History Main / NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters

* ''HelloHellper'':
** The Killberos group is led by Gwangnam, who absolutely forbids gangster-like behavior. For example, they don't take payment for their protection services, they earn money legitimately through concerts and selling their own brand of clothes, and as a rule, each member must never ''ever'' involve the rest of the group in their personal issues. Unfortunately, the story starts with Gwangnam dying and eventually [[spoiler: several violent members, including one who was expelled, take over so they can make Killberos into a "real" gang while those who upheld Gwangnam's peaceful ideals are overpowered, turned to the dark side, or even killed (technically not yet but getting stabbed in the gut is probably not a good thing)]].
** The other gangs in the story, be they groups of middle-schoolers or full-blown Korean mafiosos, are absolutely ''not'' friendly, although a few of the elders had a healthy respect/fear of a certain woman nicknamed "[[TheDreaded Blood Ocean]]" and stayed out of town. [[spoiler:"Blood Ocean" also happens to be Gwangnam's foster grandmother; unfortunately she also died and now there's nothing stopping the more ruthless gangsters from encroaching onto Gwangnam's town.]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Lackadaisy}}'', nobody really seems to mind they're living next to a bunch of sociopathic, hooch-running cats running a speakeasy. If anything, aside from the occasional shoot out, their presence is rather appreciated.

This trope has some elements of TruthInTelevision: crime syndicates that wish to survive in a community try to have [[VillainWithGoodPublicity good public relations]], after the philosophy "don't shit where you eat". Many criminal organizations (including the Japanese [[{{Yakuza}} yakuza]], Sicilian Mafia, the [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Chinese triad societies]], and [[GangBangers most American street gangs]]) also have their roots in community self-defense efforts, although they share a strong tendency to degenerate into more euphemistic "[[ProtectionRacket protection]]" among other abuses. Moreover, having an organised crime outfit in your neighborhood tends to help cut down on ''dis''organized crime—the common criminals who might otherwise commit crimes in that neighborhood (armed robbers and muggers) are too afraid of [[RobbingTheMobBank committing a crime against the wrong person]], and ''paying'' for it, pissing off people who have every reason to keep the neighborhood off the police radar, or simply being made an example of by people who know that unaffiliated common criminals getting away with causing trouble in their territory is a bad look, and don't want to give anyone any ideas.

* ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'' doesn't really touch at all on the crime-for-profit element of TheMafia (except for a few mentions of speakeasies), and its mobster characters might as well be violent aristocrats given their behavior and portrayal. The light novels ''do'' go a bit more into crime, with the Genoard fortune coming from cocaine and the Gandors being explicitly opposed to drug dealing. Of course, this only reinforces which characters are Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters. Also, Jacuzzi and Nice run a crew of community-minded delinquents.
* The Washimine group of the "Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise" arc in ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' is an ethical {{Yakuza}}, fighting an uphill battle against more ruthless {{Delinquents}} and TheMafiya headed by Balalaika. Ginji Matsuzaki, the ''wakagashira'' and resident badass of the group, comments that while they're impoverished, it's more honourable than "selling women and meth."

* The Dollars in ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'' are something of an example, whether they're a gang, a neighbourhood watch organisation, or just a group of random anonymous people depends on how you look at it. Also, [[spoiler:when Kida ruled them]] the Yellow Scarves were this, at least in comparison to Blue Square.
* The Yakuza of ''Anime/FutakoiAlternative''. Granted, when compared to biomechanical flying pyromaniac squid, simple Yakuza seem pretty tame.
* Souchirou's gang in ''Literature/HeavensMemoPad'' started as he and a few other delinquent punks getting together to protect themselves and those they cared about against other gangs, and grew from there. They're still small and realize they can't keep doing the gang thing forever, and so have been exploring more legitimate services like managing and promoting shows for bands at local clubs. They are also very down on most drugs, and Souchirou helps the heroes find and stop the source of a dangerous new euphoric drug circulating among the poor and disaffected in their area.
* KoreanWebtoon ''HelloHellper'' has the Killberos group whose leader Gwangnam absolutely forbids gangster-like behavior. For example, they don't take payment for their protection services, they earn money legitimately through concerts and selling their own brand of clothes, and as a rule, each member must never ''ever'' involve the rest of the group in their personal issues. Unfortunately, the story starts with Gwangnam dying and eventually [[spoiler: several violent members, including one who was expelled, take over so they can make Killberos into a "real" gang while those who upheld Gwangnam's peaceful ideals are overpowered, turned to the dark side, or even killed (technically not yet but getting stabbed in the gut is probably not a good thing)]].
** The other gangs in the story, be they groups of middle-schoolers or full-blown Korean mafiosos, are absolutely ''not'' friendly although a few of the elders had a healthy respect/fear of a certain woman nicknamed [[TheDreaded "Blood Ocean"]] and stayed out of town [[spoiler: "Blood Ocean" also happens to be Gwangnam's foster grandmother; unfortunately she also died and now there's nothing stopping them from encroaching onto Gwangnam's town]]
* The Kuroda group in ''Manga/{{Gokusen}}'' is like this. They still like a good fight and get most of their resources from illegal gambling and protection of hostess bars. Though unlike others they don't just get protection money to extort them, they really do protect them.

** Giorno got into crime because of one of these. When he was a child, regularly bullied and abused, he found a man bleeding out in a patch of tall grass. The men who'd shot him asked Giorno where the man had gone, and Giorno lied, saying that he had gone further away, saving the injured man's life. That man was a powerful gangster in Naples, and after he recovered [[IOweYouMyLife he made it a point to use his influence to protect Giorno from a distance]]. His first act: having a "quick talk" with Giorno's abusive stepfather. Afterwards he mostly just ensured the local shop owners who trusted ''him'' would treat Giorno nicely and trust him as well. The only person who ''ever'' treated Giorno well was in the Mafia, and that inspired him to follow in his footsteps.
* HOMRA in ''Anime/{{K}}'' gives off a strong street-gangster vibe and can often be rude to innocents, but they never intentionally do something evil. Their actions are mostly pushed by their close bonds and their instincts to protect and stick up for members of the gang.
* In ''Manga/KyouKaraOreWa'', Mitsuhashi and Itou are neighborhood-friendly ''punks'': they rose as the strongest delinquent students of Chiba as an unintended consequence of deciding to reinvent their image in a cooler way upon moving there ([[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7a/0b/b1/7a0bb18351bf290dd90b1d5db004fa96.jpg Mitsuhashi is the blond]]) and being stronger than anyone who tried to beat them up for it, with Itou being a genuinely good person and Mitsuhashi [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold incredibly greedy and selfish but willing to help his friends and protect his school from worse delinquents]] and never did anything worse than getting his worst enemies hospitalized or some vandalism.

* ''Manga/Reborn2004'', for the first 8 volumes, is a wacky comedy where the cast is supposed to be a Mafia family. They're really more TrueCompanions than anything else.
** Then the other part of their family show that they are ''not'' Friendly and engages in the battle for succession of the boss title.

* The Wong Family in ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'' employs numerous powerful and intimidating monsters, they were founded by one of the Three Dark Lords, and they're currently headed by the most powerful SwordAndSorcerer BattleCouple around. They throw a ridiculously lavish and flamboyant welcome party when the heir brings home friends, and Inner Moka notes them to be "a noisy bunch". Overall, they're more cheerful than you'd expect.
* ''Manga/TheWayOfTheHousehusband'': While Tatsu's flashback to his days in the Yakuza indicate that his former life is filled with violence and bloodshed, the Yakuza he occasionally runs into in the present day are rarely seen committing such violent crimes. A couple of them occasionally threatens Tatsu with weapons, but more often than not, they get carried away by his house-husband antics and don't become too much of a threat. Tatsu himself still gets along with his former boss and colleagues, and when they show up, they behave decently.
* Yusuke from ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' is a Neighbourhood Friendly [[{{Delinquents}} Punk]] who shoplifts, smokes, gambles, and gets into fights for fun.

* While most of the Yakuza in the ''Videogame/{{Yakuza}}'' series are the bad kind of gangsters, the protagonist Kazuma Kiryu represents a lot of the qualities that real-life yakuza said they used to embody: "We kept the streets clean. People liked us. We didn't bother ordinary citizens. We respected our bosses."

* ''Film/TheMask'': The Mask, because of his wearer is a fan of the Tex Avery cartoons, decides to become a gangster; partly of them but mostly he wanted to instill fear and respect into people because of Stanley being bullied by some of those people. He goes after some of the people who ticked Stanley off the most, and robs a bank at one point so that he can have enough money to get inside the Coco Bongo, but other than that he is very polite, friendly and nice towards the people who are nice to him or Stanley like Tina. He is also harmless, as he doesn't hurt or kill anyone at all, prefering to {{Troll}}ing them and messing around as well, and he does help stop the BigBad from killing Tina and everyone else in the Coco Bongo.

* Despite what Peggy Li might tell you, the [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Water Street Boys]] from ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs2012'' are a subversion. They may protect vendors and stores from rival gangs and thugs but will strong arm them into earning protection money, deal drugs, and are quite thuggish to boot. Them including Jackie even casually talk about the last undercover officer who was tortured and then BuriedAlive. Unfortunately, "merely" running extortion and protection rackets pretty much makes the Water Street Boys a picked-on "lower class" of the Sun On Yee triad, whereas more powerful subsidiaries are involved with more profitable drug trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, pornography, and money laundering, and the events of the game start with "Dogeyes" Lin's Jade Gang encroaching on the Water Street Boys' territory. It's also stated that the reason Winston's gang only runs extortions and protection rackets is that they're too dumb to successfully pull off anything more complicated than that (not helped that Conroy is essentially a symbol of Winston's inability to attract effective subordinates since he only makes his boss look even worse than better by comparison).

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Castle and Beckett come across one such gang in an interesting characterization of the [[TheIrishMob Westies]].

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'':
** ''Golden Wind'' has Bucciarati's group within [[TheMafia the Passione mafia]], a group which carries the arc protagonist, Giorno, as its newest member. Unlike the rest of Passione (who are decidedly ''not'' neighborhood-friendly), Bucciarati's group is beloved by the general community, with even old people willingly going to them, a group of rogues with supernatural abilities and trouble surrounding them, for help. Bucciarati and Giorno only joined up with Passione in the first place to stop the mafia from dealing drugs to children, and their goal is to overthrow TheDon of Passione and insert one of their own in his place. [[spoiler: In fact, they outright openly rebel and gun for him when they learn the hard way that he is willing to kill his own daughter only because of the insane, paranoid idea that she could be a clue to his identity, even though she had neither met the man in her life nor knew anything about him. The personal targeting of an innocent and unrelated teenage girl was the last straw, though learning that [[MundaneUtility the drugs were designed to be self-destructive, were made by a sub-branch of Passione, not to mention Stand-made]]'' didn't help.]]
** Giorno got into crime because of one of these. When he was a child, regularly bullied and abused, he found a man bleeding out in a patch of tall grass. The men who'd shot him asked Giorno where the man had gone, and Giorno lied, saying that he had gone further away, saving the injured man's life. That man was a powerful gangster in Naples, and after he recovered [[IOweYouMyLife he made it a point to use his influence to protect Giorno from a distance]]. His first act: having a "quick talk" with Giorno's abusive stepfather. Afterwards he mostly just ensured the local shop owners who trusted ''him'' would treat Giorno nicely and trust him as well. The only person who ''ever'' treated Giorno well was in the Mafia, and that inspired him to follow in his footsteps.

* Yusuke from ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' is a Neighbourhood Friendly [[{{Delinquents}} Punk]] who shoplifts, smokes, gambles, and gets into fights for fun.
* The Kuroda group in ''Manga/{{Gokusen}}'' is like this. They still like a good fight and get most of their resources from illegal gambling and protection of hostess bars. Though unlike others they don't just get protection money to extort them, they really do protect them.

* ''Manga/Reborn2004'', for the first 8 volumes, is a wacky comedy where the cast is supposed to be a Mafia family. They're really more TrueCompanions than anything else.
** Then the other part of their family show that they are ''not'' Friendly and engages in the battle for succession of the boss title.
** Later, another mafia family is introduced. This one ([[TimeTravel in the future]]) has [[TakeOverTheWorld taken over the world]].
** And the latest flashbacks reveal that the protagonist's family in its first generation was a ''vigilante'' group, and only later has been turned into a full-blown mafia family.

* HOMRA in ''Anime/{{K}}'' gives off a strong street-gangster vibe and can often be rude to innocents, but they never intentionally do something evil. Their actions are mostly pushed by their close bonds and their instincts to protect and stick up for members of the gang.

* The Wong Family in ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'' employs numerous powerful and intimidating monsters, they were founded by one of the Three Dark Lords, and they're currently headed by the most powerful SwordAndSorcerer BattleCouple around. They throw a ridiculously lavish and flamboyant welcome party when the heir brings home friends, and Inner Moka notes them to be "a noisy bunch". Overall, they're more cheerful than you'd expect.
* ''Literature/BodaciousSpacePirates'': They rob tourist yachts and take on bounties for odd jobs. Really, the whole "space privateer" thing has already been bogged down by the local bureaucracy, making teenage girls the perfect star-system neighborhood tax collectors... And then they kidnap a multibillionaire heiress so she can dump her hipster fiancée and get married to her girlfriend. And take down a prototype battlespace fortress.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': Mr. Big, the [[{{Pun}} shrewd]] crime boss of Tundratown. As a crime boss in a movie starring a police officer, he would be the villain of the story. In fact, he nearly ''[[DeadlyEuphemism ices]]'' Nick and Judy for trespassing. But when [[MafiaPrincess his daughter]] reveals that Judy saved her life, he spares them and offers whatever information and services he can, [[spoiler: even threatening Duke Weaselton (the one who endangered Mr. Big's daughter) into coughing up the location of the toxin lab]]. Further implied in that when the apparently perfectly law-abiding [[spoiler:Emmitt Otterton]] found out about [[spoiler:the Night Howlers plot]], he didn't go to the police; he went to Mr. Big. ''WesternAnimation/ZootopiaPlus'' reveals that [[spoiler: Mr Big got his start protecting other small mammals from more ruthless gangsters, and literally ''created'' the neighborhood of Little Rodentia]].

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'' has Bucciarati's group within the Passione mafia, a group which carries the arc protagonist, Giorno, as its newest member. Unlike the rest of Passione (who are decidedly ''not'' neighborhood-friendly), Bucciarati's group is beloved by the general community, with even old people willingly going to them, a group of rogues with supernatural abilities and trouble surrounding them, for help. Bucciarati and Giorno only joined up with Passione in the first place to stop the mafia from dealing drugs to children, and their goal is to overthrow TheDon of Passione and insert one of their own in his place. [[spoiler: In fact, they outright openly rebel and gun for him when they learn the hard way that he is willing to kill his own daughter only because of the insane, paranoid idea that she could be a clue to his identity, even though she had neither met the man in her life nor knew anything about him. The personal targeting of an innocent and unrelated teenage girl was the last straw, though learning that [[MundaneUtility the drugs were designed to be self-destructive, were made by a sub-branch of Passione, not to mention Stand-made]]'' didn't help.]]
** Giorno got into crime because of one of these. When he was a child, regularly bullied and abused, he found a man bleeding out in a patch of tall grass. The men who'd shot him asked Giorno where the man had gone, and Giorno lied, saying that he had gone further away, saving the injured man's life. That man was a powerful gangster in Naples, and after he recovered he made it a point to use his influence to protect Giorno from a distance (his first act: having a "quick talk" with Giorno's abusive stepfather. Afterwards he mostly just ensured the local shop owners who trusted ''him'' would treat Giorno nicely and trust him as well). The only person who ''ever'' treated Giorno well was in the Mafia, and that inspired him to go the same route.

* The Hells Angels lean heavily on charity and various legitimate businesses such as tattoo shops and medical marijuana dispenseries and insist that the title of an Outlaw Motorcycle Club is just an ArtifactTitle.

* Despite what Peggy Li might tell you, the [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Water Street Boys]] from ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'' are a subversion. They may protect vendors and stores from rival gangs and thugs but will strong arm them into earning protection money, deal drugs, and are quite thuggish to boot. Them including Jackie even casually talk about the last undercover officer who was tortured and then BuriedAlive. Unfortunately, "merely" running extortion and protection rackets pretty much makes the Water Street Boys a picked-on "lower class" of the Sun On Yee triad, whereas more powerful subsidiaries are involved with more profitable drug trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, pornography, and money laundering, and the events of the game start with "Dogeyes" Lin's Jade Gang encroaching on the Water Street Boys' territory. It's also stated that the reason Winston's gang only runs extortions and protection rackets is that they're too dumb to successfully pull off anything more complicated than that (not helped that Conroy is essentially a symbol of Winston's inability to attract effective subordinates since he only makes his boss look even worse than better by comparison).

Compare EvenEvilHasStandards, DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster, GentlemanThief, LoveableRogue, TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily, HonorAmongThieves, and ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything. Contrast RuthlessForeignGangsters and TotalitarianGangsterism.

* ''Film/TheMask'': The Mask, because of the fact that his wearer is a fan of the Tex Avery cartoons, decides to become a gangster; partly of them but mostly he wanted to instill fear and respect into people because of Stanley being bullied by some of those people. He goes after some of the people who ticked Stanley off the most, and robs a bank at one point so that he can have enough money to get inside the Coco Bongo, but other than that he is very polite, friendly and nice towards the people who are nice to him or Stanley like Tina. He is also pretty much harmless as he doesn't hurt or kill anyone at all, prefering to {{Troll}}ing them and messing around as well, and he does help stop the {{Big Bad}} from killing Tina and everyone else in the Coco Bongo.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': Mr. Big, the [[IncrediblyLamePun shrewd]] crime boss of Tundratown. As a crime boss in a movie starring a police officer, he would be the villain of the story. In fact, he nearly ''[[DeadlyEuphemism ices]]'' Nick and Judy for trespassing. But when [[MafiaPrincess his daughter]] reveals that Judy saved her life, he spares them and offers whatever information and services he can, [[spoiler: even threatening Duke Weaselton (the one who endangered Mr. Big's daughter) into coughing up the location of the toxin lab]]. Further implied in that when the apparently perfectly law-abiding [[spoiler:Emmitt Otterton]] found out about [[spoiler:the Night Howlers plot]], he didn't go to the police; he went to Mr. Big. ''WesternAnimation/ZootopiaPlus'' reveals that [[spoiler: Mr Big got his start protecting other small mammals from more ruthless gangsters, and literally ''created'' the neighborhood of Little Rodentia]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': Mr. Big, the [[IncrediblyLamePun shrewd]] crime boss of Tundratown. As a crime boss, he would be the villain of the story. In fact, he nearly ''[[DeadlyEuphemism ices]]'' Nick and Judy for trespassing. But when [[MafiaPrincess his daughter]] reveals that Judy saved her life, he spares them and offers whatever information and services he can, [[spoiler: even threatening Duke Weaselton (the one who endangered Mr. Big's daughter) into coughing up the location of the toxin lab]]. Further implied in that when the apparently perfectly law-abiding [[spoiler:Emmitt Otterton]] found out about [[spoiler:the Night Howlers plot]], he didn't go to the police; he went to Mr. Big. ''WesternAnimation/ZootopiaPlus'' reveals that [[spoiler: Mr Big got his start protecting other small mammals from more ruthless gangsters, and literally ''created'' the neighborhood of Little Rodentia]].

* The male protagonist of ''Film/VictorVictoria'' is a sort of [[Literature/TheGreatGatsby Gatsby-like]] character- an educated guy who is the brains/face for mobsters, but [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything he doesn't do anything evil]] on-screen except struggling against other gangsters who are presented as bad guys, and his {{gayngster}} bodyguard is an all-around nice guy as well.

** Giorno got into crime because of one of these. When he was a child, regularly bullied and abused, he found a man bleeding out in a patch of tall grass. The men who'd shot him asked Giorno where the man had gone, and Giorno lied, saying that he had gone further away, saving the injured man's life. That man was a powerful gangster in Naples, and after he recovered he made it a point to protect Giorno from a distance (his first act: having a "quick talk" with Giorno's abusive stepfather). The only person who ''ever'' treated Giorno well was in the Mafia, and that inspired him to go the same route.

** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'' has Bucciarati's group within the Passione mafia, a group which carries the arc protagonist, Giorno, as its newest member. Unlike the rest of Passione (who are decidedly ''not'' neighborhood-friendly), Bucciarati's group is beloved by the general community, with even old people willingly going to them, a group of rogues with supernatural abilities and trouble surrounding them, for help. Bucciarati and Giorno only joined up with Passione in the first place to stop the mafia from dealing drugs to children, and their goal is to overthrow TheDon of Passione and insert one of their own in his place. [[spoiler: In fact, they outright openly rebel and gun for him when they learn the hard way that he is willing to kill his own daughter only because of the insane, paranoid idea that she could be a clue to his identity, even though she had neither met the man in her life nor knew anything about him. The personal targeting of an innocent and unrelated teenage girl was the last straw, though learning that [[MundaneUtility the drugs were very lethal, ''distributed by a sub-branch of Passione, not to mention Stand-made]].]]

** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'' has Bucciarati's group within the Passione mafia, a group which carries the arc protagonist, Giorno, as its newest member. Unlike the rest of Passione (who are decidedly ''not'' neighborhood-friendly), Bucciarati's group is beloved by the general community, with even old people willingly going to them, a group of rogues with supernatural abilities and trouble surrounding them, for help. Bucciarati and Giorno only joined up with Passione in the first place to stop the mafia from dealing drugs to children, and their goal is to overthrow TheDon of Passione and insert one of their own in his place. [[spoiler: In fact, they outright openly rebel and gun for him when they learn the hard way that he is willing to kill his own daughter only because of the insane, paranoid idea that she could be a clue to his identity, even though she had neither met the man in her life nor knew anything about him. The personal targeting of an innocent and unrelated teenage girl was the last straw]].

** Ichiban Kasuga is a strong believer of this ideal to the point that he not only makes a point of returning money to others but will go through some loopholes to avoid actually shaking down people who are destitute. Unfortunately this only earns him the ire of his superior Jo Sawashiro, who is every bit as vicious as a Yakuza Captain should be and actively despises Ichiban for [[MinionWithAnFInEvil bringing no money to the clan]].

* Souchirou's gang in ''LightNovel/HeavensMemoPad'' started as he and a few other delinquent punks getting together to protect themselves and those they cared about against other gangs, and grew from there. They're still small and realize they can't keep doing the gang thing forever, and so have been exploring more legitimate services like managing and promoting shows for bands at local clubs. They are also very down on most drugs, and Souchirou helps the heroes find and stop the source of a dangerous new euphoric drug circulating among the poor and disaffected in their area.

** The Troll criminal organisation "Breccia" also fits the mold, even though they are pretty ruthless. Chrysoprase helps Vimes prevent riots on Koom Valley Day by revealing a drug lab.
*** That's because the drug manufactured there would cause homicidal insanity, and later death. Chrysoprase wants stable business, which is rather hard with dead customers. Breccia is an extremely ruthless Mafia organization - but they don't want to rock the boat too much and destroy their own chances of getting rich(er). Chrysoprase also has one of his own men executed for telling Vimes TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive, and all but says as much to Vimes himself.

It's not enough for [[DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster it to just feel good to be a gangster]], you should also win the sympathy of the audience. Since racketeering, random murders and selling drugs don't really fly with the general public, heroic criminals in fiction are usually Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters.

This trope is usually set against more [[CorruptPolitician villainous politicians]] or [[RuthlessForeignGangsters outsiders]]. Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters almost always have [[EvenEvilHasStandards standards]]; refusing to deal hard drugs is a common one. This may include a noble (if warped) sense of [[FamilyValuesVillain family values]]. May overlap with AntiHeroTeam if they're the heroes of the story.

This trope has some elements of TruthInTelevision: crime syndicates that wish to survive in a community try to have [[VillainWithGoodPublicity good public relations]], after the philosophy "don't shit where you eat". Many criminal organizations (including the Japanese [[{{Yakuza}} yakuza]], Sicilian Mafia, the [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Chinese triad societies]], and [[GangBangers most American street gangs]]) also have their roots in community self-defense efforts, although they share a strong tendency to degenerate into more euphemistic "[[ProtectionRacket protection]]" among other abuses. Moreover, having an organised crime outfit in your neighborhood tends to help cut down on ''dis''organized crime—the common criminals who might otherwise commit crimes in that neighborhood are too afraid of [[RobbingTheMobBank committing a crime against the wrong person]], and ''paying'' for it, pissing off people who have every reason to keep the neighborhood off the radar, or simply being made an example of by people who know that unaffiliated criminals getting away with causing trouble in their territory is a bad look, and don't want to give anyone any ideas.

** ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'': In his mission to track down and stop [[BigBad Blofeld]], Bond gets help from Marc-Ange Draco, leader of the [[TheSyndicate crime syndicate]] Union Corse, as both have a common interest in taking Blofeld down due to the global threat that he is. And Bond falls in love with Draco's daughter Tracy, with Draco's blessing.
** ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'': Bond is initially played like a fiddle by KGB-backed Greek criminal Ari Kristatos, until the former partner of Kristatos, smuggler Milos Columbo, tells him what Kristatos is really up to. Then they team up against Kristatos. Columbo is also adamant about not smuggling drugs.
** The eponymous character from ''Film/{{Octopussy}}'' (real name Octavia Charlotte Smythe) is a wealthy smuggler of jewels based in India who also has legal ventures such as a circus. Her gang is an AmazonBrigade consisting of disenfranchised women she housed and trained. The film's BigBadDuumvirate manipulates her to cause WorldWarIII via smuggling a nuclear bomb in her circus in UsefulNotes/WestGermany, though Bond romances her and she eventually gets to see the true face of her previous associates and tries to stop them.
** ''Film/TheWorldIsNotEnough'': [[TheMafiya Russian gangster]] Valentin Zukovsky, who initially held a grudge against Bond as seen in ''Film/GoldenEye'', ends up helping him against Renard and Elektra King.