Extortion took place in Ventura, other counties, the indictment said

More than 40 people linked to a San Fernando Valley white supremacist gang have been arrested on a federal grand jury indictment alleging a pattern of racketeering activity in Ventura, Los Angeles and Riverside counties, officials announced.

The federal charges include trafficking in drugs including fentanyl, illegal possession of firearms and COVID-19 benefits fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement announcing the charges last week. A total of 68 people were named as defendants.

The suspects are members and associates of the SFV Peckerwoods gang, the Justice Department said. Officials said the gang sometimes takes orders from the Aryan Brotherhood, California’s dominant white supremacist gang. The organization also maintains an alliance with the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which controls most of California’s Latino street gangs, the federal agency said.

The indictment lists more than 800 overt acts related to the allegations. One defendant allegedly told another that his supplier “oversaw a large drug distribution operation in Ventura County, obtaining pounds of methamphetamine at a time and generating approximately $100,000 per week in drug distribution revenue.”

Another tie to Ventura County involved allegedly falsifying an application for the federal Paycheck Protection Program. The initiative provided forgivable loans to businesses that had to limit operations during the pandemic.

A defendant, living in the Santa Clarita area, allegedly signed and submitted a form claiming that the applicant was self-employed running a halfway house in Simi Valley with a gross income of $122,756. According to the indictment, the applicant was actually a state prisoner.

The 254-page document did not name the inmate or the prison.

The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Los Angeles Police Department and Ventura County Sheriff’s Office were involved in the investigation, the Justice Department said.

The local sheriff’s office handled about half a dozen investigations into firearms and narcotics violations, but they were taken over by the FBI, sheriff’s spokesman Rob Yoos said. He did not know whether any of the arrests announced by the judiciary resulted from that investigation.

The sheriff’s SWAT team served a search warrant in the San Fernando Valley as part of the search, he said.

The Simi Valley Police Department assisted in the cleanup, along with a number of other local, state and federal agencies, officials said.

Simi police have taken into custody one of the suspects, Sgt. said Rick Morton. The man is charged in the indictment with intent to distribute methamphetamine and fentanyl, plus possession of five firearms, despite his prior criminal record.

Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said conducting investigations and subsequent prosecutions becomes much more difficult when criminal organizations cross jurisdictional lines. “The involvement of our federal law enforcement partners in such cases greatly enhances our ability to protect not only the citizens of our county, but also those of our region of the state,” he said in a statement.

Kathleen Wilson covers courts, mental health and local government issues for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at [email protected].