Invierno Cartel

**-Affiliations:**The most northern of the Ghost Cartels , the Invierno Cartel (lit. 'Winter Cartel') or "Cowboy Mafia" is a part of the loose alliance of cartels outside Aztlan.

**-Headquarters:**The stronghold of the Invierno Cartel is around Little Muddy River, Tetonwan CF in the Oceti Sakowin (formerly Williston ND), although they also have power centers in Winnipeg, RRDMZ, Ituhtaáwe, Upper Yankton CF (formerly Bismark ND) and Casper, Tetonwan CF.

**-Leadership:**Currently the leadership of the Cartel is in the hands of the 'Dos Diablos ', the identical twin brothers Alberto and Alonzo Rocha. In the Zone, their operations are led by 'Captain' Verónica Guadalupe Flores , an ex-Pueblo sniper and cattle owner and her lieutenant, the smuggler 'Locust Joe' Arandas, who maintains their operations in Winnipeg.

**-Territories:**The Winter Cartel has operations centered in the northern Oceti Sakowin, operating across the Upper Yankton, Tetonwan, Sissetonwan and Wahpekute Council Fires, with operations that stretch north into the Niswi-mishkodewinan and across the RRDMZ into the most western counties of the State of Minnesota UCAS .

**-Rackets**: The so-called "Cowboy Mafia" is primarily involved in the drug trade, specializing in designer drugs such as Bioengineered Awakened Drugs (which, until recently, included Tempo ). They are also the leading figure in the BTL  trade in the Oceti Sakowin, being, until recent years, the sole supplier of those, as old WIlliam Whiteclay forbid his boys in the Tiošpaye to deal in BTL's, although his son, Charlie, has no such scruples. The Cartel also deals in cattle rustling, smuggling, prostitution and the occasional spot of highway banditry. Their (few) legitimate operations are mostly cattle ranches and auto body shops.

**-History:**The Cartels have had a significant presence in this region since before the Awakening, when the Sinaloa Cartel extended its operations to what was then the US State of "North Dakota" in the first decades of the Twenty-First Century when crude oil discoveries suddenly flooded the western half of the state with roughnecks and oil money. When the big Narcotraficante cartels of Mexico unified to become the multinational megacorp Aztechnology and took over both the legitimate and criminal worlds of Mexico (now renamed Aztlan), the lesser cartels retreated to the fringes, becoming known as 'Ghost Cartels'. The remnants of the Sinaloa still operating in North Dakota and the Oceti Sakowin reorganized into the 'Winter Cartel', finding a niche as the 'bad boys' of the Sioux underworld, doing those jobs that the Tiošpaye wouldn't touch. This included Tempo and BTL dealing. In the early 70's, during what were known as the "Tempo-Drug Wars ", conflicts between criminal organizations over control of the growing Tempo trade, it manifested locally as a vicious three-way conflict between the Cartel, the Heathens and the 1323 gang from the Niswi-mishkodewinan, ending in the Tiošpaye having to intervene and forbidding the Cartel to deal Tempo in the Oceti Sakowin.

**-Relations with other organizations:**

* **Tiošpaye:** The Invierno Cartel is well aware that they exist at the pleasure of the larger, richer Tiošpaye and they must pay a cut of their operations and toe the line as far as the rules the Tiošpaye put down. When the Tiošpaye is watching, a constant game exists between the two syndicates with the Cartel seeing how much they can get away with and the Tiošpaye calculating how much they feel they can afford to let the Cartel get away with.
* **The Underberg Family :**The Cartel is constantly looking to expand their reach outside the restrictions imposed on them by operating in Tiošpaye territory. The richest nearby prize is the territories of the Underbergs in the Zone. However, to move directly against them is to risk the wrath of the Tiošpaye and their business partners in the powerful Twin Cities Combination. But the Cartel has not survived a half-century of exile by not taking the opportunities it can and is always looking for ways to hedge just a little farther into the Underbergs' turf.
* **Heathens MC****:**Bad blood still exists from the recent war with the Heathens. A lot of blood feuds still exist between them and neither organization is quick to forgive their grudges. A state of open war still exists between them and blood flows every time Cartel bandits and Heathen raiders meet on the lonely highways of the Oceti Sakowin.
* **The Mishibijiw Warriors ("The 1323"):** The peace forced upon the Cartel and the 1323 by the Tiošpaye still stands. For now. On the streets of their shared turfs on Winnipeg, they circle each other like vultures, waiting for the one spark that will light the powderkeg everybody knows they're standing on.
* **Lake Devils :**There exists between the smugglers of the Cartel and the Tiošpaye's top smuggling gang a sometimes-friendly and sometimes-less-friendly rivalry, which, depending on the state of relations between them manifests as pranks and drag races or air battles and sabotage. At present a kind of peace exists between them, as the Devils stayed out of the Tempo-Drug War, and the Cartel relies on them for their supply up from Casper, so they are necessary.
* **The Chinook**: The Chinook's usual territories reach generally east and north of Cartel territory, which makes them useful contacts within the UCAS and Niswi-mishkodewinan. Because their interests generally don't clash (and because the Chinook stayed the hell out of the Tempo-Drug War), they generally have a businesslike, if not particularly close, relationship. The Cartel has dismissed the recent inroads the head of the Chinook, Taylor West, has made in Winnipeg as mere grandstanding, another of his famous stunts.
* **Tamanous :**If there's one thing that the Underbergs, the Winter Cartel and the Tiošpaye can all agree on, its the shoot-on-sight order they have out for the ghoul organ-leggers.
* **The Jacks**: There is a variable relationship between the Cartel and the nomads. Sometimes the Jacks make themselves enough of a nuisance to be wiped out, but the Cartels find the Jacks to be convenient, disposal muscle for their banditry and rustling. One of the few organizations to do any business with the Jacks.

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