Arnold Gonzales, Racketeering, California 2012

Federal authorities have made a major bust in Northeast Los Angeles, arresting 15 defendants in a racketeering indictment targeting the Mexican Mafia and three street gangs.

The indictment alleges that Mexican Mafia member Arnold Gonzales created a criminal enterprise by unifying three gangs - Frogtown, Toonerville, and the Rascals - and working together to control narcotics trafficking and other illicit activities in the area.

The investigation, known as Operation 'Gig 'em,' was a 2½-year effort that revealed how the gangs, which had traditionally been rivals, were brought together under a truce ordered by Gonzales for the purpose of controlling criminal activity in the neighborhoods where they operated.

The indictment, which was returned yesterday by a federal grand jury, outlines a conspiracy to violate the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and accuses a total of 22 defendants of being 'members and associates of a criminal organization engaged in, amongst other things, conspiracy to traffic in narcotics, narcotics trafficking, extortion, and crimes of violence, including conspiracy to commit murder, murder, attempted murder, and robbery.'

The power vacuum created by previous federal RICO cases targeting Northeast Los Angeles gangs and the Mexican Mafia members who controlled them allowed Gonzales to assume control of the three street gangs in the fall of 2010. Because he was incarcerated in Pelican Bay State Prison after being convicted of murder, Gonzales anointed another Frogtown member - Jorge Grey, also known as 'Bouncer' - to be his emissary on the streets.

The indictment alleges that Grey convened a meeting of representatives of Northeast Los Angeles gangs in September 2010, where he informed the gang representatives that he was Gonzales's 'mouthpiece' and that he had orders to broker a truce among the rival gangs. The investigation showed that nearly two years after its formation, the criminal organization had achieved its goal of unifying the three longstanding rival gangs into a single criminal enterprise.

The RICO indictment targeting the Arnold Gonzales Organization is the result of Operation 'Gig 'em,' a 2½-year investigation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Assistant United States Attorney Robert Dugdale, Chief of the office's Criminal Division, said, 'For the past two decades, federal authorities have been fighting the influence of the Mexican Mafia both inside prison facilities and on the streets of Southern California. We sought to ensure that being a shotcaller in such a gang is a job whose only reward will be many, many years in federal custody.'

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/federal-racketeering-indictment-targets-mexican-mafia-orchestrated-coalition-three