[POSSIBLE SPOILERS WITHIN] Seedy Characters?

[Iterion]

Call me lazy if you want but nowhere I've thought of starting has actually panned out. I'm trying to find seedy characters or otherwise any kind of seedy business like kidnapping or extortion within the lore. I'll admit that I'm already ready to just cough it up as a loss otherwise as for my motivations I'm finding myself interested in the criminology so any resources would be appreciated.

[KageTokage]

The entire level 50-60 SAM quest chain is a good display of the corruption present in each of the city-states, as it plays out like a classic samurai drama with you going from place to place and bringing down criminals who've slipped under the radar of the authorities. IE, the second quest has you cracking down on a bunch of corrupt Bronze Blades trying to force a poor man's daughter into prostitution to pay a debt he owes.

Uldah in general also seems to have more issues with this stuff then the other city-states, largely due to the huge divide between the wealthy and the poor. Even the latest Little Ladies' Day has a sidequest that brings up how the the holiday was previously abused by criminals to kidnap young girls for terrible purposes until they started putting the royal guard out on patrol.

[FJerome]

Limsa Lominsa also has a slave trade, you encounter it in the Archanist, Rogue and Astrologian starting quest-lines.

Ul'dah's still worse - slavery in Limsa is completely illegal, even though it happens, while in Ul'Dah there's legalised slavery in the form of debt bondage, which is what happened to Pipin (it might have also been happening to that girl in the Samurai questline? I'd assume if a unpaid debt is enough to be able to legally force you to risk your life on the Bloodsands it's probably legal to force you into prostitution too).

[Balipu]

The Red Mage storyline begins with a kidnapping attempt, there is another in the Briardien questline in Ishgard. While Hildibrand plays it off as a joke, there are plently of real crimes in it. The Astro storyline has kidnapping and assassination, Karasu commits crimes on a daily basis, Ul'dah is completely corrupt, for most Limsan the rules are just guidelines, and we saw many times how far Ishgardian nobles are willing to go to protect their lies. There is crime everywhere.

[Hestzhyen]

Gridania has some crime in the form of poachers in the Shroud and racial tensions, but I think Ul'dah takes the cake as far as seediness goes. They have scantily-clad cat girls dancing in the market, poor sections with beggars, corruption all the way up to the top of the country's leadership and Grand Company, and a very strong emphasis on acquiring wealth ingrained into its culture. It's hard to find a storyline in Ul'dah that doesn't mention how hard it can be to live an honest life and not get punished for it in some way.

[Frizze]

The Goldsmith questline(lvl 1-50) involves a jewel thief, and the early Hildy quests(though played for comedy) are all about a master thief acquiring artifacts(which leads to an attempt at mass murder). Nanamo was almost assassinated by members of the Syndicate. The 50-60 DRK questline has you trying to save a child from the church's assassins. The BLM questline(50-60) has you battling a cult. There are poachers in the archer questline(i only leveled far enough to get quelling strikes back in the day, so i dont know if bard continues any of that). Theres an NPC at the saucer whos trying to cheat at triad. Plenty of shady characters around.

[Vidu]

There are poachers in the archer questline(i only leveled far enough to get quelling strikes back in the day, so i dont know if bard continues any of that).

Bard doesnt follow up on that directly, but the level 60-70 bard quest is about covering up war crimes.
Paladin 30-50 is about a stolen blade and an ungrateful dismissal of the fromer captain. 60-70 involves manipulations of the tournament in order to influence the bets.
We had a whole event in the GS thatw as dedicated to a murder investigation (not playable anymore, granted...) - the current LLD event makes it clear that selling children is a real problem.
Right at the start of the game, before the battle with Ifrit, its clear that... that guy with the funny hair (forgot his name) is kidnapping and selling people.
The level 50-60 alchemist quest is a crime-investigation, and 60-70 sort of continues there, different crime though (with a specially treat to everyone who played 1.0, I would imagine!)
The game also implies that all the girls working for Rowena have actually been "rescued" by her, from brothels and the like.
...and seeing how you're level 70, you should have met a certain character getting sold of to a brothel aswell - even though that might be legal, I'd still count that as pretty shady...

Edit: The whole Arcanist-guild is actually about law inforcment and preventing smuggeling. While I currently dont recall any quest dedicated to that, it implies that thats an issue (no surprise here in a port town like Limsa...)
There is also the rogue guild in Limsa, making it their mission to enforce the pirate code amongst the citizens... I dont recall the whole questline, but I do remember something involving a black market within it...?

[ObsidianFire]

Limsa is in a bit of a different situation then Ul'dah as the general population of Limsa seems to be much more aware of the problems their city has then the general population of Ul'dah does. Part of the reason Limsa is fine with having things like the Rouge's Guild is because they keep the really bad people out of the city so the more honorable pirates can conduct business with each other. Also rules like not having slavery, not stealing from your fellow Limsans and other bits of the pirate code are very old (going back to Limsa's founding almost). The pirates who do try to do that stuff need to do it far enough away from Limsa that the Rouge's Guild doesn't hear about them doing it in Limsa which is a problem as Limsa is the biggest port in Vilbrand. Are there plenty of pirates who do the nasty things? Yeah, but most of them aren't doing it anywhere near Limsa...

Crime in Gridania is a little weird. The main powers in Gridania are the elementals and everyone else can lives there because the elementals tolerate them. Poachers and the like aren't always so much criminals (even though they're usually portrayed that way in-game) as they are people who don't follow the elemental's laws. The reason why that's bad for Gridania is because elementals are bad at telling individuals apart from everyone else in their race. So along with all the other "normal" crime, you'll get things like copping down trees the elementals haven't given people permission to chop down, hunting game that the elementals say shouldn't be hunted or even doing things like animal husbandry.

Ul'dah is well, Ul'dah. People want to make a profit even when their religion is pretty clear on what makes for a good profit vs a bad one.

Ishgard is in a bit of a weird situation. Their entire economy and ecology was overturned after the Calamity when Corthas became snow-bound. So in addition to whatever inter-house vs commoner problems were originally there, there's probably a lot of shortages of basic supplies. However, HW has them at least figuring out what type of problems they have and making a new government that at least is more fair then their last one was. There's still the problem that their industries have probably been gutted and a lot of people are more then likely out of work until the city as a whole can figure out how to function in a perpetual blizzard.

[SannaR]

The one Frontlines map that's in Coerthas seems to show that the snow is very slowly melting? Obviously we wont see it go back to being a grassy field because of the time bubble, but yeah there's a lot of crime in the game. Even Garleans turn a blind eye to it if it's non Garleans on non Garleans. Though I doubt the lower cast gets treated any better. For a country that was the ones being picked on because they were the smaller weaker group in their part of the world they sure do cast their noses down on anyone who isn't one of them after they "stumbled" onto Allagan tech.

[Vidu]

Oh! I just recalled that we also have FATEs and just plain overwolrd enemies dedicacted to that matter!
Right now mainly the poachers and the related questline in the South Shroud are coming to mind aswell as the shady characters in Southern Thanlan, just outside of the Amalj'aa area (and their respective FATE... that was included in one of the relic books... with an aweful long spawntimer... the real crime here!)

If you take a look at Sastasha, you'll also find kidnapped women around there - and Tam Tara is obviously home to a Dalamud cult.