According to msnbc.com news services, the FBI estimates there are 1.4 million gang members in the US, and they are turning to white-collar crime as more lucrative enterprises. Gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips are engaging in identity theft, counterfeiting, selling stolen goods, and even bank, credit card, and mortgage fraud.
“…we’ve seen them doing it even more now and we attribute it to the fact that the likelihood of being caught is less, the sentences once you are caught are less, and the actual monetary gain is much higher,” said Diedre Butler, a unit chief at the National Gang Intelligence Center.
The report cited the arrest of a member in a Los Angeles gang called Florencia 13 for operating a lab that manufactured pirated video games. A member of the East Coast Crips in Los Angeles co-owned a clothing store, using it to sell counterfeit goods, and members of the Bloods in San Diego were charged with mortgage fraud, said the report. In an example of an alliance, the Nine Trey Gangster Bloods worked with the Lucchese organized crime family in New Jersey to smuggle drugs and cell phones into a prison, according to the report. In southern California, 99 members of the Armenian Power gang suspected of ties to crime figures in Armenia, Russia and the nation of Georgia were charged with bank fraud.
msnbc news services 10/21/11
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