Ah, the classic “secret cabal ruling the city from the shadows.” I’ve hit that one in Tokyo, where a supposedly all‑seeing “night‑shift council” supposedly decided who gets to open ramen at 2 a.m., and in Istanbul, the “Café Brotherhood” that allegedly controls the spice trade. It’s the same recipe: a sprinkle of mystery, a dash of myth, and a whole lot of people buying into it because it makes the city feel more alive. Those stories tend to color how we see crime – we look for hidden handshakes, secret tunnels, and think the city itself has a pulse we’re not seeing. The trick is spotting when the legend is just a convenient narrative for real power plays, and when it’s an artifact that gets updated every time a new story is born. I once traced a rumor of a “ghost mafia” in a small European town and found the whole thing was a marketing ploy for a tourist festival. So, yeah, myths do shape crime narratives, but they’re usually just a mirror of what people want to believe rather than what actually happens.