Sixty-eight alleged California white supremacists have been charged with drug trafficking, weapons violations and COVID-19 mortgage fraud, in response to a federal indictment.
The members of the San Fernando Valley Peckerwoods, a California-based white supremacist avenue gang, had been hit with a 76-count federal grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday, dealing their years-long felony enterprise a “decisive blow,” stated Lawyer Normal Merrick B. Garland.
Garland claimed the membership is accountable for “trafficking lethal fentanyl and different medicine, committing robberies and perpetrating monetary fraud to fund each their felony enterprise and that of the Aryan Brotherhood.”
Gang members allegedly made a killing by way of identity-theft schemes and monetary fraud, together with bogus purposes for Paycheck Safety Program funds — meant to help small companies impacted by the pandemic — for those that had been locked up.
Their felony actions observe again to at the least December 2016, in response to the indictment.
Over the course of the investigation, regulation enforcement officers seized unlawful firearms and dozens of kilos of fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin, the courtroom submitting particulars.
The Peckerwoods at instances take orders from the Aryan Brotherhood, California’s important prison-based white supremacist gang, and likewise has an alliance with the Mexican Mafia jail gang, which controls most Latino avenue gangs within the Golden State, the indictment costs.
They used social media to share info and goal individuals who violated the group’s guidelines.
If convicted, the defendants might serve as much as life in jail.