Higher up the chain reputation is still everything, they don't deal with anybody who has 'paper' floating around showing they colluded with the authorities at s

Higher up the chain reputation is still everything, they don't deal with anybody who has 'paper' floating around showing they colluded with the authorities at some point. It's common for gangs to distribute paperwork on each other that gets leaked from investigations/court proceedings/prisons. There is no escrow in real life either, so reputation is the sole currency to set up exchanges with any criminal above selling baggies at a nightclub.