Valentinos

The Valentinos (Valentino's) are one of the many gangs in Night City appearing in and.

History
During the 2020s, the Valentinos were a posergang dedicated to seducing the most attractive women in Night City. The more unobtainable a woman appeared to be, the more attractive a target she was. They did not maintain any territory, and had no goals outside of seducing and sleeping with women. They were generally harmless to anyone except the husbands and boyfriends of these women in the city. Four times a year they met to compare conquests.

By 2077, this had changed dramatically. The Valentinos are one of Night City's largest cartels and are bound by a strong moral code and century-old traditions of the Catholic god and protecting their peers. This protection does not cover any one ethnic or religious group, but instead those that grew up in Heywood alongside them. The Valentinos control swathes of predominantly Latino areas of Heywood and treat values such as honor, justice, and brotherhood with deadly seriousness.

The Valentinos restructured into a predominately Latino gang despite there not being a mandate for being one. The gang have dropped the apostrophe and are simply known as the Valentinos.

V's interactions with the Valentinos are both friendly and hostile. There are those who don't care about V and shoot on sight and those who want to toast to Jackie and treat V like family.

Between parties, parades, drag races and excessive drinking, the Valentinos hang around the barrio under the watchful eyes of Santa Muerte, the Lady of the Night.

In 2077 the gang member José Luis was contracted by Arasaka in an attempt to frame Militech for assaulting an Arasaka facility. This is uncovered by V.

Overview
The Valentinos are one of the largest gangs in Night City with a membership of about 6,000. Strictly territorial they operate in the vast impoverished Latino barrios in Heywood, The Glen, and Vista del Rey, where they are strongly rooted in the local communities. They are representatives of the Chicano culture of Night City and have cultivated those traditions for more than a century.

Valentinos openly display their gang tattoos and gold jewelry with religious motifs. The most common patrons are the Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde. The first being seen as a symbol for a holy death and the latter as an honorable thief who is said to have stolen from the rich and given to the poor. They also have a taste for colorful clothes, pimped out lowriders, and silver and gold-plated guns. Cyberware used by the gang include reflex boosters, autoloaders, and augmented cyberlimbs.

Philosophy and Structure
The majority of Valentino members are of Mexican heritage, but other races and ethnic groups are welcome to join. Members tend to integrate quickly, adopting Chicano culture and celebrating various Mexican holidays and customs like the Dia de Los Muertos, Quinceañeras, Samana Santa, or Dia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.

This sense of common heritage or at least shared customs binds the gang with the local people to form one big family. The community's loyalty protects the gang members, which makes NCPD and corporate infiltrations into the gang almost impossible. In return, the Valentinos protect the whole neighborhood. It's for these reasons that betraying one's gang is seen as the most heinous crime a Valentino can commit, and is usually punished with a particularly gruesome death.

On the other hand, Valentinos who die fighting other gangs, police, or corporate enforcers are often remembered as saints and are turned into martyrs. These people are commemorated in songs or depicted on giant murals. This memorial street art functions as religious iconography and often incorporates written descriptions of the saint's glorious deeds.

Source of Income
The Valentinos own many legitimate businesses such as restaurants, auto shops, construction companies, and nightclubs, but also operate braindance studios, and sports-betting parlors. The legal businesses often serve as a front for criminal activity: as meeting places, money-laundering operations, or illegal chop shops for stolen vehicles.

Their main sources of income are gun smuggling, car theft, drug trafficking, robbery, burglary, hit jobs (including assault or murder), prostitution, and illegal modification of weapons and vehicles.