@kwendy It's just speaking of it from our perspective, to call it criminal. In the first place if there's a big, obviously shady organisation within a country, yet the government does absolutely nothing about it, it's kind of hypocritical to still call it criminal. Just look at the vest wearing motorcycle gangs in many Western countries: Everybody knows they deal with drugs, illegal guns, extortion, handling stolen property, money laundering, you name it, yet they are allowed to operate, apart from the occasional investigations that might see some members arrested. In my opinion they are criminal and I call them such, but governments don't care.
The rest of your post seemed to be in agreement with my earlier comment. If a gang doesn't have a leader(ship), it's just an association of like-minded people, not a real, coherent organisation.