APNewsBreak: Kan. gang members charged under RI

By: BILL DRAPER | Associated Press
Published: May 11, 2012 Updated: May 11, 2012 - 1:49 PM

DODGE CITY, Kan. (AP) Federal prosecutors on Friday announced racketeering and other charges against a Kansas gang under a 1970 law originally designed to prosecute the Mafia.

The grand jury indictment against 23 suspected members of the Norteno gang in Dodge City accuses four of those men with murdering a man in June 2009 and attempting to murder at least three others. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the indictment after it was unsealed Friday but before its public release by prosecutors in Dodge City.

The gang is charged under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which allows prosecutors to charge individual members as part of a larger criminal organization. In recent years, the act has been used to prosecute human trafficking and gang cases, including charges in 2007 against 28 members of the Crips gang in Wichita which was the first time RICO was used against gangs in Kansas.

Prosecutors say the Nortenos created a climate of fear through violence and threats of violence to defend the gang's reputation and territory and promote its drug trafficking activities.

"This indictment sends a message," U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said in a news release before Friday's official announcement. "Dodge City residents shall not live in fear. Our streets are not a war zone. Gangs of armed men will not be permitted to prey on the weak or to exchange fire while the rest of us scramble for cover."

Grissom, who was in Dodge City to announce the charges, said the indictment is the result of a two-year investigation with the Dodge City Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The murder charges stem from the June 8, 2009, slaying of Israel Peralta, who was shot to death as he and his friends were sitting outside in a trailer park on the south side of Dodge City, Grissom said. Six counts accuse gang members of using weapons to rob Guatemalan immigrants in their homes.

"The indictment alleges members of the Nortenos preyed on Guatemalan immigrants who work in the beef packing plants in Dodge City," Grissom said. "It is well known among the Nortenos that many of the Guatemalan workers do not use banks and try to avoid contact with law enforcement officers. They are smaller in stature and they are unlikely to be armed."

Federal officials have long been keeping an eye on southwest Kansas, which has become a hub for drug trafficking in the Midwest because of its remote location and easy access to places like Denver, Kansas City and Oklahoma City.

The region also has seen a large Hispanic influx over the past few decades as workers found employment at meatpacking plants. According to a Drug Enforcement Administration report, drug traffickers and gangs also have immigrated to the region, where they are able to fly under the law enforcement radar.

"These Mexican traffickers are operating their trafficking networks by blending in with local residents and avoiding law enforcement scrutiny," the report said. "They often use meatpacking towns such as Dodge City, Great Bend, Garden City, and Liberal, Kansas; Joplin and Monett, Missouri; and Fremont, Grand Island, Lexington, and Norfolk, Nebraska, as transshipment hubs and secondary markets for drug distribution.

"Compounding this problem, local law enforcement officials often lack the ability to communicate fluently in Spanish and the resources necessary to penetrate these trafficking organizations."

APNewsBreak: Kan. gang members charged under RI | WSLS 10