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The Gezalyan-Pogosyan Organization


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More than 70 reputed Armenian gangsters arrested

 

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From left, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca, FBI Assistant Director

Steven Martinez and U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. take questions Wednesday in Glendale, Calif., about the

federal indictments of alleged members of the Armenian organized criminal group(s).

 

A racketeering indictment returned three weeks ago by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles charges 70 associates individuals of conspiracy, kidnapping, extortion, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, credit card fraud, marijuana distribution and conducting an illegal gambling operation. The arrests stem from two federal indictments and state cases that charge a total of more than 100 defendants with crimes including kidnapping, extortion, bank fraud and narcotics trafficking. Most of the defendants are in California, but authorities also charged more than a dozen individuals from other states. Southern California, and particularly the Los Angeles bedroom community of Glendale, comprises the largest diaspora Armenian community in the United States and the second largest in the world, behind Moscow. 

 

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr said the Armenian Mafia is unlike other criminal organizations such as the Italian Mafia, in that there is no single leadership cadre. But this organization is also broken down into cells with their own leaders, Birotte said. The group has senior criminals nicknamed “thieves in-law” associated with the gang who help coordinate organization’s criminal activities in the United States with actions by criminal groups in Russia, Georgia and Armenia, Birotte said. “Their alleged ties transcend prison walls and international borders, reaching all the way back to the former Soviet bloc,” Breuer said. 

 

Justice Department officials said the cases announced Wednesday illustrated the increasing sophistication and reach of organized criminal groups involving people with links to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc.

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