42 arrested in ‘historic’ crackdown on California-based White supremacist gang

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U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada for the Central District of California (C) on Wednesday, October 2, announces a 76-count indictment against 68 alleged members and associates of the San Fernando Valley Peckerwoods, a White supremacist gang. Photo courtesy of U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California/Facebook

Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Forty-two alleged members and associates of the San Fernando Valley Peckerwoods have been arrested in an operation authorities on Wednesday called one of the largest crackdowns on a neo-Nazi White supremacist gang in the history of the Department of Justice.

Many of the suspects were detained throughout the San Fernando Valley and surrounding areas on Wednesday morning, as local and federal officers, including members of the the Joint Terrorism Task Force, executed 29 arrest warrants and conducted multiple searches.

The operation came as a 76-count federal indictment was unsealed Wednesday, charging 68 people either in or connected to the White supremacist gang.

Authorities told reporters in a press conference that they are continuing to hunt the remaining 26 suspects, whom they described as fugitives.

Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office said that they expect this investigation to "significantly cripple" the domestic extremist organization.

"It's not hyperbole to say the sheer scale of this operation is historic," Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office said. "This is a historic event to federally indict this many members of a hate group."

The SFV Peckerwoods is a mix of street, prison and racist skinhead gangs, according to the Jewish nonprofit Anti-Defamation League, which said on its website that the organization's "White supremacy is more often crude than sophisticated and they have a high association with criminal activity, such as drugs."

The indictment includes 60 separate charges that detail 60 individual instances of a Peckerwoods member or associate being caught with wholesale quantities of drugs.

The gang members are also accused of generating revenue from robberies and financial fraud, including by stealing from the Paycheck Protection Program, which was designed to aid businesses economically harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The Peckerwoods are involved in a wide variety of criminal activity everything from drug trafficking to fraud offenses to firearms offenses, violence and identity theft, but what truly distinguishes them what defines them is their hate and their animus towards racial ethnic and religious minorities," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada for the Central District of California said.

The gang is known for brandishing neo-Nazi symbols and other White supremacist iconography, from swastikas to the Confederate flag.

When asked to detail any bias-motivated crimes, Estrada pointed to the April arrest of Ryan Bradford, an alleged member of the gang. Law enforcement found that not only was he allegedly selling drugs but was manufacturing explosive devices and firearms.

He allegedly had a "treasure trove of White supremacist paraphernalia, including replica Nazi uniforms and posters of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as well as a planner in which was written his New Year's resolution to "bake every single Jew."

"We don't take those threats lightly. We can't take those threats lightly. It's important that we take action to neutralize those threats before they become the next tragedy," he said.

Due to their affiliation with the Aryan Brotherhood, Davis called the Peckerwoods "a chapter" of what the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as the oldest major White supremacist prison gang and a national crime syndicate.

"This group is really the model of domestic extremism and one we wanted to address with this investigation," Estrada said.

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