3 Suspected Members of Santa Ana Gang Are Held in Idaho Robbery

Three Orange County men, reputedly members of a gang known as the Santa Ana Boys, were arrested in connection with a robbery at a market/community center in Boise, Ida., during which three women and a 4-year-old girl were bound and gagged and one woman was pistol-whipped.

Hien Thuong Nguyen, 24, Trung Quang Nguyen, 20, and Thanh Ban Nguyen, 26, who are not related, are suspects in a June 17 robbery that netted $29,000 in cash and jewelry. Westminster and Boise investigators arrested two of the men in Westminster and the third in Santa Ana late Monday night.

Members of the Santa Ana Boys, which numbers 35 to 50, have been “known to participate in takeover robberies and auto theft,” Westminster Police Lt. Mike Ratliff said. While individual members have gone out of the county to commit crimes, this is the first time that members had traveled as a group, said Westminster Police Detective Marcus Frank.

“Takeover robberies” last more than an hour, and the victims are bound and gagged, often threatened with death and sometimes beaten or raped, Ratliff said.

During the late night-robbery at the Bien Hoa Market, three women, Bao Nelson, 51, Lan D. McAfee, 48, Huong Thi Nguyen, 26 and Amye Nguyen, 4, were tied with duct tape. The robbers repeatedly beat McAfee until she told them where she kept her jewelry. They also threatened to kill the little girl if she did not stop crying, Boise Lt. Larry Jones said.

“It was a fairly aggravated robbery for around here,” he said.

Westminster police received a phone call from Boise authorities last week and began working on the theory that the attackers had come from Orange County. By Monday, they had found the suspects and that night moved in for the arrests.

“In these professional takeover robberies, the Asian gangs will travel unbelievable distances . . . they’ll drive all night,” Ratliff said. “This is the first time we’d heard of this kind of problem in Boise.”

Roving gangs are not all based in Southern California, Frank said. Some travel here.

“We’ve had gangs from Portland and Texas and New York come to Orange County. . . . As much as they leave our area, they come to our area, too.”

Asian gangs, unlike others, are neither territorial nor involved in drug trafficking, Frank said.

“Their primary goal is economic gain, not turf protection or gang honor. At this point, there is no initiation process to get in and no penalty for leaving,” he said.

In August, 1988, another gang, the Viet Crips, were implicated in a series of 20 to 30 robberies in California, Oregon and Washington, Frank said. Eleven of the 12 gang members, all from Orange and Los Angeles counties, have been convicted, he said.

The Vietnamese gang problem is “a problem that will be with us for some time,” Lt. Bob Burnett said.