- "Claybourne didn't just price gouge with his drug. He created the epidemic. He's connected to something called the AK Desmond Group. They are black marketeers who specialize in creating bioweapons."
- —Oliver Queen[src]
AK Desmond Group was a shadowy black market organization that specialized in creating bioweapons. Justin Claybourne and his Claybourne Pharmaceuticals were connected to the organization, producing the bioweapon-like weaponized tuberculosis, curable only through the drug Dycloseral, before getting stopped by the Hood.[1]
History
AK Desmond Group was a secretive organization that operated on black market. One wouldn't be able to find information on them on the Internet, forcing Oliver Queen to ask Felicity Smoak to dig up something about them on the dark web beyond Google. Both his and Felicity's information pointed to the group being black marketeers that specialized in bioweapons, connecting them to a massive outbreak of weaponized tuberculosis in Lamb Valley, and by that, to Justin Claybourne, whose Claybourne Pharmaceuticals immediately appeared on the market with a cure, the price of which was unimaginably high for poor people to get their hands on. As the Hood, Oliver tried to intimidate Claybourne into stopping the operations and making things right, and when that didn't work, he went on a killing spree through Claybourne's guards at AK Desmond Group's Starling City hideout on 1852, West Maple, 30th floor; finally cornering and killing the person responsible for the outbreak.[1]
Appearances
Arrow
Season 5
- "What We Leave Behind" (flashbacks)
Behind the scenes
- The organization's name and their MO of weaponizing chemicals for criminal purposes makes them a likely reference to Albert Desmond, a sometimes friend, sometimes enemy of the Flash, whose personality disorder forced him to operate as either the chemical-creating meta-human criminal Mr. Element, or the essence-changing sorcerer Dr. Alchemy. However, this character was already adapted in the Arrowverse as Julian Albert Desmond, a CSI at CCPD, and an unwitting host for Alchemy. The connection between the two is unlikely, but it's possible that AK Desmond Group is a reference to Mr. Element specifically, who hasn't been portrayed on The Flash so far.