The Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the California Attorney General have named the Vagos as an outlaw motorcycle club, claiming that they are involved in criminal activities such as producing, transporting and distributing methamphetamine and marijuana, as well as assault, extortion, insurance fraud, money laundering, murder, vehicle theft, witness intimidation and weapons violations.[8] The Vagos have approximately 4,000 members among 47 chapters located in the states of Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Missouri, Several Canadian chapters Peterborough, Ontario,Chapters throughout Europe and ten chapters located in Mexico (Baja California, Jalisco and Mexico City).[3][9] Two hundred members are in Inland Empire (California), where the club was started in the late 1960s.[3][10]
In 2013, the Vagos expanded to Sweden and Australia.
In 2002, members of the Vagos turned in the estranged wife of a Pomona, California police detective after she attempted to hire a hit man from the Vagos to kill her husband.[11]
History
During World War II, many military service men rode motorcycles and grew attached to them, and could not leave them after the war. The motorcycle enthusiasts formed clubs around the time hot rods were in style. In 1948, the Hells Angels formed a motorcycle club; their first chapter was in Fontana, California. They shared the streets with another motorcycle club named the Psychos. In 1965, a feud occurred among a few Hispanic members of the Psychos; they left the group and created their own club, which is now known as Vagos MC. Their colors pay homage to their founders' Mexican heritage. The club expanded to the Riverside, California and the California high desert areas, and later to Mexico, and also Europe.[12]A member from the Berdoo chapter (slang for San Bernardino) created a patch while he was in prison. It was Loki, the Norse god of mischief. Vagos is Spanish for "traveling Gypsy", or a streetwise person always up to something. Their denim jackets sport their top rockers with their club name integrated into the middle patch,[13] and bottom rockers with their chapter's region or state, as with "SO. CAL",[13] "California", or "Arizona".[14] The middle patch "depicts a muscle-bound caricature of the Norse god of mischief, Loki, set against a green field".[14] Loki is colored red on top of a bike with his hands holding up their club name.[15] One patch the club wears is the number 22 which stands for the 22nd letter of the alphabet, V, standing for Vagos.[clarification needed] They also wear two different patches which are a Loki head (do not confuse Loki Head with Loki on the back, two entirely different patches) and a MF patch they are like badges they wear on the front along with a 22 Patch.The MF patch means Motherfucker it is said they receive it by doing something in defense for the Club, as does the Loki head[12]
Membership
Vagos Membership primarily consists of Caucasian and Hispanic males.[12][16]Official Chapters
The Vagos have Chapters all throughout Southern California. They have Chapters in the High Desert (California),[3]Inland Empire (California) which includes both Riverside County, California and San Bernardino County, California where they Started, Los Angeles and San Diego.[17] They also have chapters in the states of Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah as well as the country of Mexico,[18] the continent of Europe.[2] and Australia.Vagos MC criminal allegations and incidents
Members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club have been convicted of involvements in criminal acts, some of them very serious, and regularly face allegations of more.Hemet Traps
On March 17, 2010, amid allegations that Vagos members had fabricated home-made booby traps to maim and kill police detectives in Hemet, California,[19] police arrested at least 30 Vagos members in a multi-state raid Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California, involving 400 police officers from 60 law enforcement agencies. The police raided 73 locations in Southern California, seizing weapons and drugs, and discovered a meth lab.[3][20] The raids were the result of several incidents involving booby traps where the club was implicated as responsible:- On December 31, 2009, the unmarked headquarters of the Hemet Gang Task Force was filled with natural gas, which had been routed into the building through a hole drilled in the roof. Two task force members had detected the gas and backed away without triggering the explosion. The day before that attack, a Vagos funeral was held at a church next to the office.
- On February 23, 2010, a task force member opened a security gate outside the building, causing a homemade zip gun attached to the gate to fire, nearly hitting his head.
- On March 5, a task force member who had parked an unmarked police car in front of a convenience store in Hemet found a homemade pipe bomb hidden underneath the vehicle.
In March 2011, the club sued Riverside County law enforcement for defamation and damages caused by implicating the group to the attacks on the Hemet police officers.[24] On August 1, Riverside County settled the lawsuit, and cleared the club of any involvement with the attacks on the officers. Meanwhile, they had arrested two men that had no ties to the club. The club's attorney, Joseph Yanny, stated he was pleased with the result: "This was never about money. What was important was that the club clear its name and take this shadow off them."[25][26]
Nugget Casino Shooting
On September 23, 2011, Vagos members were involved in a shooting at John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks, Nevada, where Jeffrey Pettigrew, the president of the San Jose, California chapter of Hells Angels was killed, and Vagos members were wounded. The next day, a Vagos member was wounded at a rally from a drive-by shooting. On September 29, police later arrested Ernesto Manuel Gonzales, a Vagos member, at University of California San Francisco, for killing Pettigrew.[27][28] On December 7, police announced they arrested Gary Rudnick, the vice-president of the Los Angeles chapter of Vagos, since he had instigated the fight that led to the shooting.[29] Rudnick later pleaded guilty to second degree murder in a bargaining agreement.[30] The trial for the two Vagos members, as well as a Hells Angels member who fired at a crowd, was held on October 29, 2012.[31]Other incidents
In 1974, four Vagos members were convicted and sentenced to death for murdering University of New Mexico student William Velten. The four, Richard Greer, Ronald Keine, Clarence Smith and Thomas Gladish, spent 17 months on death row, but during the appeals process, Kerry Rodney Lee confessed to the murder.[32]In October 1998, police arrested more than a dozen Vagos members for kidnapping, drug and weapons crimes, following a two-year undercover investigation. In September 2004, state police arrested 26 members and seized more than $125,000 in cash, drugs and guns. On March 9, 2006, law enforcement conducted "Operation 22 Green", which involved 700 personnel from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police and sheriff's departments. The operation resulted in the arrest of 25 Vagos members and associates for violating firearms and drugs policies. It was "one of the largest coordinated law enforcement probes ever conducted in Southern California". The investigators seized 95 illegal firearms, illegal drugs, $6,000 cash, and two stolen motorcycles.[33] An ATF agent called the group a “ruthless criminal bike gang” that deals in “guns, drugs, and death.”[20]
In December 2007, police arrested six Vagos members for "charges of first-degree burglary, second-degree robbery, coercion and second-degree kidnapping" that occurred in August 2007. The victim had announced he was leaving the club, but suffered a beating at the Custom Motorcycle auto shop in Grants Pass, Oregon, and was then taken to his home where he was robbed.[34] In February 2010, the ex-president of the chapter involved was acquitted of all charges relating to robbery assault and kidnapping.[citation needed]
Three Vagos members were arrested on June 9 and 10, 2009, and charged with sexually assaulting a woman in San Jose, California.[35] Police investigators told the San Jose Mercury News that the victim met the three men in a nightclub on May 4, 2009, and that they had offered to drive her home, but instead they took her to the Vagos clubhouse on Kings Row where she was beaten and sexually assaulted.[36][37]
On August 13, 2011 law enforcement authorities reported that the Vagos Motorcycle Club and the Galloping Goose Motorcycle Club were involved in a shootout which shut down traffic on I-44 near Lebanon, Missouri. The local 911 Center received about 20 calls, which reported that approximately 20 men were fighting, and that shots had been fired.[38]
Yanny said San Bernardino County was following a similar course, but did not say a lawsuit was planned.
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