Orion Syndicate

The Orion Syndicate was the largest organized crime enterprise operating within the sphere of influence of the United Federation of Planets.

History
By 2339, the Orion Syndicate had become one of the few remaining - and by far the largest - organized criminal enterprises inside Federation space. The Syndicate itself was an outgrowth of a formerly more legitimate interstellar government, which then devolved into a mafia state controlled by the Syndicate.

Federation
The rise of the Syndicate and its supplanting of the legitimate Orion government happened largely in tandem with the increase of Federation influence over local space. As the Federation grew in size and influence, the criminal elements of Orion society resisted the new civil order championed by it. In the early 24th century, Syndicate leaders were ultimately successful in supplanting the legitimate Orion government with their own agents and interests. As a result, the Orion government and Syndicate remain the largest antagonist to Federation governance contained entirely within the Federation sphere of influence.

By 2339, the acknowledgement by the Federation and Starfleet that the Syndicate was the principle seat of power within Orion society was still a relatively recent one. Starfleet Intelligence had spent a considerable amount of time and resources attempting to successfully place agents inside the organization, but had only achieved limited success.

Romulan Star Empire
One of the Syndicate's principal trading partners was the Romulan Star Empire, which used the Syndicate to circumvent a general embargo of the Star Empire by the Federation. The Syndicate was the largest and most effective violator of that embargo and it was believed that a significant fraction of total Romulan economic activity was connected to the Orion Syndicate in some way.

Klingon Empire
The Klingon Empire as a whole had little interaction with the Orion Syndicate. In the years following the Praxis Incident, the Empire entered into a series of trade agreements with the Syndicate to supply resources it could not acquire on its own and which the Federation would not provide. But as the Empire regained its self-sufficiency in the 2320's and 30's, those agreements were progressively phased out. By 2339, there was little official dialogue between the Klingon High Council and Orion Syndicate leadership.

Nevertheless, some Klingons were known to work for and with the Syndicate in various capacities, particularly those that sought to engage the Federation in armed conflict but could not find a way to do so that was sanctioned by the Klingon government.