Criminal Middleman
It is easy to consider thieves, murderers, burglars, and other rather active low lives as worst of the worst, yet often behind them is something in a way even more sinister; the enabler that makes sure they stay on business. Criminal Middlemen are the messengers, buyers and informants that rarely get their own hands dirty, but have no remorse of doing things that let the more implicit acts of crime happen.
Criminal Middlemen buy stolen goods and forward criminal tasks and information to those that require them. Often hard to catch due to their sleazy practices, the middlemen know how to weasel them out of trouble, making themselves irreplaceable to their own communities and sometimes even to the local law enforcement.
Career
Qualifications
Abilities most recognisable for a successful middleman are business sense, diplomacy skills and contacts they have to illicit individuals. Those who wish to flourish in the game of middlemen need to have their street smarts learned from the school of life and show great resilience to really shine and become successful.
Career Progression
Most of the middlemen start as pickpockets, other petty criminals or merchants either down on their luck or with questionable morals, and find their way through the low life scum on their area. It is rarely something you can just establish overnight; in order to become successful you require people's trust, and respect to thrive.
More discreet and reliable the Middleman is, more people they will gather around them. It is not unheard of that some of the middlemen end up becoming heads of criminal operations, thief guilds or starting family empires based of crime.
Payment & Reimbursement
In most cases, the middlemen take a cut from any profit made from transactions they are involved with, though instead of monetary compensations, they are also known to take protection, favours and trades as compensations.
Other Benefits
While middlemen are seen as criminals, due to nature of their involvement they tend to be hard to catch by most law enforcing organisations, especially since disgruntled middlemen tend to have dirt on everyone and ability to rat out criminals that have caused them trouble in the past. One way to measure the power of middleman, in fact, is about seeing if both lowlives or law enforcement dare to touch them, in fear of retaliation from the stronger allies the middleman might possess.
Perception
Purpose
As the name suggests, the middlemen are the middle point between criminals and the people that buy the stolen goods, order criminal favours or wish to receive otherwise unattainable information. They take care of the confidentiality about the transactions, and their customers, making sure everything happens as cleanly and smoothly as possible.
Social Status
Middlemen are often viewed with the combination of fear and disgust, but they more often than not end up being considered as the necessary evil. Lowlives consider them too much of a wimp to do things themselves, and proper folk see them just little better than the sewer rats they deal with.
That said, in some communities, the position of middleman may become so vital, that they are seen as local heroes for the poor folk, especially if they have other skills and are able to better the live of their community with their business.
I think I dislike middlemen much more than actual criminals sometimes. There's something about not getting their own hands dirty that just makes me uggggh.