Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/July 11, 2009

"Aruk is a giant among Hutts!"

- Durga's opinion of his father

Aruk Besadii Aora, known to most as Aruk the Great, was a Hutt crime lord and the leader of the Besadii kajidic for over fifteen years before the Battle of Yavin. Around 100 BBY, he birthed a child, Durga, who had a large birthmark on one side of his face; Aruk's peers implored him to kill his child, feeling the birthmark made him impure and unworthy to be a Hutt. However, Aruk grew to love his child and kept Durga, training him to become his heir.

Around 15 BBY, Aruk and his brother Zavval concocted a scheme to lure disheartened sentients to the planet Ylesia, claiming that it was a religious pilgrimage&mdash;in fact, it was a slaving and spice-producing operation. The entire operation was extremely lucrative, allowing Besadii to overtake its traditional rivals, Desilijic, as the most successful of the Hutt clans. Desilijic's leaders, Jiliac and Jabba, eventually grew tired of being outshone by Aruk and had him killed via a slow-acting poison. A distraught Durga sought the help of Black Sun to learn the identities of his father's killers and avenged Aruk personally when he killed Jiliac. Durga was indebted to Black Sun for its help, though, and much of the criminal empire built by Aruk went over to Black Sun's leader, Xizor. Aruk's only offspring was eventually killed by the New Republic in 12 ABY after attempting to build his own superweapon, the Darksaber.