{"id":30607,"date":"2011-02-18T01:15:48","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T23:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=30607"},"modified":"2014-01-06T01:05:04","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T23:05:04","slug":"ruthless-armenian-power-gang-hit-by-74-arrests-in-huge-crackdown-on-organised-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/02\/18\/ruthless-armenian-power-gang-hit-by-74-arrests-in-huge-crackdown-on-organised-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruthless Armenian Power gang hit by 74 arrests in huge crackdown on organised crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seventy four reputed members of an international gang called Armenian Power were arrested in a huge crackdown on organised crime on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Authorities said the group allegedly netted $20million through kidnapping, extortion, bank fraud and narcotics trafficking and that another 25 members are currently being hunted.<\/p>\n

Among the accusations are that Armenian Power members, who are said to have ties with high-level crime figures in eastern Europe, put skimming devices at the cash registers in the discount 99 Cents Only stores and stole customers’ information to create fake credit card accounts.<\/p>\n

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Find him: FBI special agent John V. Gillies, holds up a photo of fugitive Armen Mkhitaryan, aka Ashot, during a news conference to announce the arrests of more than 70 members of the gang Armenian Power <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Managers at stores alerted authorities when they learned of the scheme, which allegedly netted $2 million for the gang.<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr said: ‘The indictments targeting Armenian Power provide a window into a group that appears willing to do anything to generate a profit.’<\/p>\n

Glendale is the centre of the Armenian community in the U.S. but authorities also charged more than a dozen individuals from other states.<\/p>\n

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Facing charges: Mugshots released by the Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force of some of the fugitives allegedly belonging to the largely Californian-based Armenian Power gang <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr Birotte said some members of the gang are accused of bribing bank employees in Orange County to gather information that allowed them to take over accounts and steal at least $10 million. The group’s criminal enterprises in Los Angeles County netted another $10 million.<\/p>\n

He added that the gang uses senior associates nicknamed ‘thieves in-law’ who help coordinate Armenian Power’s activities in America with actions by criminal groups in Russia, Georgia and Armenia.<\/p>\n

Armenian Power is also broken down into cells with their own leaders, Mr Birotte said. Members have nicknames like ‘Capone,’ ‘Stomper,’ ‘Casper’ and ‘Thick Neck.’<\/p>\n

In all, the crime group is believed to have more than 200 members.<\/p>\n

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Wanted: Alleged gang members Azizaga Salimov (left) and Armen\u00a0 Mkhitaryan<\/p>\n

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The group start as a street gang in East Hollywood, California, in the 1980s, identifying themselves with tattoos, graffiti and gang clothing, but the organization quickly became more concerned with racketeering than controlling ‘turf.’<\/p>\n

Also known as AP-13, Armenian Power has close ties with the prison gang Mexican Mafia, which controls much of the narcotics distribution in California’s prisons, and has worked with African-American street gangs.<\/p>\n

About 800 law enforcement officers were involved in the swoops on Wednesday, code-named ‘Operation Power Outage.’<\/p>\n

The charges came after a two-year investigation by Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force.<\/div>\n
Mr Birotte said: ‘This is a significant step in disrupting this organization.<\/div>\n
‘These types of criminal organizations – through the use of extortions, kidnappings and other violent acts – have demonstrated a willingness to prey upon members of their own community.’<\/div>\n
In one alleged kidnapping, several Armenian Power members forced a man to pay ransom by taking him to an auto body shop belonging to a group member and then threatening him with violence.<\/div>\n
In an alleged extortion scheme lasting months, the victim and his family were forced to make repeated payments under threats, authorities said.<\/div>\n
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said: ‘The department has undertaken the largest one-day takedown of La Cosa Nostra; a coordinated national effort against street gangs; and today, taken action against Armenian Power and others with ties to international organized crime.’<\/div>\n
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On the case: From left, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, FBI Assistant Director Steven Martinez and U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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In an alleged extortion scheme lasting months, the victim and his family were forced to make repeated payments under threats, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said: ‘The department has undertaken the largest one-day takedown of La Cosa Nostra; a coordinated national effort against street gangs; and today, taken action against Armenian Power and others with ties to international organized crime.’<\/p>\n

John V. Gillies, special agent in charge of the FBI Miami field office, added: ‘This is the largest national take down of Eurasian organized crime.<\/p>\n

‘Today’s significance is not just from the sheer number of arrests, but from disrupting their criminal influence in our community.’<\/p>\n


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Significant steps: Law enforcement officials Lanny Breuer (left) and Andre Birotte discuss Operation Power Outage <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The Daily Mail<\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seventy four reputed members of an international gang called Armenian Power were arrested in a huge crackdown on organised crime on Wednesday. Authorities said the group allegedly netted $20million through kidnapping, extortion, bank fraud and narcotics trafficking and that another 25 members are currently being hunted. Among the accusations are that Armenian Power members, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":30609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,34],"tags":[1414,4951,4952,4950,9725],"class_list":["post-30607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question","category-usa","tag-armenian","tag-armenian-power-gang","tag-law-enforcement-officials","tag-ruthless-armenian-power","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}