US police arrest white supremacist gang on drug charges

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Dozens of members of a violent white supremacist gang were charged with drug sales in California on Wednesday, in what the US government said was a decisive blow to a neo-Nazi crime organization.

Coordinated raids against the San Fernando Valley Peckerwoods operating near Los Angeles seized large quantities of illegal weapons and dangerous street drugs, including fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that is devastating communities across the country.

“The Peckerwoods’ violent white supremacist ideology and widespread criminal activity pose a serious threat to our community,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada.

“The Peckerwoods are a destructive force because they have allegedly engaged in everything from drug trafficking to firearms crimes to identity theft and COVID fraud, and because they have aligned themselves with a neo-Nazi prison gang,” Estrada said.

A grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday charges 68 defendants with a range of federal crimes, including racketeering, drug trafficking, fraud and firearms offenses.

The 76-count indictment accuses the Peckerwoods of taking orders from the Aryan Brotherhood, California's dominant prison-based white supremacist gang, and maintaining an alliance with the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which controls most Latino street gangs in the state.

The Peckerwoods bear Nazi tattoos and iconography, including swastikas, the number “88” — a code used by extremists for “Heil Hitler” — and images of Nazi planes.

“The Department of Justice has dealt a decisive blow to the San Fernando Valley Peckerwoods, a violent white supremacist gang that we hold responsible for trafficking deadly fentanyl and other drugs, committing robberies, and committing financial fraud in order to further both their criminal enterprise and… “also funding that of the Aryan Brotherhood,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Fentanyl is widely prescribed and widely abused in the United States, which has led to tens of thousands of addictions and deaths in almost every part of the country.

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