The Dark Sun

Formed from the aftermath of the Tyranny War five years ago, the leader of the Dark Sun gathered shattered minor gangs and desperate lower level criminals and created a new organization. Though never rising to as large as prominence as other gangs, the Dark Sun is notable for being known as a 'gentleman's' criminal organization. They live under the radar, and keep their deals made with other criminals, as well as their customers, almost to a fault. The small territory they control is in the Sea Ward, which is hard for any other gang to move against, as the Ward has a strong Watch presence so causing a scene there would be bad for both parties. They, however, have found the right palms to grease and use that knowledge to keep themselves from being caught by any who actually want to put a stop to their efforts.
Their leader, Akaei (a pseudonym, real name Noboru Hirano), is a middle aged Aasimar, and ex-merchant. After the Tyranny War, his struggling shipping business was completely destroyed as most of his warehouses were destroyed. An opportunity presented itself, however, in the form of a blessing from Tymora (or so says him). A cart, belonging to a gang of unknown origin, had been left near his crumbling home in an alley he happened to be walking through. Inspecting the cart, he found a cache of drugs that had been on its way from a ship in the harbor. The cache held such illegal substances as Dreammist, Silkroot, and Kammarth, in addition to a few more dangerous substances. Due to his financial troubles, and thinking about how his family would be affected by their impending destitution, Noboru decided to take action. He took the drugs and hid them on his property.
Not knowing how to go about distribution, he consulted the dwarf who had been in charge of his warehouses (as well as someone who had grown up in tough circumstances). They devised a plan to sell it to those who wanted to use such substances, but who could also afford to pay the hefty prices those substances warranted in those times: rich folk.
Luckily, Noboru was connected with such people. He, with surprising insight on who to approach with the substances, was able to sell the drugs, and the money he made from the sale was able to fund a new venture that he saw was needed post war: smuggling. With the damage to Waterdeep, tariffs on incoming goods were raised, and so merchants raised their prices to match. Having the lowest prices on things as a supplier was what was going to bring in profits for the new criminal enterprise, but he would need workers.
There were plenty of gangs who had been decimated from the battles on the streets, and using his ex-warehousemen as contacts, Noboru (who was now using his pseudonym Akaei) contacted these criminals, using every one for what they were good at: thieves to get his supplies into the city, strong-arms to protect the shipments, blackmail and bribery experts to find the right watch and guardsmen to cut into the deals. Akaei made sure not to recruit too many, knowing that he couldn't compete with the larger gangs, but by the time things got going, his enterprise was smooth moving and safe to operate in areas of the city usually too well patrolled for a criminal to exist in.
The Dark Sun, as he called his group, dealt in many areas of smuggling, drugs, textiles, spices, anything usually expensive and hard to get, as well as moving into other services, including 'raising' campaign funding for city officials, prostitution (though he made sure all those workers were treated exceedingly well and properly, even killing someone for disrespecting them verbally too much), protection, and information trading.
As for more violent means of making money, Akaei took the philosophy to heart of not starting violence, but being ready for it when it would arise. At first, pressure from other gangs caused occasional fights in the streets, but with increased bribes to the watch around his storehouses and areas of operation, the violence died down. He eventually sat down with other leaders around his areas, and stated that he had no intention of growing past his small territory in the Sea Ward. After these assurances were backed up by his actions, he was allowed to remained relatively unmolested, though others being more untrustworthy criminals, they would push at his defenses where they could.
A couple of Akaei's children help their father run the business (though he has many, not all are interested in continuing being criminals). Yoshiro, his oldest son and heir apparent, takes after his father. He is a shrewd and careful young man, though unlike his father he is human. He wants to keep his father's business running as it is, seeing it as a safe and worthy investment to continue for generations if possible. Kyoko, his second eldest daughter and a fellow aasimar, is a bit more brash and wants their business to push beyond their current power and grow into the premier criminal organization in the city. She is in charge of keeping their muscle well funded and organized, and has been known trying to provoke rivals into duels (which she wins all of them). The power between the two seems to be balanced for now, but depending on how they do in the future and once Akaei passes away, there is expected to be conflict, whether verbal or physical between the two to decide who gets to run the business. Both, however, love and respect their father too much to try and usurp his rule before his time is up.