Bikie club members bailed over Zervas killing - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Bikie club members bailed over Zervas killing - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "Three members of bikie clubs charged with conspiring to murder a rival gang member in Sydney have been granted bail.
In October, Herbert Laupepa, 28, became the sixth man charged with conspiring to murder Hells Angel member Peter Zervas, who was shot outside his mother's home at Lakemba in Sydneys south-west last year.
The shooting was a week after his brother, Anthony Zervas, was bashed to death in a fight between Comanchero and Hells Angels members at Sydney airport.
In Central Local Court, a magistrate granted Laupepa bail after the payment of a bond of $150,000.
Brothers Richard Fong and Christopher Fong were also granted bail on charges of conspiring to murder Mr Zervas and of participating in a criminal group."

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Hells Angels spokesman charged with extortion

Hells Angels spokesman charged with extortion: "Frederick Widdifield, who is sometimes a spokesman for the local motorcycle club, Jeffrey Benvin, Robbie Lajeunesse and Rajinder Sandhu all face charges of extortion and 'commission of an offence for a criminal organization,' identified in provincial court documents as the Nanaimo Hells Angels.
Lajeunesse and Sandhu are also charged with assault.
Lajeunesse and Benvin also face additional charges of theft over $5,000 (a boat and trailer), and possession of a restricted or prohibited weapon, identified as brass knuckles and a Taser."

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Exclusive: Hells Angels Sonny Barger Has Cameo Role in 'Sons of Anarchy' - Motorcyclist Magazine

Exclusive: Hells Angels Sonny Barger Has Cameo Role in 'Sons of Anarchy' - Motorcyclist Magazine: "Barger, a founding member of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels, plays a character called Lenny the Pimp, one of the founders of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club. Barger, who lives in Arizona these days, said in an interview that he's a big fan of the show.
'We watch it every week,' Barger said. 'It's a nice show and it seems like everyone likes it. But it's nowhere near my everyday life.'
Below, Sutter talks at length about the third season of the show and about how Barger's appearance came about.
When he was doing research for 'Sons of Anarchy,' Sutter said he never approached Barger, whose colorful life and brushes with the law were frankly chronicled in his 2001 autobiography, 'Hell's Angel,' as well as countless news articles, magazine pieces and books.
Once the FX show was on the air, however, Sutter heard through friends in the Hells Angels that Barger was a fan. After getting to know Barger through those mutual friends, the 'SOA' creator began to consider Barger for the role of Lenny Janowitz, one of SAMCRO's nine founders."

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Honduras: 'We are burying kids all the time' | Maras | gangs | World news | The Guardian

Honduras: 'We are burying kids all the time' | Maras | gangs | World news | The Guardian: "Machismo, narco-trafficking, social exclusion, plentiful weapons and the aftermath of war all sustain the mara phenomenon, but it landed with plane-loads of gangsters deported from the US. The two main groups, Dieciocho (Spanish for 18) and Salvatrucha, originated in LA and exploded in central America when Con Air dumped 46,000 convicts between 1998-2005.
Nicaragua was lucky: its emigrants headed for Miami, where black and Cuban gangs shunned central Americans, and the country remains an oasis of relative calm. LA's more culturally open-minded gangs, in contrast, recruited the children of immigrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Many had never set foot in central America until being deported.
With no family restraints, the arrivals proved much more brutal than traditional local gangs known as pandillas, says Dennis Rodgers, a University of Manchester anthropologist and mara expert. Rival gang members have been beheaded and burned – notably during prison riots – and bus-loads of civilians have been massacred to intimidate authorities and extort money from drivers. Suspected gang members dumped human heads in front of Guatemala's congress along with notes telling the government to halt a crackdown on organised crime."

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Lord Of The Flies with cocaine and Glocks

Honduras: 'We are burying kids all the time' | Maras | gangs | World news | The Guardian: "Honduras inter-gang clashes account for 40% of killings. Imagine Lord Of The Flies with cocaine and Glocks. Private security guards are estimated to account for 25%. These are poorly paid men – in some cases moonlighting police – who guard buses, liquor stores, supermarkets and other gang targets. In the crime-weary capital, shooting a suspect is more likely to earn applause than prosecution, so guards tend towards the trigger-happy.
Contract assassins – 'sicarios' – account for 15%. For just a few hundred dollars, sometimes less, they will pump bullets into your problem. Some are gang members, some are police. Targets range from wealthy businessmen who have crossed a colleague to drug-sniffing kids bothering a neighbourhood. The fundamental problem, Capellín says, is the state's inability to deter and investigate crime. 'There is total impunity.' Of the thousands of youth murders in the past decade, fewer than 50 had been solved.
From Mexico down to South America, senior politicians and police commanders say the maras are links in the narco-trafficking chain and must be eradicated. But critics argue that the heavy-handed deployment of police and soldiers is a strategy that has failed across the region. 'They talk about insecurity but tackle the symptoms and not the causes,' Capellín says. 'What about families' insecurity about food, health care, housing, work?'
'Gangs have become convenient scapegoats on which to blame the problems,' says Rodgers, 'and through which those in power attempt to maintain an unequal status quo.'"

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Mexico hunts 12-year-old drug gang hitman | World | News | Toronto Sun

Mexico hunts 12-year-old drug gang hitman | World | News | Toronto Sun: "Soldiers are hunting a 12-year-old suspected drug gang hitman accused of helping wage a gruesome turf war in central Mexico, a state prosecutor and Mexican media said Friday.
The boy, known only as “El Ponchis,” is believed to be working for the South Pacific cartel in Morelos state just outside Mexico City and is one of a group of young teenagers who have already committed “terrible acts,” Morelos State Prosecutor Pedro Luis Benitez told local radio.
“These minors are still not fully developed and so it is easy to influence them, to give them a gun, pretending it is plastic, that it is a game,” Benitez said.
Benitez did not name the boy or give more details but when asked directly about the teenage hitmen he said: “They’re persuaded to carry out terrible acts; they don’t realize what they are doing,” he added.
Mexican daily La Razon said the boy is being paid $3,000 for each murder and is under the command of a little-known drug lord who heads the South Pacific gang fighting the rival Beltran Leyva and La Familia cartels for control in southwestern Mexico.
Benitez said soldiers this week arrested a teenage boy and a pregnant teenage girl also believed to be working for the South Pacific cartel."

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Man arrested after guns discovered

The Press Association: Man arrested after guns discovered: "man is being questioned by gardai after two handguns and bullets were found on waste ground in Dublin.
Officers targeting they city's criminal gangs searched the open area in Charleville Mall, near the Royal Canal in the north inner city, on Wednesday afternoon.
They arrested a man in his early 20s as part of a follow-up operation in the North Strand area."

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Elborio Andrade, one of 11 defendants in an alleged gang fight that turned deadly

Man gets 5 years for violation of street gang act, affray: "Elborio Andrade, one of 11 defendants in an alleged gang fight that turned deadly, has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Hall County Superior Court Judge Jason Deal also sentenced the 22-year-old Gainesville man to 10 years probation for his involvement in the June 13 fight, District Attorney Lee Darragh said.
'He was charged with two offenses - affray and violation of the street gangs act,' Darragh said.
'He received 12 months (incarceration) on the affray charge and 15 years, with five to serve in incarceration for the street gang act violation. The sentences are to be run concurrently.'"

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13 reputed members of the South End-based Original Gangsta Killas gang

Exclusive: Pleas to put gang on ice - Times Union: "13 reputed members of the South End-based Original Gangsta Killas gang are set to plead guilty to charges in U.S. District Court within the next several weeks, federal court papers show.
The expected guilty pleas, once entered, would mark the second time in five years federal prosecutors in Albany have taken down a high-profile gang blamed for much of the city's gun violence.
Twenty-five members and associates of the gang -- known as 'OGK' -- were charged in a racketeering indictment in October 2009 alleging 14 shooting incidents, four robberies, a stabbing and drug trafficking in Albany between May 2001 and March 2009."

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Gangs battle for a slice of the lucrative drugs market (From The Bolton News)

Gangs battle for a slice of the lucrative drugs market (From The Bolton News): "SHOCKING picture of by Julian Thorpe violent crime and the drug underworld in Bolton has been uncovered in a new book about street gangs.
The novel, which is based on the author’s time in prison and interviews with gang members, reports gang activity at all levels, from fighting between “postcode gangs” across the borough to rival drug cartels battling for control of the lucrative Bolton market.
Writer Steve Hackman — not his real name — claims that CS gas sprays and guns are slowly replacing knives as the weapon of choice for the town’s criminals."

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