truce immediately following Felix's downfall. The Arellanos start abusing their superior position to tax the poorer Sinaloans even more and refuse any resolution that would satisfy the latter. The resulting violence between the two groups eventually gathers national and international attention when they accidentally murder a beloved cardinal during a shoot-out, which deeply shocks the majorly Catholic country.
  • Person of Interest: When the Machine provides the numbers of the heads of the Five Families, Finch and Reese realise that Elias is finally making his move to take over the New York Mafia. They briefly consider sitting this one out, but decide to intervene because of the risk to innocent bystanders. Later, Elias in turn finds himself being challenged by the Brotherhood, an alliance of New York's street gangs who are making their own bid for power.
  • In the final episode of Season 2 of Cobra Kai, Tory's hijacking of the PA system to threaten Sam sets the stage for what turns into a full-scale fight-to-the-finish bloodbath between the Rival Dojos.
  • Hightown: Osito goes to war with the Frawleys over drug trafficking in Season 4 when they start supplying his dealers behind his back.

    Music 
  • Gang wars are a common theme of hip-hop, and some think the massive Bloods-Crips war for Southern California may have led to the murders of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur.
    • Drill Music has a reputation of not just documenting, but stoking gang wars from Chicago to London, as many artists are active members of their neighborhood gangs, and insulting rival gangs, their neighborhoods, and even dead members are common topics.
  • Michael Jackson's "Beat It" music video.
  • The 1974 Paper Lace song "The Night Chicago Died" is a fictional account of Al Capone's gang going to war with the Chicago police.
  • The Genesis song "The Battle of Epping Forest", describing a London East End gang war.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Roleplay 

    Tabletop Games 
  • Shadowrun:
    • The adventure Mob War details a civil war between Mafia factions, mixed up with a conflict between the Mafia and other crime groups such as the Yakuza. It takes place in Seattle in the year 2058.
    • In Fourth Edition, Seattle's still in the grip of one — Yakuza vs. Mafia vs. the Vory, with the survivors of a purge of Koreans from the Yakuza ranks trying to stay out of the way.
  • Blades in the Dark is pretty much Mob Wars: The Role-Playing Game. Not only is the game's default opening situation a turf war between the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes over the drug distribution business in The City Narrows, but the player characters (who form their own gang at character creation) are fully expected, nay, encouraged to start muscling in on other gangs' turf as soon as they have the resources for it.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The Spin-Off Necromunda a skirmish-level small unit combat set on the human Hive World of Necromunda, with mostly human factions fighting an underground gang-war. It is the SciFiCounterpart to Warhammmer's Mordheim.
    • Gang wars are an inevitable part of life in the lower levels of a hive. The Arbites do their best to keep things from spilling over, but higher authorities are quite keen to let them keep happening, as it means combat-ready recruits for the Imperial Guard (who sometimes conduct sweeps of the lower levels, shanghaing everyone they find) or even the Space Marines.
  • Family Business is a card game about mobsters putting contracts on each other. "Mob War" is a specific phase in the game note , but the whole game is one long mob war by most standards.

    Theatre 

    Video Games 
  • In Assassin's Creed Syndicate, the city of London is embroiled in a gang war between the Assassin-backed Rooks and the Templar-backed Blighters, complete with referees for official battle between the bosses.
  • Baldur's Gate 2 features a war between the local thieves' guild and an upstart guild of vampires.
  • Batman: Arkham City: A massive gang war is going on between the three top supervillains in the Arkham City prison — Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face, based out of the steel mill, museum, and courthouse, respectively, with some other supervillains running around as well; the Mad Hatter seems to want to get a foothold in the war using mind control, but is ultimately a minor threat. As it turns out, all of the supervillains are being supplied with the guns and other weapons they're using, as well as information against each other, by Dr. Hugo Strange, who runs Arkham City, as pretense to activate Protocol 10: the attempted massacre of every single inmate in Arkham City, which includes some innocent civilians such as doctors trying to help everyone in there and people who simply knew too much about Arkham City's true purpose. The ultimate goal is to murder all the worst criminals in Gotham City and then do it again all over the world and replace Batman as Gotham's savior in the process.
  • Borderlands 2 has a well-loved sidequest arc where the Vault Hunters start a War for Fun and Profit and break the truce between two Feuding Families (who are both over-the-top stereotypes of Irishmen and rednecks respectively), in a parody of the 1920s "Beer Wars". This starts from simple pranks to piss both families off, then it gets increasingly brutal from there until the final mission, where you have to kill the godfather of whatever family annoys you more and their entire honor guard in a bloody firefight at the local train station.
  • Bully has a more family-friendly (and non-lethal) version of this with a conflict going on between the five cliques at Bullworth Academy, with many of the cliches often found in gang and mob stories brought down to a high-school level.
  • Criminal Case:
    • Criminal Case: Grimsborough features a three-way mob war between The Vipers, The Skulls, and the Italian mafia happening in the Industrial Area, which ends when Salvador Cordero, leader of The Vipers, is murdered by Tony Marconi, The Don of the mafia, putting the latter in prison and technically making The Skulls the winners of the conflict.
    • Criminal Case: Pacific Bay shows that the Chinese and Russian communities of Inner City have been in conflict for a long time thanks to their leaders, Sue Xiong and Nikolai Kamarov, being former Star-Crossed Lovers that were forced to split by their families. Thankfully, the conflict ends in a relatively minor note when Nikolai gets murdered by his own son and his successor decides to put an end to the Russian's rivalry with the Chinese, with only a few casualties happening as a result of it.
    • One of the main Story Arcs of Criminal Case: Mysteries of the Past is putting a stop at an imminent all-out war brewing between the Italian and the Irish gangs of Concordia, with most of the conflict happening in the districts of Sinner's End (which is Irish territory), Coyote Gorge (controlled by the Italians), and Crimson Banks (where both communities mostly coexist in peace). Unfortunately, the police department is too late to prevent the war from occurring in the climax of the arc, and is only after too many gang members die or get too injured to keep fighting that everything starts to settle down.
  • Basically the point of X-rated PC game Daiakuji, where the player character is a gangster who fights other gangs and the authorities for control of a weird alternate reality version of 1930s Osaka.
  • The plot of Def Jam: Fight For New York is about the battle between two gangs competing for control of New York's illegal underground fighting circuit.
  • In Deus Ex, the Red Dragon triad is at war with the Luminous Path triad. Rather than eliminating one side, the objective is to encourage a peace between the two.
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind There is an ongoing conflict between the ruthless, murderous native gangsters in the Camonna Tong and the Imperial import Thieves' Guild. While all-out war is not something either side can afford, the conflict is still nasty enough that even the usually violence-averse Guild orders Tong operatives to be killed and are in the process of outfitting their meeting places with deadly traps and guards.
  • Fallout 4 has the Railroad's "To the Mattresses" quest chain during the Playable Epilogue, when the normally-clandestine group works to wipe out the anti-synth L&L Gang.
  • The Godfather game lets us see the mob war between The Corleone family and the other mob families up close. It's pretty brutal.
  • A common plot device of most of the Grand Theft Auto games (especially Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, where it's the main plot of the game). Even gangs that are at war with yours won't open fire unless you attack first in most of these games, with Grand Theft Auto III being the notable exception (some of the gangs become so hostile eventually that it's nearly impossible just to drive a car through their neighborhood without having it blown up by shotgun fire).
    • Turf wars are a major gameplay elements in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, first popping up towards the end of the Los Santos chapter, and then again towards the finale, where CJ is required to hold a certain amount of territory before certain story missions unlock.
    • In Grand Theft Auto Online, Lamar tries to use a series of False Flag attacks to provoke a war between the Ballas and the Vagos.
  • A major part of the plot of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is a war between the Erebonian mafia group operating out of Revache & Co and the Calvardian triad family operating out of Heiyue Trading, Ltd. for control of the criminal underworld of the Erebonian/Calvardian buffer state of Crossbell. Heiyue comes across as more sympathetic, because their crimes are kept in the background of the story, and are primarily gang-on-gang, while Revache is openly shown committing crimes against normal citizens.
  • In the Like a Dragon games, the plot often deals with preventing all-out war between the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance, with the protagonist Kazuma Kiryu caught in the middle.
  • Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven is primarily about the mob war between Salieri and Morello families (except the last missions after the Morello family is defeated).
  • Commander Shepard runs up against various criminal organizations throughout Mass Effect, and frequently gets involved in their internal conflicts.
  • Max Payne has the Punchinello mob and Vladimir's Russian syndicate going to war, with the title character caught in the middle of it. Twice. He's the last one standing after everyone on both sides is dead.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: Rogueport is in middle of one of these during the events of the game between PiantaSyndicate and the Robbo Gang. The factions control the West side and East side of the town respectively, with violent encounters between the two organizations happening regularly, with the very first one that we witness appearing as a Funny Background Event early in the adventure: While Toadworth is informing Mario about Princess Peach's disappearance, we see two Pianta Goons beating up a couple of Robbo Gang members.
  • The Saints Row games have you lead the Third Street Saints to dominance over increasingly-outlandish rival gangs, through combat and minigames like "Insurance Fraud" and "Septic Avenger." Saints Row: The Third even sees the Saints fighting a US military task force, while Saints Row 4 has the Saints conquering virtual "turf" to break out of an alien computer simulation.
  • In Shadow Hearts: From The New World, you end up in Chicago... and the game is set in the 1920s. One of your party members is a capo in Capone's mob, while another is in love with Capone's sister. Add some dark magic and the mob war gets weird. Oh, and said capo is also a Mega Neko.
  • Sharpshooter 3D is set in the middle of a massive mob war in the (fictional) city of Southern Slovenko, with the police trying to suppress the situation by arresting everyone (including you!) Naturally, you spend the whole game killing your way across the city through various mobsters.
  • Spider-Man (PS4):
    • Following the Kingpin's arrest, the remnants of his organization come under fire from a mysterious superpowered Chinese gang called the Inner Demons. Initially, everyone assumes this conflict is about some dangerous upstarts trying to establish themselves by carving out territory from Kingpin's crumbling empire, but that's all just a smokescreen. What the Demons are really after is the Kingpin's secret leverage on Mayor Norman Osborn and his illicit caches of military-grade firearms and explosives, and the "turf war" is simply a means to an end to acquire those from him. Once they have them, the Demons break off from the war to focus on their real objective: domestic terrorism against Mayor Osborn.
    • The second of The City That Never Sleeps DLC campaigns, Turf Wars, focuses on a more traditional one within the Maggia, as Hammerhead and his clan attempt to assert their dominance within New York's underworld by wiping out the other Maggia families.
  • The John Woo game Stranglehold has the Golden Kane and a Russian syndicate joining forces against Dragon Claw, an established triad, with Tequila, the main character, caught in the middle of it.
  • Team Fortress 2 has the "Gravel War" as its Excuse Plot. Back in the 1850s, two idiot brothers were willed acres of expensive but useless real estate by their father because he knew they'd spend the rest of their days fighting to seize the other's portion. Sure enough, Redmond and Blutarch Mann hired teams of mercenaries to battle over control points, briefcases full of intelligence documents, or bombs on minecarts. Thanks to life-extending technology, the conflict rages over a hundred years.
  • Watch_Dogs: In the Bad Blood DLC, T-Bone's investigations in the Street Sweeper mission chains uncover a three-way feud brewing between the Fixers, the Chicago South Club and the Pawnee Militia, with each gang gunning for one of the other two while simultaneously being targeted by the third.
  • Recurrent in the Way of the Samurai series.

    Visual Novels 
  • Lucky Dog 1 features an all-out mob war breaking out between CR-5 (an American Mafia group) and Grave Digger (an American gang) in the third part of the game. CR-5 wins in the good endings, Grave Digger in the bad ones.
  • Rose Guns Days is essentially about the confrontation, negotiations and changing alliances between Mafia families in the Tokyo district "City 23", in an Alternate History where China and the United States have remodeled Japan. The protagonist, Rose Haibara, is the head of a club of "ladies of the night" which eventually becomes a Mafia group, and its first antagonist is another Japanese mafia, the Caleb Family. Other groups include the Golden Dragon Society, a Chinese mafia controlling City 22 and part of City 23, and the American occupation army, which plays a important part in the balance of powers.

    Webcomics 
  • The Croaking: Corvids (i. e. the birdpeople with crow/dole/etc. wings) organize themselves in murders that are essentially gangs. Each hold territories and often, there are fights or assaults, either between different species (crows vs. doles, for example) or among one species (one crow murder against another)
  • Homestuck: The Midnight Crew and The Felt are engaged in a fairly long one; when we first come into that part of the story, it's pretty much at its conclusion as the Crew mounts an assault on Felt Manor.
  • Because of Gray stirring the waters in Weak Hero, the existing gang hierarchy of Yeongdeungpo ends up in a long, drawn-out war with him and Ben's gang.

    Web Videos 
  • There Will Be Brawl occurs to the backdrop of public unrest due to a mob war going on between gangs controlled by Mewtwo, Ganondorf, King Dedede and Bowser. Also slightly subverted by the fact that neither Dedede or Bowser were trying to fight a war. Ganon eventually brings down all the mobs, only to be killed himself.

    Western Animation 
  • The Simpsons: Played for Laughs in "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson". When Marge's homemade pretzel business is about to fail, Homer hires The Mafia to help. This works wonders until they come to take all of the profits for themselves. The mob is about to kill Marge and Homer for refusing to turn over the money when a group of Yakuza hired by Marge's business rivals arrive, and start a brawl with the mafia, leading to the two gangs forgetting about everything except fighting each other. After a while the two groups just keep brawling in the front yard while the Simpsons family go about their usual business indoors.
  • Static Shock: The Big Bang occurs when the cops try to break up a massive fight between two rival street gangs. Since most of the people exposed to the Bang Baby Gas were already criminals, this also explains why the majority of the Bang Babies went straight to committing crimes once their powers manifested.
  • One of the "Goodfeathers" bits on Animaniacs did a spoof of the gang rivalry and fights in West Side Story.
  • Occurs in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' "City at War" arc, with three factions—the local branch of the Foot, the Purple Dragons, and the generically-named "Mob"—fighting for control of the New York City underworld in the wake of the power vacuum created by the Shredder's apparent death.
    • The Turtles (and even Splinter) feel they should not be involved, since their interference in the war would only make it worse. But Leo, feeling responsible for it since they're the ones who've taken out the Shredder, just can't ignore it, and takes it upon himself to deal with it.
    • The Purple Dragons tried to break away from the Foot, until gang leader Hun returned to stop it, due to his Undying Loyalty to the Shredder.
  • Occurs in the Gargoyles episode "Turf", between crime groups led by Tony Dracon and Tomas Brod.
  • Occurs in The Spectacular Spider-Man's "Criminology 101" arc, with characters such as Silvermane and his daughter Silver Sable, Doctor Octopus, and Roderick Kingsley (the latter only in the first episode of the arc) fighting The Big Man for control of... well, you can probably guess.
    • A much smaller scale version appeared in the second season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Here, the aged Silvermane thought the Kingpin was weak (for failing to eliminate Spider-Man, natch) and not fit for his position. The two sides were determined to dispose of the other, though their conflict didn't engulf the whole city.
  • American Dad!: In "Persona Assistant", one of these is sparked when Stan's failure to properly fill in for Roger's many personas (which turn out to be essential for the town's smooth running) triggers a series of Disaster Dominoes: Stan doesn't take his roller blades to be repaired, so the roller blade repair shop owner's wife can't afford (breast implant) surgery, so their son robs a liquor store and accidentally kills the cashier, it turns out the liquor store is protected by The Mafia (also run by Roger) who blame The Mafiya and take revenge since Roger isn't there to stop them, then the Russians blame The Irish Mob and also take revenge, and finally the Irish declare war.

    Real Life 
  • The most famous is the Prohibition-era Chicago Gang War that spanned from 1920 to 1931 and only killed 500 to 1300 people in total, but was fought with far more brutality and sadism than World War I (for starters, a gangster was thrown out of car while burning alive onto a busy public street in 1928). Also, the war wasn't just for the control of all illegal booze, the gangsters were fighting each other for control of the whole city, as the mayor at the time, Big Bill Thompson, was nothing more than a corrupt, insane puppet for Al Capone to control. The war ended in 1931 not because either side won but because (1) Capone was finally sent to prison and (2) the (relatively) incorruptible reformer Anton Cermak defeated Thompson in the 1930 mayoral election and cracked down on organized crime in general.note 
  • The Castellammarese War, the other famous gang war, was a bloody power struggle for control of New York City's Five Families (and by extension, the entire American Mafia) between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano, and was so-called because Maranzano's faction came from Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily. It began when both factions accused each other of hijacking the other side's alcohol trucks, along with Masseria's heavy-handed attempts to strong-arm the other Italian gangs in New York, mainly the Castellammarese, and soon enough, Maranzano declared war on Masseria's gang in 1929. Outwardly, this war was between the forces of Masseria and Maranzano, but eventually, a third faction comprised of younger, Americanized mafiosi emerged. The "Young Turks", as they were called, were more open and willing to work with other ethnic gangs, unlike "Mustache Petes" such as Masseria and Maranzano, who were too old-fashioned, dead-set in their archaic ways, and refused to work with other ethnic mobs, let alone fellow Italian mobsters; this faction was headed by Lucky Luciano, Masseria's right-hand man in name only. The war claimed at least 150+ lives on both sides, and went on until Masseria was gunned down in April of 1931 at a Coney Island restaurant, allegedly orchestrated by Luciano, who wanted to make peace with Maranzano. With Masseria out of the way, Maranzano wastes no time establishing the Five Families and declaring himself boss of all bosses at a secret meeting shortly after Masseria's death; despite establishing many of the rules that still govern the Mafia, such as Omertà and crews of soldiers working under a capo, he was another Mustache Pete. This, combined with him treating his mooks like crap, his outdated views on running the Mafia and his plot to kill Luciano provoked a violent reaction, and he was gunned down by gunmen posing as IRS agents at his office on September 10, 1931. With the old guard out of the way, Luciano and his allies could now consolidate their own power and establish the modern American Mafia. They created "the Commission", where no one mobster could ever be "boss of all bosses" again and the leaders of the Five Families would have to settle disputes peacefully, in order to prevent such wars from happening again. While not fully effectivenote , it worked pretty well for them and is a large part of why the American Mafia survived all the way to the 21st century.
  • A currently ongoing one is the Mexican Drug War, which has also killed more people than ISIL, and was violent enough that the cartels control whole sections of Mexico, get into firefights with the Mexican army daily, and even have to put up notices to warn citizens of cartel-ruled cities to not to go out at a certain time, because that's when they'll start shooting.
  • There was another major mob war in Tampa Bay in the 1930s and 40s between the forces of the two most powerful mobsters in the region, Charlie Wall and Ignacio Antinori, known by the charming title of the "Era of Blood". In the end, Wall won when Antinori was killed... but was so weakened that Santo Trafficante Sr. (who had stayed neutral during the war) was able to move into the power vacuum and become the new boss of the region.
  • The Colombo family underwent three internal turf wars over the course of the 20th century. The first one broke out in the late 1950s when capo Joe Gallo tried to overthrow boss Joseph Profaci, but lost momentum by the early 60s after Profaci died of cancer and Gallo went to prison. The second war broke out in 1971 when boss Joe Colombo was assassinated and the recently released Gallo was blamed (though he didn't actually have anything to do with it); Gallo's men were soon fighting Colombo supporters led by Carmine Persico, which didn't end until 1975, when the Commission stepped in and convinced the Gallo faction to transfer to the Genovese family instead, allowing Persico to take over the Colombos. The third war (which was the bloodiest of the three) broke out in 1991 when acting boss Vic Orena (filling in for Persico while he was in prison) decided to try and take over permanently, leading to conflict between his and Persico's loyalists until Orena's own arrest in 1993 caused the fighting to peter out, with Persico thereby winning by default.
  • During the 1960s and 1970s, the Bonanno family split into various factions, mainly over who should become boss. This began when family namesake Joe Bonanno attempted to take over the Commission in 1964, but was forced to step down, triggering a brief mob war over his succession. The Commission then intervened and anointed Phillip Rastelli as Bonanno's successor, but this was challenged by Carmine Galante, who felt he should be the boss, but was assassinated by Rastelli loyalists in 1979. The Bonannos almost split up again in 1981 when several Galante loyalists attempted to avenge his death by taking over the brugad, but were wiped out by Rastelli backers who were tired of people defying his authority.
  • After the arrest in 2004 of Montreal mafia boss Vito Rizzuto (and his extradition to New York for his involvement in the Three Capos murder back in 1981, followed by his conviction in 2007 to 10 years in prison), an internal faction within the once powerful Rizzuto family, lead by Raynald Desjardain along with deported New York Mafia boss Salvatore Montagna, plotted to take over the family. Their coup started in the late 2000s; after Vito Rizzuto returned to Canada in 2012, he immediately started ordering the assassination of all the members that had betrayed the family and those involved in the murder of his son, Nick Rizzuto Jr., in 2009 and his father in 2010. In 2013, Vito Rizzuto died suddenly of lung cancer, but there is speculation that he might have been poisoned, because no autopsy was carried out. After his death, a vacuum was left within the criminal world, and a war that has claimed over 100 lives began to spread from Montreal, to Ontario and beyond (and is still ongoing). The Rizzuto family is now believed to be controlled by Stefano Sollecito, the son of murdered Rizzuto capo Rocco Sollecito, and Vito's only son Leonardo Rizzuto.
  • Pretty much par for the course when it comes to the Hells Angels and their relationships with almost every other major 1%er biker gang. The biggest, and oldest, include their feuds with the Outlaws, Mongols, Bandidos, Pagans and the Breed. Since many of these gangs have chapters around the globe, these wars can carry across nations. A major example was “The Great Nordic Biker War” in Scandinavia from 1994-97 between the Angels and the Bandidos that left 12 dead and nearly 100 wounded. Many of these conflicts see the clubs involved throwing everything and the kitchen sink at each other, with nothing off the table, from barroom beatings and stabbings, to drive by shootings, to bombings and even a rocket laucher attack on a clubhouse.
  • The Quebec Biker War lasted from 1994 to 2002 and spilled into the rest of the province. It was a particularly sordid war involving the Hells Angels and the Rizzuto family against a rival outlaw biker gang called the Rock Machine. The most infamous event was the death of an 11-year old boy, Daniel Desrochers, who was killed by shrapnel when a car bomb went off close to him. The response from law enforcement was inefficient, due to not only a relatively high corruption level in the Montreal and Quebec provincial police and the Quebec courts, but also the fact that the Quebec Independence Movement was in its apex at the time, contributing to tensions between the Quebec government and Ottawa, which soured cooperation efforts with the RCMP. The war ended when the leader of the Hells Angels Quebec chapter, Maurice "Mom" Boucher, was imprisoned for life in 2002. To this day, the French word for "biker" ("motard") has sordid and negative connotations with violent organized crime in Quebec, while in the rest of the French-speaking world "motard" is simply a neutral term for a biker.
    • In a similar vein, the 1984 Milperra Massacre in Sydney was an especially infamous case of biker gang warfare in Australia. Not just because of the intensity of violence involved between the gangs, but also because a teenage girl was fatally caught in the crossfire.
  • During the 70s, Cleveland was a battleground between The Celtic Club criminal syndicate led by Danny Greene and the Licavoli crime family when both organizations competed for control over the city. Infamously, Greene prefered to deal with his enemies by blowing them up via car bombs, to the point that in 1976 alone, 36 bombs exploded around the Cleveland area, which resulted in the place gaining the moniker "Bomb City, U.S.A". The conflict reached an end after Greene himself was finally killed by a car bomb in 1977 but by that time he had permanently crippled Licavoli's influence in the city.
  • A Mob War was fought in Glasgow in the 1980's between rival ice cream vans, which may sound off until you learn that the trucks were fronts for drugs and stolen goods trade.

Alternative Title(s): Gang War

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