Bio-weapons black market

The bio-weapons black market was an international arms trafficking network specialising in the illegal trade of bio-agents - consisting primarily of viral weaponry - and the trade of genetically-engineered creatures designed to fight in warzones.

History
The black market's history dates back to the late-20th century, and was dominated primarily by Umbrella Pharmaceuticals; Tricell's Pharmaceuticals subsidiary and one other company, who secretly developed biological weapons for various national armies and especially-wealthy clients such as Javier Hidalgo. Umbrella Pharmaceuticals collapsed in 2003 after being found financially and criminally-liable to the deaths of 100,000 people in the 1998 Raccoon City Destruction Incident, which had also lost them the support of the United States as a buyer. From 1998 former and rogue employees began selling weapons to its rivals.

One such employee became known as Dr. Frederic Downing, who gained a high position in the WilPharma Corporation. In November 2005 he was arrested for his black market links, having orchestrated a terrorist attack in India with his t-Virus samples in order to advertise the others and a G-Virus sample to General Miguel Grandé of Bajirib. The scandal resulted in WilPharma's collapse.

The most significant group on the black market, however, was Tricell. Having received a sample of the t-Virus from Dr. Albert Wesker to allow them to expand their bioweapons division, Tricell began producing and selling its own weapons to black-market buyers through Ricardo Irving. Much of the profits went to Dr. Wesker's Uroboros project. Perhaps to maximise profits they also acquired the G-Virus from the ruins of Downing's WilPharma laboratory after Tricell bought the company, and Morgan Lansdale's t-Abyss Virus through their spies, Jessica Sherawat and Raymond Vester. However, they have only been seen to have conducted research on Las Plagas, a parasitic animal from Spain that Dr. Wesker obtained samples of. These Plagas became popular on the market, and were bought by Kijujuan nationalists through Irving in 2009. Following Tricell's own collapse soon after the Kijuju Autonomous Zone Incident, their Plagas continued to be altered by black market sellers and were bought by President Svetlana Belikova in an attempt to implicate local rebels to justify a more violent retaliation.