Hide Article Text (OCR)
Four major motorcycle gangs linked to criminal activities. Senate panel toldWASHINGTON (AP) — Motorcycle gang members, depicted as brawling beer drinkers in the 1954 Marlon Brando movie “The Wild Ones,” have become highly organized criminal entrepreneurs, a congressional panel has bce$ told.Bikers are involved with traditional organized crime, divide the nation into territories with Florida as neutral turf and use profits from drugs and prostitution for legitimate businesses, according to law enforcement officials and two former outlaw gang chiefs.The witnesses say the outlaws use violence to keep order in their ranks; infiltrate their women into police departments as spies and force recruits to commit crimes.STATE AND LOCAL authorities are losing the battle against bikers, so federal officers should move in, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was told Tuesday.It is necessary for the federal authorities to recognize that these outlaw motorcycle gangs are organized crime,” said John Riley, district attorney of Delaware County, Pa.Federal legislation in this area is necessary and the help and cooperation of the federal authorities is the only solution if we are ever to solve this problem,” Riley said. The problem is too large for any city, borough, township, county or state.”Motorcycle gangs are involved with traditional organized crime families such as the Mafia,” Cpl. Terry Katz of the Maryland State Police said.Mass murdererGacy stabbedon death row(APwirephotoFormer members of the Pagan motorcycle gang, hidden behind a screen for safety, told a Senate investigations committee Tuesday of links between some large motorcycle gangs and organized crime. The men in front of the screen are guards.GANG MEMBERS . . . have all been reported to take contracts with traditional organized crime families for murders, assaults, strong-arm enforcement, loan shark collection and arson,” Katz testified.He said that the nation’s four largest motorcycle gangs operate in geographical territory much like the traditional organized crime families,” with the Hell’s Angels operating on the West Coast, the Ban-ditos in the South and Southwest, the Outlaws in the Central states and the Pagans on the East Coast.The so-called Big Four have a combined membership of 4,000 — more than traditional organized crime, Katz said.Testifying behind a screen that hid them from the public, two men told of their Pagan days in the early and mid-1970s, before they were convicted of federal crimes, became informers and entered the witness protection program.WILLIAM JACKSON — an assumed name — said his talent for leading attacks against rival gangs took himrapidly from the El Foresteros in Sioux City, Iowa, and the Breed in New Jersey to the Pagans to become simultaneously their national vice president, sergeant at arms and enforcer.The Pagans are a powerful and wealthy criminal organization,” said Jackson. There were killings ordered in my presence.,..William Costello, 38, said he joined the Pagans for their beer-drinking and love of street fights” and found more: fear, violence, illegal profits of the drug trade and a variety of other criminal activity.”A A^mAA
Newspaper Details
Lawrence Journal World
Lawrence, Kansas, US
Wed, Feb 16, 1983
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 04 Apr 2019
Other Publications Near Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence Journal World
Journal World
Lawrence Daily Gazette
Lawrence Daily Journal World
Lawrence Chieftain
