| “ | The smart rule, the strong command, the fast work, the weak die. | „ |
| ~ SOMBRA's motto in the Luzuguayan Constitution |
| “ | Putting me away changes nothing! You will never stop SOMBRA! We have people everywhere! | „ |
| ~ Warren Goodfellow regarding SOMBRA's omnipresence around the globe. |
SOMBRA (Spanish for "shadow") is a major antagonistic faction in the Criminal Case franchise; serving as the main antagonistic faction in it's third installment Criminal Case: World Edition.
It is an international criminal organization founded by a circle of intellectuals led by Arsenio Castillo in the 1950s and led by Hector Montoya in the present day whose goals involve taking over the world and creating a new world order where the strong will rule and the weak will die.
History[]
Origins[]
In the 1950s in the small town of Campanilla, Colombia, a small group of intellectuals would gather in the King's Shadow club and discuss ideas about plotting a revolution, and presumably create a new government; incorporating a social darwinist ideology in the form of a manifesto composed by one of their members, Isabel Amarga. They would later name their circle SOMBRA, and their leader, Arsenio Castillo, would adapt the moniker of "El Rey" after the King's Shadow club.
Some time later in the 1970s, the CIA would stumble onto two things; the presence of oil in a small country known as Grenadia, and the existence of SOMBRA's intellectuals. Under a secret mission known as "Operation: SOMBRA", one of their best agents Elizabeth Ripley would approach Arsenio, who was assuming the identity of P. Molina, and offered to fund SOMBRA and their operations in exchange for launching attacks on Grenadia so the US has an excuse to invade the country and acquire the oil. Arsenio accepted, and for a while SOMBRA slowly began to grow in power and influence. They would continue working with the CIA in other operations worldwide during the height of the Cold War; meeting and recruiting other associates like Archibald Gilchrist, Omar Bahir, and Obaasan; with Arsenio even mentoring two young children named Angela Douglas and Hector Montoya.
Around this time, two of their members, Eduardo Ruiz and Alejandro Pratx, would initiate a series of expeditions from Argentina to Antarctica. Though, it would eventually be declared a failure after the Argentinian government halted one of their expeditions; with Ruiz and Alejandro being forced to return to the mainland. The former later died from a heart attack while the latter would move to the country of Luzaguay.
At the same time, a politician named Adolfo Herrera would attempt to either kickstart a coup in the government of Luzuguay or be elected in, though his campaign had little attention and effect. However, Herrera would later be approached by SOMBRA agents and was offered substantial amounts of money to fund his campaign, and in exchange, he would incorporate SOMBRA's ideology into the constitution of his new government. This was done as a test run to see whether they can incorporate their ideas into a newly-overthrown government. Herrera accepted the deal, and soon enough he would become President of Luzuguay and slowly convert the country into a dictatorship with SOMBRA backing him in both funding and ideology. The continued control over Luzaguay is such an important task that every two months, SOMBRA would send an agent to Luzaguay to see how well Herrera is managing the country.
However, the CIA would later deem SOMBRA no longer useful and attempt to destroy the organization by destroying their headquarters, and sending assassins to kill Arsenio. Unfortunately, he would escape unscathed and transfer SOMBRA's remaining funds as well as his title of El Rey to his protege Hector Montoya before going into hiding.
During this time, Hector would lead the organization from the shadows; slowly regaining SOMBRA's lost power and influence. Acknowledging the risk of assassination from foreign secret services like the MI6, the CIA, and the KGB, Hector would form multiple branches and cells; each with their own leader and agents to manage a portion of the world as well as recruiting even more members into their ranks. They even began making deals and partnerships with companies like COSMORUS and crime organizations like the Yakuza. This was done to conceal the existence of El Rey to the outside world by making it seem like SOMBRA is managed by multiple replaceable commanders rather than a single supreme leader.
Continuing onward, SOMBRA have began making numerous plans for world domination. In Europe, SOMBRA would revive a dissolved Greek cult known as The Promethians and convert it into their European branch, led by Gilchrist who worked as the CEO of the European Central Bank.
In the Middle East and Northern Africa, war strategist Omar Bahir would instigate a series of rebellions in order to unite the Sahara region into a single cell of rebels and make it easy for SOMBRA to control. He would also be directly sent to assassinate anyone thay was deemed too much of a threat.
In the former territories of the Soviet Union, SOMBRA composed a hacking operation known as "Operation: Darkness Descends". This plan involves secretly building a satellite designed to hack into every other satellite orbiting the Earth. This would allow SOMBRA to gain control of almost every technology that utilized satellite signals and potentially plunge the entire world back into the dark ages. To do this, they collaborated with the Director of the space agency COSMORUS, Natasha Romanova, and a space engineer named Andrei Beloglazov to smuggle satellite parts into a secret region in Mongolia, construct the actual satellite, and once finished, would launch at a COSMORUS base in Kazakhstan.
In Eastern Asia, Yakuza members Obaasan and Ronin Ozawa were sent to kidnap thousands of orphaned children in order to brainwash them into adopting SOMBRA's beliefs and become loyal agents. They would then initiate a yearly event known as "The Hunt" where the orphans are taken to Kyushu, Japan and have to kill each other until the last one remains standing. This was done to cull out anyone they deemed "too weak" and thus unfit for SOMBRA's recruiting program.
In Indonesia, SOMBRA set up a camp in order to experiment on the orphans that survived The Hunt and grant them advancements in their physique, training, and intelligence. These recruits would then be transferred over mainly to Africa to act as sleeper agents.
Meanwhile in the United States, Vice President Sarah Bennett, who was secretly a SOMBRA agent and close associate of Hector, would manipulate President James Hewett into performing a series of incidents that would damage US relations in order to isolate the country and make it easier to invade.
Soon enough in the present day, SOMBRA had reached their peak as a global organization and deciding that it's ready to take over the world, began enacting various terrorist attacks across the globe. This caught the attention of Elizabeth Ripley and Mossad director Nahum Meir; the latter furious at why SOMBRA kept surfacing in their databases despite the CIA destroying them back in the 1970s. Ripley would declare that she formed a group of investigators and detectives in order to put an end to SOMBRA. Though Director Meir, wanting to keep SOMBRA's existence a secret, insisted Ripley not to tell her team about SOMBRA.
Aware of Ripley's team who would later become known as "The Bureau", SOMBRA would send Angela to infiltrate the Bureau, spy on their operations, and relay it back to SOMBRA's leaders.
Europe[]
For several months in Europe, SOMBRA used the Promethians, led by Gilchrist, to enact various terrorist attacks across all of Europe; ranging from instigating riots in Amsterdam, to burning down a Belgian tourist attraction known as the Atomium, and even assassinating the Prime Minister of Denmark. This was so they can scare Europe's leaders into uniting the fragmented European nations into a single giant country, which would make it easy for SOMBRA to take over.
However, their advances would repeatedly be interrupted by the Bureau, who discovered the Promethians' involvement in the deaths of both British Prince Albert, and German Hollywood actor, Hans Vogel. They began tracking one of their agents, Klaus Weissmann, after finding out he orchestrated both deaths and escaped custody.
In Greece, Klaus would attempt to persuade citizens in voting Yes on the referendum set up by the EU that would decide whether every European country remain separate or unite into a singular massive nation.
In Italy, Klaus would assassinate one of the candidates for Pope, Pietro Agnelli, whom the Promethians believed would be a jeopardy to their plans as Agnelli vocally called against voting Yes on the referendum; instead opting their insider agent in the Vatican, Cardinal Salieri, to be the next Pope. Although Klaus killed himself via incineration to avoid interrogation, the Bureau was still able to uncover the Promethians' most destructive attempt. It involves planting several bombs across the capital cities of every European country, and threatening to blow up all of Europe in order to push the referendum into voting Yes.
However, one of their agents, Jacqueline Proust who was actually a mole, would deliver crucial information on the location of the detonator, as well as the Promethian leader. Although she would end up murdered by Gilchrist for her treachery, the Bureau would eventually be able to arrest him for terrorism, as well as both locating the detonator and disabling the explosives, and delaying the referendum.
While the Bureau was celebrating their victory over the Promethians, SOMBRA would send Omar Bahir a.k.a. The Sword to Spain to assassinate their Chief, Ripley, with a poisoned dart. Seemingly declared dead shortly after, The Bureau would track down the origin of the dart's poison to Morocco and start hunting down The Sword.
The Sahara Region[]
SOMBRA used ancient Arabic professor, Omar Bahir to kidnap and decapitate an eight-year-old boy named Andrew Stern, but was stopped. Omar, or "The sword", then killed Anir Aznag and used the fear of the people in the Sahara to terrorize them. Luckily filed except, Jonah Karam killed him before he could killed Carmen and the player.
Eurasia[]
SOMBRA then used Russian space agency director, Natasha Romanova to launch the SOMBRA satellite and take control over the world's technology. But then, SOMBRA fired Natasha and Natasha was sent to 75 years in prison.
South Asia[]
Following their failed satellite takeover in Kazakhstan, SOMBRA began to form various front organizations such as O.M. MediLab and One Mother Milk around India and it's neighbor countries in order to recuperate their funds.
The former was a pharmaceutical company that focused on research towards a potent drug known as Dracoxia; said to cause severe medical problems when overconsumed. In Bangalore, O.M. MediLab hired a scientist named Shweta Noorani to continue researching on Dracoxia; Noorani eventually isolating the harmful components of the drug and created a deadly man-made virus. O.M. MediLab planned on using the research data to sell on the black market and potentially use the virus itself for biological warfare.
The latter meanwhile was a phony charity created by NGO worker Warren Goodfellow who used their image to defraud a guru named Om Padmasana and steal his donation money, as well as anyone else that fell for the scam. Warren even rerouted funds from Rising Hope, a disaster relief organization that he worked for, to the One Mother Milk charity. Once enough funds were collected, it would be transferred over to O.M. MediLab's bank account and deposited in the Royal Bank of Luxembourg to prevent anyone from tracking their transactions.
However, two incidents would put an end to both of their operations. The first was that the man-made virus would be stolen by a sociology professor named Ayush Patil who unleashed it into Bangalore in order to reduce overpopulation and rule the survivors as a god. The Bureau would soon be alerted of both the virus and O.M. MediLab's involvement in it's creation; after which a cure for it would be created and the research data would be taken away, leaving O.M. MediLab with nothing.
And the second is that Warren would be arrested in Tibet after murdering a tuk-tuk driver named Sandeep Sadhra when the latter unknowingly found out the former created the One Mother Milk charity. Warren would then be ordered by Ronin Ozawa to eliminate Sandeep and frame Om Padmasana for the crime. Though, the player would see through the ruse, arrest Warren, and Elliot was able to recover some of Om's stolen donations and cut off O.M. MediLab's bank account.
East Asia[]
SOMBRA then used Japanese grandmother, Obaasan to pick up and Brainwash orphans to hunt down, attack, and kill each other in a hunger-games type game, which resulted in the deaths of 51 children.
Oceania[]
SOMBRA used mad scientist, Marshal Melclaf to experiment on hundreds of children in Oceania.
Africa[]
SOMBRA used the team's very own coroner, Angela Douglas to kill Livinia De Brills and to betray the Bureau and helping with diamond Smuggling.
South America[]
SOMBRA's founder and former leader, Arsenio Castillo confessed to all his crimes, but also revealed that there's a new El Rey.
North America[]
The new SOMBRA leader, Hector Montoya had been responsible for everything that has happened in the series. He then used US vice-president Sarah Bennett to murder Natasha Romanova and to kidnap the US president, which almost started WWIII. SOMBRA has then come to an end, but at the cost of Armand Dupont, who died later from the bullet wound to the chest caused by Sarah Bennett.
Trivia[]
- SOMBRA seems to be based on SPECTRE from the James Bond franchise. Both are international organizations that seek world domination. Both are led by a single supreme leader (El Rey for the former, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld for the latter), and both were founded or had influence around the 1950s. The icon for El Rey in the game even features a shadowed man sitting in a throne while holding a cat; similar to Blofeld in the film series.
- The name SOMBRA and it's leader El Rey translate to "Shadow" and "The King" respectively in Spanish. This is because in the game, it was named after the gentleman's club where the original circle of intellectuals gathered during the organization's origins.
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 Villains
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Grimsborough Pacific Bay World Edition Mysteries of the Past The Conspiracy Travel In Time Supernatural Investigations Paris: City of Romance | ||