Joint investigation into San Bernardino street gang nets 180 arrests, firearms, drugs

Tentacles of operation allegedly reached into Los Angeles and Orange counties

A yearlong investigation into a San Bernardino street gang’s criminal activity has netted 180 arrests, shuttered 30 illegal gambling operations and resulted in the seizure of more than 100 assault weapons and handguns, authorities announced Thursday.

San Bernardino police last year began investigating illegal firearms sales involving Westside Verdugo, a Latino street gang rooted in the city for roughly 70 years.

But early on in the investigation, police realized they were dealing with something much bigger than just illicit gun sales, Police Chief David Green said during a news conference Thursday at the San Bernardino Police Department, where dozens of assault weapons and handguns seized by police during the investigation were spread across a table. Also on display was a large electronic gambling machine.

“As they started doing more analysis on these cases, they were recognizing it was a little more coordinated and a little more significant than what they initially realized, and that’s when they started pursuing it as more of a conspiracy type of investigation,” Green said. The investigation and subsequent arrests extended into Orange and Los Angeles counties, he said.

Several agencies enlisted

In June, the investigation ramped up when the San Bernardino Police Department asked the state attorney general’s Special Operations Unit to join in. The Santa Ana Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol also assisted in the investigation, which culminated Wednesday when officers fanned out across San Bernardino County, serving 34 search warrants, arresting 31 people and seizing 111 firearms at multiple locations.

During the course of the investigation, coined “Operation Westside Jenga,” police seized 92 handguns, 19 assault weapons, more than $295,000 in cash and hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin and fentanyl. Several potential shootings and armed robberies were thwarted, and evidence collected by investigators during the investigation assisted in the closure of two homicide cases, police said.

Additionally, investigators infiltrated and shut down 30 illegal gambling operations and seized more than 100 high-end gambling machines. The facilities were linked to five homicides, four attempted murders and other crimes in 2021, authorities said.

Gambling operations

The gambling operations — which housed high-end gambling machines, most of them acquired on the black market and imported from China — were bringing in tens of thousands of dollars a week and were operated out of private residences, warehouses and closed businesses, Green said.

He said the gambling facilities were a joint-enterprise between Westside Verdugo and the Mexican Mafia, the patriarchal prison gang that receives a share of profits from drug sales and other illicit business carried out by Westside Verdugo and other Latino street gangs in the form of “taxes.” Some of that revenue was reinvested into the gambling operations.

“It has a hierarchy. It has its own business model. It’s an illicit business model, but it’s one that’s very lucrative nonetheless,” Green said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the people of San Bernardino “can go to bed tonight knowing their community is safer.”

“We’re putting serious criminals behind bars,” Bonta said, adding that he was proud of the results of the investigation not only as attorney general, but also as a father. “Every child in California deserves to grow up in a safe neighborhood — a neighborhood that is free from violence, a neighborhood without gun violence.”

Feds not involved

Green said authorities opted to handle the prosecution locally without the help of the federal government, which often takes down such large criminal enterprises using the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, referred to as the RICO Act.

“We’re not pursuing a federal prosecution in this case because we have the local District Attorney’s Office that we feel is going to be able to give us a successful prosecutorial outcome,” Green said. “But these types of cases are often handled by federal prosecutors under that RICO statute.”

San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson said his office has so far charged 45 defendants with various felony offenses, which include a total of 57 firearm enhancements and 41 gang enhancements. Six of the defendants are facing third strikes, Anderson said.

“Our role is twofold in this particular instance. Number one is we are going to punish these individuals as severely as we possibly can, and number two, we’re going to separate them from an otherwise law-abiding community for as long as we can,” Anderson said.

More criminal charges are expected, authorities said.

“Many of these cases are still under review, and we are expecting many more charges to be filed,” Green said. “Some of them will be tried jointly, and some of them will be parsed out separately.”