Gangs in the Ardisphere

Gangs in the Ardisphere include several types of groups, including national street gangs, local street gangs, prison gangs, motorcycle gangs, sports hooligans (especially soccer fans), and ethnic and organized crime gangs. Approximately 110,000 people were part of gangs as of 2013, and more than 2000 gangs were active in the country.

Gang Types

Street and Criminal Gangs

Villa Constitución, DF, especially, has a major problem with youth gangs involved in various sorts of criminal activity, from minor things like graffiti tagging on private property to major larceny and illegal networks dealing drugs, black-market regulated goods and battling for turf. Some 55% of all homicides in the capital region are the direct result of gang activity, according to police statistics.

These gangs have been known for many decades now as "chocoleros," related to the Ardispherian Castellanese obscenity "chocolar" (strong language with sexual connotations, meaning "to harass someone, to make problems"). The origin of the slang term is unclear, but most sociologists point to the gangs which emerged from the depressed neighborhood of Peñafiel, around public housing projects near an old chocolate factory in the city's northeast, as the original "chocoleros" as the probable source of the slang term, too. The term has since generalized to include all criminal gangs in the city and in the entire country, and although the verb is considered obscene, use of the term "chocolero" is common in media when referring to gang activity and gang members, and youth-related crime in general.

The western boroughs (delegaciones) remain the worst areas for gang activities, and some parts of Delegación XVII and Delegación XV, and the inner tier northeast suburbs like Siete Colinas, DF, Peñafiel, DF and Costa de Dragones, DC are virtual battlegrounds. There are also substantial problems in parts of the old northwest, Delegación III and Ciudad Valdivia, DF

Sports Hooligans

Most soccer teams have extra-officially organized groups of fans, and in many cases these groups have been known to become violent. At some point, these sports-oriented gangs became known by the slang term "gankos," perhaps to avoid the "chocolero" term associated with more typical criminal gangs. Although the problem has abated somewhat, there are still serious problems with fan violence at sporting events.

See Also

• Football in the Ardisphere, for some discussion of sports hooliganism