Tongan Crip Gang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tongan Crip Gang
Founding locationInglewood, California, United States
Years active1970s–present
TerritoryUnited States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Pacific islands
EthnicityPrimarily Tongan, with Samoan and Fijian with a small percentage of African American, Asian and white Australian and New Zealand members
Criminal activitiesDrug trafficking, robbery, extortion, murder, burglary, identification theft, car theft
AlliesSons of Samoa
RivalsBloods, Sureños, Avenue Piru Gang, Kearns Town Bloods, Baby Regulators,[1] Park Village Compton Crips,[1] Carver Park Crips

The Tongan Crip Gang, or West Side 102st Tonga Crip Gang, is a street gang that is a subset of the Crips gang. The gang is active in the U.S. states of California, Utah and others, as well as a presence in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Tongan Crip Gang members are primarily of Pacific Islander descent, mainly Tongan.

History[]

The Tongan Crip Gang was born in the City of Inglewood, California during the 1970s and 1980s, many Pacific Islanders moved into the high crime-rate areas in Los Angeles County, California. There, Samoan and Tongan Americans formed their own gangs during the 1970s. Many of the Tongan Crip Gang members moved from California to the Salt Lake City, Utah area in the 1980s, and distributed the gang set there.[2][3]

The Salt Lake City branch of the Tongan Crip Gang was founded in 1989 after intimidation by Latino gang members in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Glendale.[4]


Criminal activities[]

The Tongan Crip Gang's crimes include burglaries, auto theft, selling drugs, home invasions, credit card fraud, bank fraud, federal fraud (theft of federal documents, passports, driver's licenses), witness intimidation, insurance fraud, arson, sex trafficking of minors, impersonation of both state police and federal agents, prostitution, hacking, child pornography, kidnapping, extortion by means of threat to reveal information about the private life of an individual, crimes against the elderly, crimes against Central American Communities and individuals associated with the MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha Gang), crimes against the disabled, mail fraud and murder.

In 2007, members of the Tongan Crip Gang and the 18 Street Gang were indicted by a federal grand jury for criminal conspiracy in a plot to murder 33 members of a Los Angeles subset of MS-13.[1]

See also[]

  • Gangs in Los Angeles
  • Gangs in Australia
  • Gangs in New Zealand

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Sullivan, Tim. "The Gangs of Zion", High Country News, August 8, 2005.
  2. ^ Court shooting sheds light on 'Tongan Crips', a gang with Alaska ties Archived 2014-04-25 at the Wayback Machine, Associated Press, April 23, 2014.
  3. ^ Court shooting sheds light on 'Tongan Crips' In the 1990s the Tongan Crips began using techniques of hacking and was successfully able to infiltrate the CCTV Public Security Survaillance network in the United States and in the early 2000s the crime group was able to hack into the Smart TV Internet Network and as a result, the group split into two factions and joining with other organized gangs from the Los Angeles area formed the LAX Syndicate. The LAX Syndicate has focused on crimes of extortion, bank fraud and streamed lined live videos of tourists in their rooms violating both state and federal laws of privacy.Archived 2014-04-26 at the Wayback Machine, Associated Press, April 23, 2014.
  4. ^ "The Gangs of Zion". hcn.org. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
Retrieved from ""