Mar 14, 2007 9:35 am US/Pacific

LAPD Investigation Nets 31 Street Gang Arrests

(CBS) LOS ANGELES A 10-month investigation has netted 31 arrests, including leaders and associates of a gang that dealt in heroin in the downtown Los Angeles area, authorities announced Wednesday.

"Our target was the 5th and Hill criminal street gang," Los Angeles police Capt. Andrew Smith said. "With these arrests, we have cut off the gang's head. Local heroin addicts are finding it much harder to find someone to sell them
a balloon."

The investigation, which culminated last month, led to the arrests of a number of the gang's members and associates, including: Pedro Sanchez-Limon, the gang's "presumptive leader"; Alberto "El Morro" Blanco, the gang's transporter; Jamie Chacon Diaz, also known as "Archie," the gang's accountant; and Abel "Barbas" Flores, the gang's enforcer.

Detectives also arrested Lourdes Valdez and Ruth Segura, who allegedly processed and packaged heroin for the gang.

Sanchez-Limon and Diaz had been deported previously but re-entered the United States illegally. Blanco had been twice deported. All four gang leaders have long criminal histories dating back to the 1980s, police said.

During the investigation, police seized 10 firearms; $250,000 in cash; 85 pounds of tar heroin -- most of it packaged into 45,000 balloons ready for sale -- with an estimated street sale value of $1.5 million; three pounds of methamphetamine, and five pounds of cocaine.

The gang was formed in the 1970s from a group of day laborers and transients who began robbing pedestrians near 5th and Hill streets in downtown Los Angeles, police said.

The gang transitioned to heroin sales in the 1980s and has been the major supplier of heroin in Skid Row and the surrounding blocks since then, police said.


http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_073123859.html