Street Gang Networks Called State’s Greatest Crime Danger

Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp said Tuesday that the “transformation of Los Angeles streets gangs into full-fledged organized crime networks that deal in violence, death and cocaine” was the single most alarming criminal development in California last year.

In news conferences that accompanied the release of an annual report on crime, Van de Kamp said the rise of the black gangs in Los Angeles makes such traditional organized crime groups as the Mafia “the least of our problems,” and he vowed to add state law enforcement resources to those of federal and local agencies.

“Historically, California has been reluctant to commit major resources to organized crime because we have not seen ourselves as a state with a serious problem,” Van de Kamp said.

Time for Realism

“But we can no longer delude ourselves. On the contrary, we are a state with a huge and growing problem--one so severe that it threatens the rest of the nation.”

Van de Kamp called on Gov. George Deukmejian to promptly sign an omnibus anti-gang bill that would provide about $9.45 million for a variety of crime programs. Included would be $2.6 million in start-up funds for an Organized Crime Strike Force of about 50 state agents and prosecutors who would focus particularly on the Bloods and Crips gang confederations in Los Angeles.

Flanked by state legislators who have supported the anti-gang legislation and by top officials of the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department, Van de Kamp stressed in Los Angeles that any state law enforcement activity against gangs would have to be carefully coordinated with local agencies as well as federal officials.

He said the state could contribute to the anti-gang effort by providing undercover agents, auditors to check money-laundering operations, additional lawyers to aid in mapping prosecution strategies and wiretap teams to be used against major drug dealers.

More Organization

Even though he put Los Angeles gangs at the top of the organized crime problem in the state, Van de Kamp conceded that the gangs are not organized in any traditional style. But while “loosely structured” in the past, he said they are becoming increasingly organized.

“Last year nearly 400 murders were attributed to street gangs in Los Angeles county alone,” Van de Kamp said.

“These are grim reminders that groups like the Crips and the Bloods are no longer street gangs in the traditional sense of the term. They are far-flung distribution networks for Colombian cocaine--with elaborate organizations and murderous profit motive for eliminating the competition.”

Van de Kamp said that Los Angeles gangs operate cocaine businesses in 30 California cities, as well as dozens of others across the country from Alaska to Florida.

“The Crips and the Bloods have changed with the times,” he said. “The rest of us had better change, too, before it’s too late.”

In addition to its focus on street gangs, the 1987 Organized Crime Report cited Colombia’s Medellin Cartel as “perhaps the most notorious international crime organization operating in California.”

The report estimated that 150 members of the Medellin group, which controls most cocaine distribution in Florida and California, have moved to California and have set up about half a dozen separate cocaine distribution and money-laundering rings.

In addition to the Colombian cocaine cartel, the state organized crime report cited increased criminal activity by Asian gangs, including two Taiwanese groups, the United Bamboo Triad and the Four Seas Triad, both allegedly involved in gambling and heroin distribution. The report said that other organized criminal groups operating in California include Cuban, Israeli, Hungarian and Russian emigre gangs.

The report said two different Cuban groups totaling 400 members specialize in narcotics dealing, while a 350-member “Israeli Mafia” in Los Angeles has been linked to arson, fraud and drugs.

‘Hard-Core’ Groups

It said there are 20 to 30 “hard-core” members of a criminal Russian emigre group involved in drugs, fraud and arson, and 150 members of two Hungarian criminal groups that have been linked to phony automobile insurance scams and drug trafficking.

While the report said that traditional Mafia families in California remained involved in a “moderate” number of criminal activities, primarily bookmaking and prostitution, it concluded that the Mafia in Southern California is presently “in disarray” as a result of several major federal prosecutions.