The
Vagos Motorcycle Club, also known as the
Green Nation, is a
one percenter motorcycle gang that formed in 1965 in the unincorporated community of
San Bernardino, California.
[5][1] The club originally was called "the Psychos". The club's insignia is
Loki, the
Norse god of mischief, riding a motorcycle. Members typically wear green.
[7]
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.
California and federal authorities announced a $200,000 reward for information on these cases.
[21] California Attorney General
Jerry Brown called the attempts "urban terrorism."
[22] Riverside County
District Attorney Rod Pacheco
said that Vagos members posed an "extreme threat" to law enforcement
officers and were notorious for trying to "infiltrate" public safety
agencies, by obtaining sworn or non-sworn positions and working
undercover to obstruct and dismantle police investigations.
[3][23]
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]
References
