White Collar Crimes Overhaul

[CobraKaiChampion]

Hi there. I just returned after a 3 year hiatus.

The server definitely changed. There are forensics, more evidence stacked against criminals, and its easier for PD to convict criminals or catch them.

 

Accessing bank accounts, IDing for something as petty and arbitary as a parking violation ect.

 

And yet the only methods of money making for the most part are Oil, guns or a drug racket.

 

And for a select few- selling donator clothes or cigars, or if you have a gambling license or an poker game.

 

But yet, in the real world the Mafia really stayed away from drugs and they focused much more on white collar crimes.

In the 1980s Michael Franzese was famous for his gas tax scam, making fake companies with fake names go bankrupt selling gas, using tax exemptions ect and collecting the cash meanwhile the federal government and gas corporations losing money and yet the end consumer buying cheaper gas.

 

Lots of credit card frauds, or business fraud. As seen in sopranos Tony has that friend of his lose tons of money in a card game and the interest goes up to the point of the guy handing over his sporting goods store for leverage. 

The mob then starts maxing out their credit so the business declares bankruptcy. But tony gets fake/fraudulent plane tickets and other things under the guys name.

 

I realize this example is complicated given how small the server is, but I would like this post to be an open forum for others with ideas of white collar crimes that dont involve drugs.

 

But a way to fraud the State or City government from taxes with loopholes, or if there were contracted city roles like tow trucks or street cleaners that are run by mob controlled unions.

 

Police request a tow of a vehicle, but if that person is high profile enough the union prevents the tow truck from towing a vehicle. 

 

Something like that.

 

I know my ideas here are a bit scattered, but having an overhaul where Parking violations can have citizen or police call for a tow truck to impound a vehicle. The vehicle gets impounded, and the owner must go to city hall and pay a fine for the vehicle to be released. The longer they wait, the fine goes up each day.

 

The city gets money from the player base, and then PD doesnt demand ID for parking violations because there is no criminal element. Its now only a civil matter.

 

From an RP standpoint, players get a $$ figure amount for each vehicle they tow as a tow trucker driver. 

 

The cost of a tow is some sort of agreed upon fee between the leader of the tow truck faction and a union they are required to be a part of.

 

The unions are run by the criminals, and the fee is split in half. Half of the tow fee goes to the truck driver, the other half goes to the union fund.

 

The union uses this income to pay Union delegates ect. Or can be like Jimmy Hoffas teamsters Union Pension fund that was used to fund Las Vegas. 

 

Right now the server is too much Cops and Robbers.

 

Either you are PD or a Government employee or you are a criminal.

 

But having blue collar jobs like street cleaners, that are hired by the city, or by property owners to clean up garbage that can randomly spawn on a property or the street. 

 

Having tow truck drivers for the reasons explained.

 

 

 

Union workers that represent Blue collar jobs. There should be a paramedic job as well and the union represents both EHS and PD. 

If the Union has control over a PD budget, now if they have a lower budget, there can be less PD members online at a given time. Bigger budget = more police ect. 

 

Then having a stock market, and having stock market broker jobs with a purpose of making money on behalf of all citizens. With an opportunity for stock manipulation and illegal stock market fraud.

Like the stock market actually having an influence on what Oil will be priced at. And it can fluctuate. Sometimes prices will be low. Sometimes if you hold out they will be high..

 

I realize these are a lot of idea. Just trying to think outside the box of oil barrels and drugs for criminal money making methods. 

 

Edited February 5 by CobraKaiChampion

[LocalWelshman]

Agreed, feel that some more variety in mob money making is needed. Cops have all the variety and rp they need yet criminals have minimum ways of making money. 

[handsome]

+1

[Togna Bologna]

+1. Oil is a waste of time as it makes dogwater profit on top if it holding so much bank space (in the eyes of non donators even at least) on top of having to wait until theyre actually around. 
New rp interactions would be fun.

[Reaper]

+1

Cool idea. Perhaps to get more into the "credit/tax fraud" thing have a system similar to drugs except it's accessible to everyone. Buy a credit card and use a computer placed somewhere to do credit fraud, get cash based on a mini game or after waiting. I'm just spitballing shit

[TroubledGhost]

+1 but also -1 to the white collar idea - its a very complicated system that is proposed and would require a LOT of overhaul and balancing, in my opinion this can make or break the server and take away from the mafia aspect if it goes in the extreme.

 

The reason I had +1'd is to show support that some change is required, whether this is accomplished by means such as this or not. For going too deep into white collar crimes, and having many jobs related to tow trucks (which does sound good) comes with many concerns such as having 128 players and having many white collar jobs, it can take a lot away from what we have. Perhaps white collar crimes isnt it, cos if you do minor related crimes such as extortion, which doesnt really occur on this server as no one is really leasing shops etc, you can still get criminaal chaarges related to them.

 

This server definitely needs a few updates relaated to the jobs/crime money making approaches without taking away from the MafiaRP experience - and this would take the server to another level.. or break it - but yeah right now it seems like it mostly hit a plateau and something new and large is definitely needed - but this is my opinion.

[Omerta]

In "real life" the "mob" makes most of their money from EXTORTION and always has. There's basically no actual way to implement this in game. It would mean a player controlled segment of society getting bent over for white collar crimes. Noone in a video game is dedicated enough to the RP struggle to get fucking visited every Sunday to pay 10% of their completely legitimate candy store. Get real.

[bioswales]

+1
Awesome ideas all around- white collar could go a long way for helping players starting out have a pipeline that gives them another form of income to consider, that way they don't feel strangled starting out.

As for spitballing ideas, perhaps some benefits for officers as well to make sure it isn't wildly out of balance. I've never been opposed to police keeping factions on their toes after all. 
It would be interesting if undercovers/rats had more physical listening devices. Instead of just needing to do a '/me' to lazily plant or disclose a listening device, in certain circumstances you could have electronic devices that have a bug in them and must be inspected to notice. Activated bugs in an inventory could have the 'equipped' square icon on them to indicate whether they are on or off- however this could be too easy to see for some peoples taste.
(Ex:  A flashlight that would be in your inventory and, but once you hover over it to find its different from the normal description i.e  'Flashlight  | Good thing you inspected this. After a closer look you notice this flashlight is attached to a listening device powered by the batteries of the flashlight. It appears to be operating/not operating right now.')  

I'd expect you could do the same with other standing devices like a Hi-fi, Cassette Player which can be placed and cycle through a dozen random songs or so to feign its utility- but when a player interacts with it the device has an observable and tunable radio frequency modulator or other means of transfer/recording that gives away the fact is a bugged item. 
It would be very interesting for these devices to not be exclusively limited to the police as well- perhaps purchasable at the barge or other shady NPCs for an exorbitant price. 

(Perhaps also a 'Jerry-rigged Radio' available at the barge as well? It would be available for $1,500-$3,000 and allow Citizens of New York/Delivery/Cabbies to read /rumour chat. Most rumors are probably either going to get you mugged or give you charges anyway; but it allows for the potential to let more renegade citizens make money illegally. (To keep factions more viable, it could have limited uses before it breaks much like the fishing pole.)) 


Tacking onto that point just a little, another interesting idea for a 'new' racket (im sure someones mentioned it before me) would be a 'Fencing Racket'. 

The idea centers around the concept that there is an nameless 'contact' within the PD and/or Department of Waste Management with access to a mix of low end firearms or drugs confiscated from the lowly and clumsy criminals of Southside.
Perhaps not directly linked to items that have been confiscated to prevent accidentally getting too powerful from idiots getting pinned with an LMG/AR shipments, their fence racket would allow their members to get small amounts of random drugs (3-8 bags?) and random small arms (low end pistol, shotgun, and SMG?) from their shipments. Shipments would generally only have drugs OR firearms in them and not both. They would purchase shipments of 'Stolen Evidence' and would not know the contents of their shipment until it arrives in the city. 
Said faction with the fencing racket would likely be unable to sell drugs directly either, as they have direct access to any of them and it would prove to just be a money printer. However they would be inclined to sell their small amounts of processed good on the street to turn profit. Firearms would take a similar avenue and be treated as an underground market removed from the firearms database. (If people are caught with a firearm acquired in this way, possession of a stolen firearm would likely become an aggravating charge as well, bringing more use to the concept of filing serial numbers off of weapons.)
(Factions could negotiate for the Fencing faction to not sell 'their goods' in order to keep their product scarce; but because of their ability to draw naturally from it in the random fashion they do , it may wise to not have it be directly cause for war. This is more of an IC matter however and I feel it may be wrong of me to weigh in- rather it should be established in game and dependent on the factions involved.) 

Pricing may very well be a bit of a pain in the ass however, but the expectation is that there can be losses in some shipments and gains in others. Some days are 3 baggies of weed, other days its a brand new Uzi. I imagine it would have to be test-bedded a little to make sure it isn't skewed, but I believe the idea gives enough variety to at least look into! 


I know it won't exactly be happening this week;  but it'd be awesome to see some of the ideas in this thread considered and even introduced one day! 

 

9 hours ago, Omerta said:

In "real life" the "mob" makes most of their money from EXTORTION and always has. There's basically no actual way to implement this in game. It would mean a player controlled segment of society getting bent over for white collar crimes. Noone in a video game is dedicated enough to the RP struggle to get fucking visited every Sunday to pay 10% of their completely legitimate candy store. Get real.

You already see extortions happening in game. By nature it would just probably be used as a more open ended form of extortion and when so you need a faction to own property in the first place with so few being legal- quite literally everyone is vulnerable to be bent over in one way or another. This is just another avenue of doing it. 
I'd argue that getting 'fucking visited on sunday to pay 10%' is a fact of life in this server no matter who you are- with or without the RP aspect. 

Fortunately for you, this isn't real life and we will not be 'getting real' here. If people want to make an IC shell company that can get so far in debt it gets sunken, game is game. If they get caught doing it, game is game. If you want to make an unreasonable demands from another company and risk war, game is game.

[TayP]

+1 im getting bored of oil

[iYB]

The idea is good but 

On 2/5/2025 at 11:11 PM, TroubledGhost said:

its a very complicated system that is proposed and would require a LOT of overhaul and balancing, in my opinion this can make or break the server 

It would most likely break the server in all forms, mainly fps bc we know thats alrdy fucked. But how tf am i supposed to sell Gas tax in a game 

Tow truck company would result in the removal of the car despawn timer which is used to decrease the amount of models and props around the city to boost fps.