68 members of the alleged white supremacist gang in SFV charged

LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Forty-two members of what prosecutors call a San Fernando Valley-based gang of white supremacists have been arrested in connection with a federal indictment announced Wednesday, Oct. 2, alleging a yearslong criminal operation that included drug trafficking . , gun violations and COVID-19 and loan fraud.

Twenty-nine people named in the indictment were arrested Wednesday in a series of raids involving Los Angeles police and other agencies, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Thirteen other suspects were already in custody, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the gang has ties to the Aryan Brotherhood and the Mexican Mafia, and that its members “use Nazi tattoos, graffiti and iconography to signify their violent white supremacist extremist ideology.”

A total of 68 defendants are named in the indictment, which charges crimes including conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, distribution of a controlled substance, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a felon.

The gang’s “violent white supremacist ideology and broad criminal activities pose a serious threat to our community,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement announcing the charges. “By allegedly involved in everything from drug trafficking to gun crimes, identity theft and COVID fraud, and through their alliance with a neo-Nazi prison gang, the ((gang) is a destructive force. In prosecuting the members of the… criminal organization, our office carries out its mission to protect the public from the most dangerous threats.”

During the investigation, police seized “large quantities of illegal firearms and dozens of pounds of fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin,” prosecutors said.