| abstract | - A crime lord was the local or planetary boss of a criminal organization. Crime lords would often surround themselves with lackeys, mercenaries, or bodyguards for protection. Crime lords who oversaw smuggling were known as "smuggling czars." "Crime lord" is a gender-neutral term and can be applied to either a male or a female. The goal of most crime lords was to make money. They would achieve this by participating in any illegal activity that generated income, like extortion, gambling, loan sharking, kidnapping, spice cultivation and distribution, and slave trading. The Squib Slythor ran a salvaging ring on the Outer Rim Territories world of Korad. Some crime lords preferred to only participate in certain, more "honest" activities such as gambling, loan-sharking, and smuggling because these activities did not harm people as much as extortion or kidnapping. In these activities, the crime lords didn't use cruelty and violence as means of achieving a given goal. Some crime lords even worked with other crime lords to maximize profits. Most successful crime lords had many police, security, and government officials on their payroll in order to operate efficiently. Gangsters also regularly entered into the service of crime lords, though usually these goons and thugs working for a crime lord were not paid nearly as well as the crime lord himself.
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