Line #85 Main/RuthlessForeignGangsters


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11	[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/Hawkeye2012 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ivan0001.jpg]]]]
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13	->'''Archie:''' You gotta watch it with these Russians, Len. They ain't no respecters of the old school.\
14	'''Lenny:''' Bollocks. There's no school like the old school, and I'm the fucking headmaster.
15	-->-- ''Film/RockNRolla''
16
17	A common reason for a MobWar is an outsider faction -- often TheCartel, TheMafiya, TheTriadsAndTheTongs, or the {{Yakuza}} -- attempting to gain foothold on new ground, stepping on the foot of a local gang. In these cases, the invading new criminals are generally seen as more ruthless and prone to break the locals' code of honour.
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19	The grain of TruthInTelevision, of course, is that organized criminal families that want to get from day to day in a community have to [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters maintain public relations]], and thus on home ground cannot play as dirty as elsewhere. However, that's about the only "reality" there is to the trope; Asian, Latin American, and Eastern European gangsters, despite their media reputation, readily cooperate with established criminal elements and play by the same rules as the locals. Without the police and criminal protection that local racketeers can buy them, they just degenerate into hand-to-mouth street gangs.
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21	During the 1980s TheCartel would be a popular candidate, after the Soviet Union collapsed, [[TheMafiya Organizatsiya]] and their east block cousins took the role.
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23	See also MobWar. Sometimes the moral is that [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters Our Criminals Are Better]]. The ruthless foreigners tend to be very good at [[TheMobBossIsScarier scaring anyone out of testifying against them]]. When the Foreign Gangsters [[GreyAndGrayMorality aren't particularly worse]] than the home-turf ones, they're just a GenericEthnicCrimeGang. Compare RuthlessModernPirates.
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25	An occasional subversion of this trope is establishing the "local gangs" as so absurdly ruthless even within their home turf (or make it ''especially'' [[TotalitarianGangsterism in their home turf]]) that the foreign gangsters are either comparatively harmless or the only true difference is that they are... well, ''foreign''.
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28	!!Examples:
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30	[[foldercontrol]]
31
32	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
33	* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'':
34	** In a series full of ruthless organized crime groups, [[TheMafiya Hotel Moscow]] stands head and shoulders above the rest, mainly because the core of the Thai branch of the organization is [[FormerRegimePersonnel former Soviet Spetsnaz and paratroopers]] led by a burn-scarred woman named Balalaika who served in Afghanistan in TheEighties. Dutch speaks in hushed tones of the carnage they wrought when they first moved in, and in one arc Hotel Moscow calls Balalaika in to consolidate a foothold in Japan through an alliance with a local Yakuza clan. Like TheChessmaster she is, she does just that... after essentially declaring war on said Yakuza ([[BloodKnight because it was more glorious that way]]) and going on a campaign of military-precise terror so brutal that neither the Yakuza ''nor'' the police can think of how to react.
35	** The hometown of the cast, Roanapur, is usually an inversion of this trope -- the town is such a WretchedHive that it's hard to find anyone ''more'' ruthless than its normal citizenry moving in. When the Florida cartel tries to make a move within the city, they're mostly treated like {{Naive Newcomer}}s and considered [[HarmlessVillain endearing and cute]] by the resident gangster community, even by other Americans (such as Dutch, Revy, and Benny) who've been living in the city for years before they came along.
36	* According to the man Makima was bargaining with, this is why the {{Yakuza}} groups of ''Manga/ChainsawMan'' don't infight too much: groups from [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs China]] or [[TheMafiya Russia]] are supposedly much worse.
37	[[/folder]]
38
39	[[folder:Comic Books]]
40	* ''ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}'': In ''ComicBook/Hawkeye2012'', Clint gets into a feud with a bunch of dumb but dangerous Russian gangsters called the Tracksuit Mafia who are responsible for street-level crime in his neighborhood.
41	* ''Comicbook/ThePunisherMAX''
42	** One of the most horrifically brutal versions pops up here, naturally, in "The Slavers" story arc. The titular criminals are from the Eastern European country of Romania who bring a human trafficking ring into New York, and fall under Frank Castle's personal attention. Notably, this gang is so vicious and horrible that they earn a dubious distinction:
43	-->'' '''Castle''': It was in that moment that I realized something. A dull, blurred feeling that I’d had since this whole mess began, all of a sudden crystal clear. '''It had been a long, long time since I hated anyone the way I hated them.''' ''
44	** Oddly reinforced in how they hold the distinction of being ''the'' only group to "beat" Frank Castle in a gunfight (read: forcing Frank Castle to flee for ''his'' life) when Garth Ennis was writing the 2004-2008 run.
45	** In lesser measure, the "Kitchen Irish" story arc also embraces this trope. The plot revolves around a local Irish mobster who's supposed to have left a fortune that four Irish criminal factions are now fighting over. One is led by Maginty, a black Irish immigrant from Dublin who kidnaps one of his local rivals and sends body parts back to his gang to force their cooperation. The other is led by Finn Cooley, a former IRA bomber whose handiwork has left him with half his face blown off. The latter is infamous enough that two [=MI6=] assassins follow him to New York and ask for Frank's help finding and killing him: one of them warns that the last thing he wants is to see IRA bombers unleashed on the streets of New York.
46	** Given that he's occasionally been deployed to foreign countries like Russia or Afghanistan (sometimes working for Nick Fury, sometimes for other reasons), the Punisher himself arguably qualifies.
47	* ''Comicbook/SinCity'' features a German mob boss named Herr Wallenquist.
48	* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Subverted with Black Tarantula, a crime lord from Argentina trying to expand his empire to the States, starting with New York. He's almost a saint compared to other Marvel villains however. In later ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'' comics, he convinces people he's reformed [[spoiler:and even after turning on Daredevil, uses his powers to heal him after getting his money. Oh and he leaves Daredevil some of the money saying help somebody with it!]]
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
52	* ''Bad Boys''
53	** The French gang boss Fouchet in ''Film/BadBoys1995'' whose plan seems to revolve around killing every single person he comes into contact with.
54	** ''Film/BadBoysII'' has a Cuban drug lord Johnny Tapia, who will kill his own cousin without hesitation for failure and his idea of "negotiating" with TheMafiya is to kill one of the Russians that came to his house, cut him to pieces and stuff him in a tortilla container, show the pieces to the other Russian (who is the dead guy's cousin, by the way) and threaten the man's family for good measure. Given the local context, this could actually count as an inversion: Cuban gangsters have been a well-established part of Miami's criminal fabric since the late fifties at the latest, while the Russian ones didn't become major players until the nineties after the fall of the Soviet Union. As a foreign gangster with safe havens in Cuba itself, however, Tapia still counts in the literal sense.
55	** The plot of ''Film/BadBoysForLife'' revolves around a leader of TheCartel turning Miami into a war zone as she consolidates a foothold in it. She is a ''Series/QueenOfTheSouth''-style [[TheQueenpin queenpin]] who has built her power by being [[EvenEvilHasStandards even crazier and more ruthless than the other Cartel leaders]], embracing her rivals' belief that she is a "bruja" (witch) by putting on an act of cursing those she wants dead, and training her own son ([[spoiler:who happens to be the result of Mike having sex with her while working undercover]]) to be her top assassin.
56	* ''Film/Cradle2TheGrave'' has arms dealers from Taiwan [[AssholeVictim take out the local thugs]].
57	* [[TheMafiya The Chechen]] from ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' is portrayed as more ruthless and morally ambiguous in comparison to Sal Maroni and Gambol, his respective [[TheMafia Italian]] and black counterparts in the Gotham City mob. Compared to them, he is much more eager to hire [[PsychoForHire The Joker]] to take out Batman, a fact that comes back to bite him.
58	* ''Film/DeathMachines'': While we only see Madame Lee's boss and the man who ordered the creation of the Death Machines in silhouette, Madame Lee very proudly wears the DragonLady trope on her sleeve and most of the film's plot revolves around her using the Death Machines to strong-arm Mr. Gioletti, the city's Mafia don, out of business.
59	* ''Film/TheEqualizer'' features TheMafiya as the main villains. The scene where one of them beats a local mobster to death with his bare hands is pretty much this trope in a nutshell.
60	* In ''Film/TheHitman'', an Iranian gang is butting in on the territories of an Italian American and French Canadian gang in the Pacific Northwest and quickly establish themselves as far more ruthless than their competitors.
61	* In ''Film/InOrderOfDisappearance'', the Count is convinced that the attacks on his gang are coming from the ruthless Serbian gang that has been muscling their way into Norwegian organized crime. As a result, Nils Dickman's actions spark a MobWar between the Norwegians and the Serbs.
62	* Invoked on ''Film/TheItalianJob1969'' when the British heist crew encounters the Mafia early on. Charlie Croker threatens that if the Mafia kills them, Mr. Bridger will retaliate by demolishing every single Italian venture over on England ("he'll drive them into the sea"). The Mafia, at least for the time being, backs off (although they destroy some of the crew's getaway cars for kicks).
63	* ''Film/TheItalianJob2003'': The Ukrainian mob is so ruthless, even the Korean mob won't mess with it. The sub-plot that starts when [[SmugSnake Steve]] blows away a black-market fencer that turns out to be family of the local Ukrainian Don is tinged with everybody [[TheDreaded crapping their pants]] as a result. There's also a Samoan gang, whose leader wisely advises "Never mess with Mother Nature, mother-in-laws, or mother-freakin' Ukrainians."
64	* ''Film/TheJackal'': TheMafiya, in this specific occasion: in retaliation for the accidental death of his brother (a death that happened because the idiot tried to threaten and then tried to kill a bunch of agents of a joint FBI/FSB task force while being taken into custody), [[GreaterScopeVillain Murad]] not only declares open season on those cops but orders ''the assassination of the First Lady of the United States'' (and he pays millions to the Jackal to make damn sure that it's done [[ConspicuouslyPublicAssassination in public and in the most violent way the Jackal can devise]]) as a "[[MakeAnExampleOfThem this is what happens when you fuck with me]]" message.
65	* On ''Film/JackReacher'', The Zec and his crew are very much this. What they cannot control, they kill, and what they ''do'' control is strong-armed into obeying by making sure they understand that the choice is simple: be a puppet or die horribly.
66	* ''Film/LayerCake'': The Serbians, who are more a force of nature than another one of the players in the London underworld. Their operation is also so vast that when one of their deals goes bad, their only real concern is killing everyone responsible rather than recovering their merchandise.
67	* ''Film/LethalWeapon4'':
68	** TheTriadsAndTheTongs appear as both examples and victims of this trope. One of the villains is "Uncle Benny," a well-known mob boss in Los Angeles' Chinatown that the cops have long experience with. Unfortunately, he has ties to a far more ruthless Triad in Hong Kong, which is looking to take over the local crime scene now that their home organization has been burned down by the communist government. Their chief enforcer Wah Sing Ku isn't shy about telling him that his failures would never be tolerated in Hong Kong, and [[YouHaveOutLivedYourUsefulness kills him as soon as he's no longer needed]].
69	-->'''Wah Sing Ku''': In Hong Kong, you would be dead!
70	** Mostly averted in [[Film/LethalWeapon the movie series]] overall, however. The villains can be local (a corrupt LAPD ex-cop in the third movie), foreign (South African drug dealers in the second), or both (an international mercenary organization in the original movie): all are shown to be extremely ruthless, sadistic, and with very few lines they're not willing to cross. In this franchise, psychotic criminals can come from anywhere.
71	* In ''Film/TheLongGoodFriday'', East End mob boss Harold Shand tries to make a property deal with the American mafia, but suddenly all his men start getting bombed. Shand eventually realizes that he's somehow incurred the wrath of the [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles IRA]]. Everyone tells him that the IRA is too psychotic to fight, but he tries to out-muscle them. It doesn't go well for him. Interestingly, the Mafiosi are portrayed as simple businessmen who don't want any bloodshed getting in the way of a deal.
72	* ''Film/{{Ondine}}'': Ondine/Joanna's drug baron attacks in the third act along with his thugs. They're Romanians, as is she (she's actually his wife) and come into Ireland to get back their drug shipment with brutal efficiency (though they're stopped).
73	* ''Film/Predator2'': 1997 Los Angeles is [[UrbanHellscape a full-on Beirut-style war zone]] between the Jamaican and Colombian mafias, with the cops stuck in the middle being, at best, forced to wage equally dirty war for survival and at worse (and most commonly) being bullet sponges for the massive amounts of firepower both gangs have. When the Predator moves in and starts killing gangsters left and right, people actually feel ''glad'' about it.
74	* ''Film/PremiumRush'': The Chinese Triad is so ruthless that [[DirtyCop NYPD Detective Robert Monday]], after accidentally murdering one of their members, immediately accepts to do a job for them to try to prevent them from killing him as retaliation. [[spoiler:He doesn't accomplish the job and the Triad unhesitatingly [[BoomHeadshot put a bullet in his brain]] approximately five seconds later]].
75	* The {{Yakuza}} take on this role with respect to TheMafia in ''Film/ThePunisher1989''.
76	* In ''Film/{{Pusher}}'', Frank incurs debt to Milo, a ruthless Serbian drug lord in Denmark. In the third film, Milo runs afoul of even more ruthless Albanians.
77	* Inverted in ''Film/TheRaid2Berandal'', where the local Indonesian gangsters are the real villains, and the foreign Japanese gangsters are mostly pretty blameless.
78	* In the Brandon Lee vehicle ''Film/RapidFire'', the previous Big Bad is executed in his jail cell by the men of an Asian crime lord about midway through the movie after getting his ass kicked by the hero. The crimelord then becomes the new BigBad.
79	* ''Film/RockNRolla'': Although the quote above is [[LondonGangster Lenny]] giving what he thinks is a BadassBoast, he ends up learning the hard way (as in getting his legs smashed up hard enough to end up wheelchair-bound for life and having to drag himself all the way from the 18th hole of a golf course to the visitor's centre to add insult to injury) that you ''do not'' fuck with TheMafiya.
80	* In ''Film/ShowdownInLittleTokyo'', the Yakuza are portrayed as this in a meeting they have in their drug refinery with several established American gangs, including Mexicans, African Americans and bikers. Yoshida cuts off one of the bikers' hands with his katana over a racial insult and cajoles the rest of the gangs to accept his leadership.
81	* The plot of ''Film/SWAT2003'' revolves around a French mob boss, who flies in and kills an underling (a ''relative'', no less), before being pulled over for a broken taillight and discovered to be wanted by Interpol. He then publicly announces that he'll pay a hundred million dollars to anyone who frees him from police custody, starting a war on the streets. When talking to his lawyer, he asks who they can pay off to get him released. When his lawyer tells him that it's not that simple, he then angrily asks who they can ''kill'' to achieve the same result.
82	* ''Film/{{Taken}}'' is set in France, with Albanians as the villains.
83	* ''Film/{{Taxi}}'': Built into the series' premise. Every film will involve the hero (a taxi driver by profession, illegal street racer by hobby) and his FriendOnTheForce going up against a group of foreign criminals looking to make a splash in France (usually Marseille). They're Germans in the first movie, followed by Japanese, Chinese, and Belgians in the next three. The first two movies compound this by turning the street racing aspect into a duel between national car brands, with Daniel's Peugeot 406 pitted against the Germans' Mercedes and the Japanese Mitsubishis. Downplayed in that Daniel has no respect for authority in general and the cops in particular, but for all that isn't much of a criminal: the only laws he breaks are the traffic laws (though he absolutely pulverizes those). What makes the foreign gangsters ruthless is mostly just the fact that they're involved in what most people would consider "serious" crimes, such as bank robbery, kidnapping, or assassination.
84	* ''Film/TrainingDay'' has an unnamed Russian crime group that is out for Alonzo Harris's head after he killed one of their people in UsefulNotes/LasVegas. Even though Alonzo is a corrupt cop with a lot of power in the underworld, he needs to get ''lot'' of money to pay them off, or they'll kill him.
85	* ''Film/War2007'' involves a long-standing feud between the [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Triads]] and the {{Yakuza}}.
86	[[/folder]]
87
88	[[folder:Literature]]
89	* Inverted in Creator/TamoraPierce's second ''Literature/BekaCooper'' novel, where Beka spends most of her time taking out the Ruthless Local Gangsters, while dealing with (relatively) Family Friendly Foreign Gangsters (Rosto the Piper and his friends).
90	* Discussed in a ''Literature/HardyBoys Casefiles'' book. Chief Collig mentions to the Hardys that they aren't dealing with their usual organized crime types this time and that a lot of the worst these days come from overseas. He then somewhat sardonically remarks that a stint in a US jail is a vacation compared with what would await them in the old country. The baddies turn out to be indeterminately Eastern European.
91	* In ''Literature/TheRaiders'', Manx/Dutch smuggler Captain Yawkins and his [[EqualOpportunityEvil Manx/Dutch/Welsh/Spanish]] crew are MUCH nastier than the local Scottish smugglers.
92	* In ''Red Square'', a book in the Arkady Renko series, it is discussed how since the fall of the Soviet Union that there are now [[TheMafiya Chechen Mafiya]] members in Germany. Germany is still trying to figure out how to react to them, as they don't follow the normal German constraints and are openly brutal.
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
96	* ''Series/{{Barry}}'' features a mob war between the Chechen and Bolivian gangs, though they eventually work things out. The second season complicates this peace with the introduction of the Burmese mafia.
97	* ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'',
98	** Owen Sleater, while an AffablyEvil enforcer for Nucky Thompson, is also a ruthless former IRA bomber who at one point garrotes an informer so hard that he cuts off the guy's fingers.
99	** Italian-born Gyp Rosetti has a reputation for killing people over minor or imaginary slights.
100	* Played straight at the start of ''Series/BreakingBad'', in which the Mexican cartels are much more organized and ruthless than the rather chaotic American gangs. And then {{inverted}} in the last season, when the all-American [[ThoseWackyNazis Aryan Brotherhood]] prove to be even more ruthless and psychotic than the Mexicans.
101	* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' has a few foreign gangsters and criminals show up here and there, but the most unusual example is the ArcVillain in season 4, Adelbert de Smet, aka "the Belgian" -- as the name implies, he's a Belgian mobster who ends up capturing an Intersect-less Chuck and holding him hostage for a while.
102	* ''Series/CrossingLines'': [[TheMafia The Italian Mafia]] take on this role for once, when a pair of Slovenian petty criminals, whose community has been all but enslaved by [[TheDon Nicola Conti]]'s outfit rob one of his drug warehouses and kidnap his [[MafiaPrincess daughter]]. Conti's [[TheDragon gun thug]] Gian Carlo proceeds to go on a rampage through northern Italy and Slovenia, leaving forty-two people dead in the course of an afternoon as he tries to retrieve both Conti's daughter and the stolen drugs.
103	* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In the season 3 finale, "[[Recap/CSINYS03E24 Snow Day]]", TheIrishMob is the villain of the week, crazy and ruthless enough to storm the NYC Crime Lab to steal several million dollars' worth of drugs the police seized from them utilizing a plan that, as two of its steps, involves killing a man and taking several cops hostage (and torturing Adam for the building's security codes). They also killed, off screen, an FBI agent (and ironically brought the murder gun with them as part of the arsenal for the raid).
104	* In ''Series/{{Deadwood}}'', a Triad gang under the employ of George Hearst tries to muscle into Deadwood and push out the local Chinese strongman, Mr. Wu. Al Swearengen convinces Hearst to [[spoiler:swap his support to Wu, and the Triads are slaughtered.]]
105	* ''Series/{{Fargo}}'':
106	** [[Series/FargoSeasonTwo The second season]] gives us the Gerhardts, a ruthless family of German immigrants who've carved a trucking empire out of the Upper Midwest region.
107	** [[Series/FargoSeasonThree The third season]] gives us [[EvilBrit VM Varga]], who runs a mysterious syndicate in the Midwest and forcibly takes over Emmit Stussy's parking lot company to launder illegal money. This also extends to his two main enforcers, the Russian brute Yuri Gurka, and the Japanese-rooted Meemo.
108	* In ''Series/{{Graceland}}'', each season has its own group of foreign gangsters. In the first season, there was Jeremiah Bello and his Nigerians. In the second season, there was the Caza cartel. In the third, there was the Armenians.
109	* ''Series/TheIndianDetective'': Amal Chandekar, who operates mostly in Canada instead of India like his brother.
110	* In Season 2 of ''Series/{{Intelligence 2006}}'', the ruthless foreign gangsters are Americans looking to take over the UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}} drug trade. The protagonist spends the latter half of the season trying to organize all of the city's rival gangs into a syndicate to freeze the Americans out.
111	* An episode of ''Series/{{Jake20}}'' involves {{Yakuza}} assassins.
112	* In ''Series/{{Justified}}'' a Colombian drug cartel operating out of Miami ships its drugs through Harlan County, Kentucky and do not want to pay Bo Crowder for 'protecting' their shipments so they arrange for him to be arrested and sent to jail. However, they are content to stay out of Harlan County unless someone there interferes with their business.
113	** In season 3 Quarles, a mobster from Detroit, tries to setup a major drug operation in Harlan County and makes the mistake of trying to muscle out Boyd Crowder. Although Quarles is extremely ruthless and deadly, his lack of understanding how things in Harlan County really work dooms him to failure.
114	* Used ''absurdly'' often throughout the ''Series/LawAndOrder'' franchise (most normally TheMafiya): they are so insanely brutal, even targeting children and killing cops, District Attorneys and even politicians, [[TheMobBossIsScarier that being asked to be a witness in a case related to them is seen by most everybody as tantamount to suicide]]. In one case involving the Columbians, their hitman (a former IRA member) not only kills a DEA agent, but the prosecutor who tried to put the drug lord away, necessitating that she go into witness protection for many years.
115	* At the other extreme, ''Series/MacGyver1985'' uses the same basic trope for different parts of the same country. In Season 4's ''Blood Brothers'', Mac travels to his childhood home in small-town Minnesota. To his displeasure, he finds that the gang violence he's become far too familiar with in the big city has now reached there as well. A Los Angeles based gang has been making inroads into the town, turning the local schools into a growth market for hard drugs, and carrying out shootouts and executions in broad daylight, all of which the local police are completely unprepared for. It's noted that this isn't an isolated occurrence, and that the more successful big-city gangs are increasingly doing this all over rural America.
116	** The same episode also goes to some lengths to deconstruct this trope, however. The local gang leader's insistence on laying down the law "like we do in LA" is so alarming that it can't help but provoke a reaction from the authorities and the community in general, while scaring away his local partners-in-crime for whom that level of violence is unknown. Had he simply kept a low profile and concentrated on business activities to sell drugs and other illegal products, he probably could have stayed under the radar much longer until he'd established a solid local branch.
117	* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
118	** ''Series/{{Daredevil\|2015}}'':
119	*** In season 1, Wilson Fisk conducts criminal business with foreign partners, including [[TheMafiya the Ranskahov brothers]], [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Madame Gao]], and [[{{Yakuza}} Nobu Yoshioka]]. The Ranskahovs end up posing as the first major threat for Matt Murdock until their feud with him leads to them angering Fisk, prompting Fisk to have them all wiped out. Meanwhile, Fisk fears angering Gao and Nobu because of the power their organizations have, and can't take them on directly when he begins to burn his bridges with them. When he and Nobu have a falling out, he gets Nobu out of the way by setting him up to ambush Matt in a duel to the death. Meanwhile, Gao ends up leaving town after Matt busts her drug operations, but not before conspiring with Leland Owlsley to have Fisk's girlfriend poisoned
120	*** In season 2, it is revealed that Nobu is a member of the Hand, an ancient criminal syndicate that goes back centuries. Their organized criminal activities are just the tip of the iceberg, and they can resurrect the dead for their own purposes (as is established with Nobu).
121	*** In season 3, Fisk schemes to manipulate the FBI into letting him out of prison by giving Ray Nadeem intel on an Albanian gang. This gang are described by Nadeem as having killed four cops, wounded 12 other cops, and killed over 107 civilians. This makes it easy for Fisk to get his hooks into Nadeem, and further convince Nadeem to push for Fisk to be moved to the Presidential Hotel [[FalseFlagOperation by paying Jasper Evans to shank him]], making it look like he's not safe remaining in prison. Incidentally, during the transfer, the Albanians make an attempt of their own on Fisk, and end up killing and wounding several of the FBI agents protecting Fisk before Dex fights back and takes them all out.
122	** ''Series/{{Luke Cage\|2016}}'':
123	*** In season 1, Harlem has several minor gangs made up of Haitians, Koreans, Dominicans, and Cubans. Their four bosses are among those Mariah has Domingo summon for a secret meeting regarding the sale of Cottonmouth's assets. However, Diamondback crashes the meeting and kills all four of them, sparing Domingo to send a message to everyone else.
124	*** In season 2, Bushmaster is Jamaican (although he was born in Brooklyn), and runs a very ruthless branch of {{the Yardies}} who call themselves the Stylers. As one of Misty Knight's colleagues describes them, "If the Yardies are Al-Qaeda, the Stylers are ISIS." He starts the season by brutally murdering Yardie boss Nigel Garrison and taking over his gang, then proceeds to wage war on Mariah Dillard over past sins her family committed against his. He engages in moves like decapitating three of Mariah's associates and leaving their heads on pikes, kidnapping and decapitating her banker, and burning down her brownstone with her and her daughter Tilda inside. Ironically, as ruthless as Bushmaster and his crew are, when the tide turns and Mariah begins striking back against him, she proves to be far more willing to cross the line.
125	** ''Series/{{Iron Fist\|2017}}'':
126	*** The first season establishes that Madame Gao is a member of the Hand much like Nobu was, and much focus is given to her corrupt dealings with Harold Meachum and Rand Enterprises.
127	*** During the first season we are also introduced to Bakuto, another member of the Hand who is Colleen Wing's sensei, and who uses her dojo to recruit and indoctrinate street kids into being soldiers for the syndicate.
128	** ''Series/{{The Defenders\|2017}}'' follows up on what was established of the Hand in ''Series/{{Daredevil\|2015}}'' and ''Series/{{Iron Fist\|2017}}'', and establishes the Hand are a syndicate of five gangs led by Alexandra, Gao, Bakuto, Murakami and Sowande. The five are shown to be members of K'un Lun's Order of the Crane Mother who were kicked out for wanting to use the bones of dragons to resurrect themselves.
129	* In the ''Series/{{Numb3rs}}'' episode "Backscatter", the Eppes family is targeted by the Russian Mob.
130	* Zigzagged on British historical crime drama ''Series/PeakyBlinders'', with early seasons playing it relatively straight, but as the show goes on, the real source of danger is increasingly associated with homegrown WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant factions and political organizations working ''within'' the law, particularly the emerging [[BlackShirt Union of British Fascists]].
131	** Played relatively in the first series, where the Shelby Family (who are [[RoguishRomani of partial Roma descent]]) are trying to horn in on the business of the generically-English (read: less foreign than the Shelbys) gang lead by Billy Kimber. The Italian Changretta family and [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs an unnamed Chinese gang]] also feature as players the Shelbys need to be wary of, and Thomas speaks specifically of the Italian gang's "barbarity". There's also the Lee Family, a pure-blooded Romani clan of whom the Shelbys run afoul, and who are shown to be truly ruthless in wartime, although Thomas is able to patch things up with a bit of AltarDiplomacy, and in later seasons the Lees appear as key allies and enforcers for the Shelbys.
132	** The Shelbys once again take this role on in the second season as they try to expand into London, although in this case it's more because they're from OopNorth rather than for any reasons of nationality, since the other two gangs are the Sabini Organization (Italians) and Alfie Solomons' [[KosherNostra Jewish gang]] that controls Camden Town. Both the first two seasons also occasionally feature the [[FightingIrish IRA]] as another important faction - they're treated unsympathetically, but come across as emphatically no worse [[TheHorseshoeEffect than their British imperialist enemies]]. However, the real villain at this point in the series isn't Sabini, Solomons, or anyone in the IRA, but the bitter, bigoted [[DirtyCop Inspector Campbell]].
133	** The third series' villains aren't even gangsters, and come across as the most vile antagonists the show had yet featured, although some of them - a family of exiled Russian [[AristocratsAreEvil aristocrats]] - are indeed foreign. The Shelbys also finally go to war against the Changrettas, who are depicted as nowhere near able to compete in terms of barbarity, to the point where you feel kind of bad for them.
134	** In the fourth series, Luca Changretta (who is not only Italian but also [[EagleLand American]]) specifically establishes that his vendetta against the Shelbys ''will'' have rules - for example, he promises [[WouldntHurtAChild never to target or threaten the Shelby children.]] Especially in contrast to the politically-connected PedophilePriest villain of the third season, a straightforward [[YouKilledMyFather vengeful]] gangster like Luca comes across as a comparatively honest WorthyOpponent.
135	** The fifth season features [[ViolentGlaswegian the Billy Boys]], but the real thing that makes them so dangerous is that they serve as muscle for the newly-emergent Fascist party, lead by [[AristocratsAreEvil posh]] English SmugSnake Oswald Mosley. This is where the show's thesis - that the criminal gangs were small potatoes next to the atrocities committed within the systems of law and government - really comes through. The Shelbys also briefly skirmish with an Irish [[FromCamouflageToCriminal ex-military]] faction called the Titanic Gang and make deals with the Chinese opium baron Brilliant Chang, who is depicted as not much worse than they are.
136	* ''Series/TheShield'' - The Armenian Mob. With the Mexicans, the El Salvadorians, and even the Koreans trying show them up. Frankly, if you're an immigrant minority without a ruthless gang to show for it, you get stepped on. Also somewhat subverted in that the black gangs, who used to play the Ruthless Gangster role, are now the established ones with some standards.
137	* There are many criminal gangs featured in ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'', both local and foreign, but most are well-implanted in the region and, while violent, aren't excessively so. The exceptions are the two rival [[TheCartel Mexican cartels]] who bring their war to the region in season 4, and the [[TheRemnant True]] [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles IRA]] who show their true colors when their relationship with the Sons is compromised.
138	* ''Series/TheSopranos'' - Tony's crew versus Eastern Europeans. Tony also hires a particularly ruthless enforcer, Furio, directly from Naples.
139	* ''Series/StargateSG1'' does this on an interplanetary level with the criminal organization known as the Trust. It starts out as an Earth-based organization, run by a CorporateConspiracy with numerous moles and [[RogueAgent rogue agents]] in the U.S. government, that want to take control of the Stargate and monetize it and the alien technology it brings back for financial gain. Halfway through Season 8, the Trust is infiltrated and taken over by the Goa'uld, Earth's biggest alien enemies. Instead of the Trust's usual shadow games to gain influence and money, the new leadership immediately tries to incite a nuclear war between America and Russia, in the hopes of wiping out all civilization on Earth.
140	* ''Series/TidelandsNetflix'': Grigori Stolin is a Serbian drug lord who runs drug rings in Sydney and Melbourne. Rosa calls him in hoping he'll take out Adrielle. However, though he has a ruthless reputation they're soon working together because she's got something he wants.
141	* A ''Series/TimeTrax'' episode has the cop from the future square off against the {{Yakuza}}. We are even shown the practice for Yakuza members of cutting off their own fingers as punishment for failure.
142	* ''Series/TwinPeaks'' surprisingly does this with a ''French Canadian'' crime family, the Renault Brothers, who have a hand in most of the crooked dealings in town.
143	* ''Series/ZNation'' has the "Zeros", TheRemnant of the Mexican Cartels, which are trying to take over the (post-ZombieApocalypse) world and use as their personal BreadAndCircuses "Z-Weed", marijuana grown on soil fertilized with ''zombie corpses'' that is (somehow) more potent than the standard variety. Their ruthlessness its such that they kill several scientists that would have produced a cure to the zombie virus (usually by [[ProfessorGuineaPig force-feeding them their own experimental cures and tossing them to the zombies]]) so they (hopefully) find one that works that they will trade to the population for their loyalty.
144	[[/folder]]
145
146	[[folder:Video Games]]
147	* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''
148	** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'':
149	*** Inverted for the ThievesGuild when they expanded operations into Morrowind where the native [[TheSyndicate Camonna Tong]] already filled a similar role. The Camonna Tong are active in Morrowind's [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil slavery]] and [[FantasticDrug Moon Sugar/Skooma]] trades and are much more brutal and [[TheMafia Mafia-esque]] (with elements of TheKlan, [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain for good measure]]) in their willingness to use force to eliminate their opposition, while the Thieves Guild tend to practice more {{Karmic Thie\|f}}very with some [[JustLikeRobinhood Robinhood-like]] elements and abide by a [[ThouShallNotKill "No Kill" policy]], save for as a last resort (such as dealing with the Camonna Tong's hitmen).
150	*** Played straight in the rivalry between Morrowind's native Morag Tong and their illegal offshoot, the Dark Brotherhood. Both are [[MurderInc assassin's guilds]], but the Morag Tong is officially sanctioned by the Dunmeri government (as an alternative to [[AllowedInternalWar destructive open warring]] between the [[TheClan Great Houses]]), and they have much more of a solemn ProfessionalKiller vibe. The Dark Brotherhood on the other hand has far more PsychoForHire elements and actively practice a ReligionOfEvil.
151	** Played with in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' - the foreign Alik'r Warriors are distrusted by the natives of Skyrim, but that's more because they're foreign than because they're ruthless, and, in fact, [[spoiler:they're part of the resistance against the Aldmeri Dominion intruding into their lands.]] The only truly evil Alik'r Warrior in the game is Nazir, who defected to the Dark Brotherhood and handles most of your contracts if you join them. There's also a theory that they're Thalmor[[note]]Aldmeri ruling class[[/note]] thugs. It depends on whom you choose to believe.
152	* The BigBad of ''VideoGame/FarCry3'' is Hoyt Volker, a [[AmoralAfrikaner South African syndicate leader]] responsible for running a massive drugs-and-slaves ring operating from the [[EverythingIsTryingToKillYou Rook Islands]]. Hoyt, a BadBoss and no slouch in a KnifeFight himself, hires other unsavory types, like [[MascotVillain Vaas Montenegro]], the [[RuthlessModernPirates deranged Latino pirate]], and Bambi "Buck Hughes", a [[TheBogan crude and vindictive Australian]] [[PsychoForHire mercenary]] who's also a DepravedHomosexual.
153	* Inverted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'': Although Duelhorn, the invading gang, still forces local clans to work for them and can be rather violent, three of their four leaders are {{Anti Villain}}s and treat their members nicely. Khamja, the local gang, is far more secretive, dishonest, and ruthless even to their own members.
154	* Common plot in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series since ''Grand Theft Auto III''.
155	** In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'', the Da Nang Boys are a highly aggressive and proactive Vietnamese gang stepping on the [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Mountain Cloud Boys]]' toes. Later, The Triad plays this role against TheMafia families in [[UsefulNotes/LasVegas Las Venturas]]. Although the protagonist is helping the Triads, and they get pictured slightly nicer than the regular Mafia.
156	** In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', you play a ruthless foreign criminal in the form of Niko, though he's more of a freelance hired gun not reluctant to make deals and missions for "traditional" biker gangs and Italian mobsters.
157	* Comes up multiple times in the ''VideoGame/LikeADragon'' series:
158	** In ''VideoGame/Yakuza1'', this role is filled by the Snake Flower Triad, who also return for ''VideoGame/Yakuza3''.
159	** In ''Videogame/Yakuza2'', not only does Kiryu have to fight Sengoku and his band of rival yakuza, he also has to deal with some ruthless Korean gangsters led by Kim Taejin, a.k.a. [[spoiler:Terada Yukio, the guy who you placed in charge of your syndicate at the very end of the first game]].
160	** ''VideoGame/Yakuza6'' has a GangWar going on in Kamurocho between Tojo Clan and the Saio Triad, who are far more ruthless than the Snake Flower Triad were, and the same Korean gang from ''2'' returns seeking vengeance on Kiryu. A substory also shows remnants of the Snake Flower Triad are also trying to revive themselves by escalating to terrorist bombings in public.
161	** ''VideoGame/YakuzaLikeADragon'' has a three-way cold war between the local Seiryu Clan, the Yokohama chapter of the Liumang from China, and a shadowy Korean gang known as the Geomijul. [[spoiler:{{Downplayed}} as the story progresses, as the three factions keep each other in check and otherwise cooperate for the sake of their continued survival.]]
162	** ''VideoGame/LikeADragonInfiniteWealth'' inverts this by way of SequelGoesForeign; the Barracudas are a [[EqualOpportunityEvil multicultural]] group of GangBangers who rule the streets of Honolulu through fear and brutality, and they're presented as much more ruthless and vicious than any of the yakuza or other East Asian gangs that have appeared in the series before. Even [[TheStoic Kiryu]] is disturbed by how casually (and [[GuttedLikeAFish messily]]) they'll kill anyone who crosses their path.
163	* Inverted in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure''. The plot of the first game begins with a MobWar triggered by the arrival of [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Heiyue]] in Crossbell, whose criminal underworld was formerly dominated by [[TheMafia Revache and Co]]. Heiyue quickly establishes themselves as ALighterShadeOfBlack, as most of their crimes are committed against Revache, while Revache is running protection rackets against civilians.
164	* In the original ''Videogame/{{Mercenaries}}'', the player dealt with the [[TheMafiya Russian Mafia]], who, in exchange for some odd jobs, would allow the player access to their black-market online storefront, the [[{{Pun}} Merchant of Menace]]; they were really the only source for ordering weapon kits and airstrikes in the field. In the sequel, the Jamaican Pirates also sell gear, but are much less relevant to the plot or critical to your success. For some reason, both had a version of s skull and crossbones as a faction logo.
165	* In ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'', a less-than-lawful PlayerCharacter can get involved in a mob war between Luskan gangs trying to establish a hold in Neverwinter and the Shadow Thieves of Amn, who have an established operation in Neverwinter.
166	* In ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'', thanks to the PlayerCharacter taking out the three main gangs in Stilwater, new gangs took their place. One is a Yakuza branch and another is run by Haitian ex-pats who practice HollywoodVoodoo and mutilate people with machetes.
167	* The plot of the Creator/JohnWoo game ''{{VideoGame/Stranglehold}}'' initially sets things up like this, with the Golden Kane allying with a ruthless Russian syndicate against the Dragon Claw syndicate headed by Mr. James Wong. But in a subversion of this trope, as Tequila and the audience find out, Wong is ''not'' a [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters Neighborhood Friendly Gangster]], and is even worse than the other bosses put together, particularly when he crosses the MoralEventHorizon and [[spoiler:has his own daughter murdered by Tequila's partner]].
168	[[/folder]]
169
170	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
171	* Discussed by Moe Mortelli in ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert'' when describing his early days as a cop. He infiltrated a Russian crime ring hidden inside a ''chess club''.
172	[[/folder]]
173
174	[[folder:Web Comics]]
175	* Parodied in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': A member of the Thieves' guild [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0619.html tries to negotiate]] with Haley by saying [[BetterTheDevilYouKnow their replacements would be worse]]. This prompts a CutawayGag of two gangsters where the RPGMechanicsVerse suddenly switches from tabletop to MMORPG.
176	-->'''Thieves' guild member''': Do you really want things to get that "video game"?\
177	'''Haley:''' Please. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks Someone says that every time there's a change around here.]] I just don't see it.
178	[[/folder]]
179

Context Main / RuthlessForeignGangsters