Ronin Inc

The following information has been compiled from intelligence intercepts leaked by a hacker collective on the dark web. Rumours are circulating through various online criminal fraternities and social hubs and forums of an organisation, dubbed Ronin Inc. This corporation has been flagged on various intelligence watch lists including Mi6, Mossad, the FSB and others. It was first reported by the Public Security Intelligence Agency of Japan as suspected of having links to Japanese organised crime – specifically the bōryokudan to the Japanese police force, more commonly known as the Yakuza.

The origins of the company are shrouded in mystery, it does not exist on any major stock exchange,  and is believed to be a shell company, registered in name only. With no known headquarters anywhere in the world and assets worth millions of dollars purported to be hidden behind extensive cyber-security and secured from public record through banks in Zurich, Switzerland and George Town, Grand Cayman.

The one story oft repeated in various online forums and dark web social media (if such a thing could be said to exist) is as follows:

Two men (possibly brothers) ran afoul of the Kumicho (the grandmaster of the yakuza clan). The crimes committed have never been known outside of the highest echelons of the clan but are said to be of the gravest sin and utterly abhorrent to any member of the ninkyō dantai (chivalrous organisation.) That of betrayal, viewed as the greatest sin of all.

These men are gaijin, the barbarian or foreigner, but to the kumicho they were like kin. They were given a choice. Execution or banishment. Either would incur a high cost. They chose banishment, and were allowed to forego the punishment of yubitsume (amputation of the little finger on the left hand of each) as to reduce risk of identification but each has been branded with a tattoo on their chest instead, marking them as traitors.

Their penance, a debt of blood, to be sent to a new city, ripe with opportunity where no yakuza presence existed and take control. They were given nothing but the clothes on their backs and the memory of the shame they both carried. 12 months of life, the timeline provided to insert, establish and grow a presence within the city strong enough to establish an ongoing presence within the criminal underworld and begin to assert control.

If, after 12 months, the men were found wanting, if their tribute was found to be lacking, the execution was to be swift, brutal, and most importantly, firmly in the public eye. This would be the final act of expunging the stain.

It would appear the men were successful, and as a direct result of this, came the inception of this new corporate entity, Ronin inc.

Interpol believes these men are active within the city as a corporate bank account was opened within the Pacific Standard Bank in the name of the company and a significant but unknown fee has been transferred in from offshore. There have been no attempts to access these funds as yet and the whereabouts or identities of the owners of the account are still a mystery. Speculation from the intelligence community strongly suggests this is a fee held in escrow, as insurance for a cleaning team, should the need arise for their activation.  

The past few months have been quiet in the city and time has passed relatively peacefully for the organisation. One partner had to vacate the city due to his passport being flagged by interpol, meaning an extended leave of absence for the time being with no certain return date in mind. Added to this rumours begun to circulate of another Yakuza clan operating inside the city, raising serious cause for concern. While the two never crossed paths and it is still unconfirmed as to whether or not this was a real, legitimate Yakuza clan or a bunch of pretenders claiming to be something they aren't is unknown.

However, with the company still in its infancy, and severely lacking in strength, and certainly unable to fight a war he knew he could not win,  the remaining partner chose to lay low and continue with business as a solo endeavour, albeit much more covertly. This was a risk in itself as time is on either man's side and the clock continues to tick.

Fortunately, two long time friends, who share a life long bond with the pair, recently resurfaced after prolonged absences, at her majesties pleasure, and have flown in to the city to lend their aid and strength to what they see is the latest in a long line of adventures by the quartet and have thrown their collective weight behind the project with full force.

This has allowed the legal aspect of the company to go from strength to strength. Ronin Inc is now officially trading, listing its business as "logistical and supply chain management" with the city chamber of commerce and has taken on several small contracts to supply stores and businesses dotted around the city. It also has had contact with the owner of Vangelico jewellery with an agreement in principle to supply precious metals as and when they are needed in its daily operations.

With the recent news of new business opportunities on the horizon, with the Chamber of Commerce now inviting tender offers for one of three separate petrol stations or the boat store on the marina, viewed as incredibly lucrative in the right hands, the organisation has pivoted its interest to focus on this and has plans to submit at least one application for consideration.

A tweedle account has been registered in the corporate name and company logo, although it is yet to be activated with its first tweed, and advertisements have appeared on numerous job boards looking for skilled labour in either the mining, trucking or manufacturing industry with a contact number 927-5675 supplied for any interested parties. There is an office location in grapeseed on East Joshua Road listed under public record with the leasehold document registered to the organisation.

Time will tell if the latest developments are satisfactory to the rumoured contract placed on the men's heads and will their commitment to the cause and their overall success, or failure, be enough to earn back their freedom but for now it is clear they are making progress.

5 Million different rumours, five million whispers in the back alleys, dive bars and flop houses frequented by the criminal fraternity of Los Santos. One thing all of these tales have in common is the figure. 5 million pounds of government money stolen without a shot fired. Two were caught, but four more escaped the scene and disappeared in to the night, packets stuffed with cash, laughter in the air and smiles on their faces. Neither of the detainees cooperated with the police, instead choosing to eat the charge, serve the time and take care of their own in doing so. Bonds forged in this escapade are nigh on impossible to break.

The level of professionalism and criminal prowess this group possess is unlike many of the other gangs and organisations currently calling the shots on the streets of LS. Word is the gang has grown, fleshing out to 8 active members and looking to strengthen with even more. This could lead to a power struggle as it asserts itself for top of the pile, or it could merely blend back in to the shadows it came out of. Time will tell.

Senior sources placed within Interpol concur with the following assessment: The account held in escrow within the Pacific Standard Bank no longer exists. It has been scrubbed from the servers by an unknown program, so sophisticated it was able to leave no trace of the account ever existing. All digital evidence of the account held in Pacific Standards banking network has been utterly erased, said have been so thoroughly consumed and meticulously cleaned that, had the employees not physically seen the account in record with their own eyes, they would question its very existence. With it went the funds held in escrow and it is this that the Police believe this was the intended target of the gang in its opening statement to the city of Los Santos.

Whatever happens next is anyone's guess, however with the recent developments one thing is certain. The Ronin - as the criminal fraternity has dubbed the crew that took this score - are officially established and the Kumicho is sure to be pleased.

Border Force has been alerted to be on the lookout for more men or women of an East Asian, specifically Japanese, origins with any links to Yakuza or other organised criminal groups flying in to the city and share all intelligence with their local counterparts accordingly.

So two Wongs made it right? 

Further information has come to light since the arrest of two of the PAC Standard 6 as Weasel News dubbed them, has been released in a public statement from the wretched hive of scum and villainy more affectionately known as the Mission Row Police Department.

One of the 2 men detained and forced to serve a significant sentence at Her Majesty's pleasure in Bolingbrooke Prison is none other than Cow Lee Wong, the borderline psychotic, fearless, former enforcer for the Triads. Once regarded as "The Baddest Man in K-Town," he is ruthless in pursuit of any who crosses him and has ties to more gang land slayings in the last 5 years than half of the gangs in the city combined. A truly prolific contract killer if the reputation matches up to the facts.

Rumour is that his older brother, Hu Chi Wong has a seat at the table and sent in the younger Wong to ensure things were done properly and the accounts were "settled" as a show of gratitude to their new yakuza brethren and to cement the unholy alliance as they look to take the LS gangland by storm. 

Several months ago a cruise liner bound from Japan carrying upwards of 3000 passengers and crew docked at the port of Los Santos after 3 months at sea. 85 crew were due to rotate after a few days of shore leave, all expenses paid, before catching a corporate charter flight out of the city and back to Tokyo as the new shift rotation begun. Of these 85 only 79 boarded the flight out of LSIA several days later. The occurrence was not uncommon however as crew opted to change travel plans all the time, sometimes deciding to stay on for a few more days at the destination port or even contracting out to another vessel docking in at the same time. Therefore it was never flagged as suspicious and none of the authorities were notified. The 6 crew members had valid Japanese passports and all paperwork was electronically signed, with state of the art encryptions to ensure it was utterly tamper proof. After they left the Port of Los Santos however these people simply vanished.

Their task was to be that of the Kansatsu-sha or observer, a fancy word for spies. They melded in to the city of Los Santos as simple Japanese tourists, photographing everything and travelling all over the city and surrounding countryside. Their assignment, the men of Ronin Inc.

The Oyabun had received word in Japan of the successes of the men, his former protégé’s but some news greeted him which left a very sour taste in his mouth. Their alliance, with three former triad members with deep ties to the Chinese mainland organisations, the so called black societies could not and would not be countenanced. With a history rich with violence dating back hundreds of years between the Triad and the Yakuza, these men had, in his eyes, committed a great fallacy and brought shame on themselves by association. The Oyabun however insisted on absolute and incontrovertible proof that these were the men involved. Hence the watchers were sent.

Once confirmed, a final messenger was dispatched with a very simple message tattooed to her body.

Bonsai wa yūdokuna jimende wa sodachimasen translated in to English means  “the bonsai will not grow on poisonous ground” The tattoo begun below her left ear, curling down around  the front of her neck, over her right collarbone and terminating between her shoulder blades. The symbolism implied that the head was to be cut if the branches were to grow. The second, more obscure meaning was that the men could no longer use their yakuza “heritage” any more. They were to be Ronin in name, identity, guise and physiognomy but any allusion to Japanese roots must be cut off and buried. This was to protect the culture and reputation of the true yakuza organisation and its heritage history and its bloodline. The Oyabun however, was pragmatic, and saw the opportunity the men had built was not to be squandered lightly choosing to stay his hand of further punishment than that which had already been meted.

Around the time this message was to be delivered two of the three former triad members, the Wongs, seemed to sense that something was amiss within the hierarchy and chose to make alternative arrangements to secure their own safe landing should things become untenable within the organisation. The third member however, chose a rather more bombastic approach. After securing various “assets” of a questionable legality, therefore not insurable by any legal insurance company, the member broke in to the corporate headquarters, now located in the Arcadius Business Centre in down town Los Santos and logged in to the corporate mainframe in an attempt to steal data from Ronin Inc’s fledgling manufacturing division and siphon millions of pounds in company funds for personal gain. In doing so, he left digital footprints all over the network in what appeared to be one last digital ‘Fuck You’ to his former partners. This man’s name was Josh Hook.

Despite this betrayal and blatant theft of assets the saddest part of this tragic tale so far is that one of the two, founding members, of the clan had foreseen this and was unfortunately proven correct in his estimations, illustrated in the aphorism:

“There is a beggar who thinks he’s a king”

In the grand scheme of things to come however this was a minor speed bump and the loss was accepted, iterated upon and a line drawn underneath as the gears of industry continued to grind. The parent company of Ronin Industries was registered with a giant head office located in Tokyo, Japan unsurprisingly. It was situated in Nishi-Shinjuku, home to a great many of Tokyo’s most prestigious, and also tallest buildings. Office space has been secured in Shinjuku Park Towers with a view to expansion in the near future following a wildly successful IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the Nikkei stock exchange, with shares closing at $35 USD per share after only one day’s trade. It is said that the seemingly unlimited quantities of oil, gold, diamonds and steel being extracted and exported by Ronin Inc, the mining company, has fuelled the ensuing boom and through this the diversification and acquisition of its offshore assets and is the catalyst which drives the economic expansion. As Ronin Industries continues to thrive and prosper it is only a matter of time before other divisions are brought to the prosperous lands of Los Santos, with large scale government grants and generous tax write offs said to be offered to all manner of wealthy organisations, irrespective of their origins or moral fibre, just so long as the decision makers in the halls of power receive their piece of the proverbial pie. 

One such example was the private and somewhat low-key acquisition of a small scale, defence contractor whose stock has taken a large hit after being sanctioned and barred from multiple different countries in Central and South America due to quasi legal activities performed by its private military division. The companies name is Tangent Technologies, with its Tangent Military Corporation or TMC for short. Unofficially, in the mercenary world, it is dubbed the Tangent Marine Corps, a nod to the organisational structure and operational command and execution, with a vast majority of its members taking something of a career “tangent” after a dishonourable discharge or similar sharp exit from regular armed forces for reasons unknown. To the men themselves, this outfit is known as "the Regulators" and they pride themselves on doing the dirty jobs no one else wants to do and doing it better than everyone else. They are extremely loyal to their unit and answer to no one but their CO and have just been drafted in to Ronin Security Detail, Asset Protection Division to give the corp. some teeth on the streets of Los Santos.