Public Enemy No.1

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Public Enemy No. 1 or PEN1 is a highly dangerous white supremacist gang based in Southern California that is heavily involved in narcotics, firearms, and identity theft.

The formation of the group was greatly influenced by the adolescent punk scene in Long Beach, California during the 1980s. However, by the 1990s, PEN1’s base of operations had been relocated to Orange County. There they began recruitment of many impressionable suburban adolescents. Now, the gang’s influence has spread throughout California and Arizona, with some members even residing in Idaho and Nevada.

From 2004, the gang’s membership has doubled to at least 400, although authorities suspect there could be hundreds of other personnel operating under the radar. PEN1’s recent increase in influence is mostly due to their newly formed alliance with the notorious Aryan Brotherhood, which has been the dominant white power gang behind bars for some time. For many years, the Nazi Lowriders have acted as AB’s foot soldiers on the outside. But in 2000, the Nazi Lowriders were officially labeled as a prison gang, which demands that their members be automatically placed in solitary confinement upon incarceration. This impaired the gang’s ability to interact with the Aryan Brotherhood significantly, and eventually resulted in PEN1 assuming their activities with the AB. This relationship became official when, in 2005, Donald Reed “Popeye” Mazza, an alleged leader of Public Enemy No. 1, was inducted into the Aryan Brotherhood.

Contents 1 Identity theft 2 Hostility towards law enforcement 3 See Also 4 External link

[edit] Identity theft

Besides more obvious, traditional rackets, the gang seems to specialize in identity theft. Most of this income, however, is allegedly used to help finance their various methamphetamine operations. Originally their methods in identity theft were nothing more than raiding mailboxes and trash receptacles for personal information. These eventually evolved into more elaborate tactics, such as planting moles inside of banks, mortgage companies and state motor vehicle departments in order to gain access to entire credit profiles. A movement of law enforcement officials to have their personal information removed from such intuitions has commenced, due to the possibility that such information could be used to identify the home addresses of police personnel and their families.

[edit] Hostility towards law enforcement

Unlike many racketeering associations, PEN1 does not shy away from targeting police for acts of violence. In 2007, police forces in Orange County arrested 67 alleged PEN1 members after learning of an extensive "hit list" that included five police officers and a gang prosecutor. Those arrested in the raid were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of illegal weapons and identity theft. Previous incidents with gangmembers have even resulted in firefights between police and Public Enemy No. 1 personnel.

[edit] See Also

• Aryan Brotherhood
• Nazi Lowriders
• Nazi skinhead
• Neo-Nazi groups of the United States
• Street gang
• White power
• White supremacy

[edit] External link

• White Supremacist Gang Gains Clout - from CBS News