Feds Target Members Of 'Hazard' Gang In Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES (AP) — More than two dozen suspected members of a gang that terrorized a housing project for a half century and controlled drug dealing in an East Los Angeles neighborhood were arrested Wednesday on charges related to a federal racketeering indictment.
The indictment named 38 members of the Big Hazard gang allegedly linked to crimes ranging from drug dealing to robbery to murder.
"We have moved to take control of the neighborhood where the gang ran amok with violence, narcotics trafficking and an open hostility toward police," Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Yonekura said at a news conference.
Led by the FBI and Los Angeles police, early morning raids at more than a dozen homes nabbed 24 of those named in the indictment, along with four others charged with crimes related to the gang. Seven others charged in the crimes were already in custody, and one defendant was killed in a shooting over the weekend that is being investigated.
Believed to have about 350 members, the Big Hazard gang is headquartered in the Ramona Gardens housing project and got its start in the 1940s, the indictment said. It took its name from nearby Hazard Park.
The gang's main source of revenue came from dealing methamphetamine, crack cocaine and heroin and controlling the drug trade in Boyle Heights, a largely Latino neighborhood just east of downtown.
It collected "rent" from other dealers operating in the area, keeping some of that money and paying some as "taxes" to the Mexican Mafia, a powerful collection of prison inmates from various Latino gangs who call shots on violence behind bars and drug dealing and crime on the streets.
All of the gang's activities were enforced through intimidation, with members threatening and then following through with violence against rivals, law abiding citizens and even fellow members of the gang who cooperated with police, Yonekura said.
The gang used lookouts and surveillance cameras to protect their operations and filed bogus complaints against police officers to get them transferred to other areas, according to the indictment.
While the indictment said the gang was responsible for murders, it didn't specify how many.
Authorities at the news conference didn't have that figure, though Deputy Los Angeles Police Chief Kirk Albanese said the gang was "responsible for a lot of death and carnage over the years."
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