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Biker gang leaders indicted in U.S. state of Texas

Xinhua, January 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

Three leaders of the Bandidos, a national motorcycle club headquartered in Texas, were arrested and charged with racketeering, drug distribution and violent assaults spanning three years on rival biker gangs, according to a federal indictment on Wednesday.

The arrests followed an investigation of a fatal May shootout involving rival Cossacks gang members and nearby police that left nine people dead at a restaurant in Waco, a city in central Texas, according to the indictment handed down by the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Antonio, a city in southern Texas.

According to local TV station ABC13, John Portillo, national vice president of the Bandidos, is accused of cyphering club dues and donations to pay legal fees of biker members within days of the fatal shooting.

Portillo, the gang's national president Jeffrey Pike, and national sergeant-at-arms Justin Cole Forster, have also been charged with multiple crimes, including racketeering and distribution of illegal drugs.

The arrests have delt a significant blow to the Bandidos' criminal enterprise, said U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin in a prepared statement following the arrests.

The mass killings in May were not the first time the Bandidos have had done, and the indictment also pointed to other assaults involving deadly weapons, including a December 2014 clash between the Bandidos and a member of a rival biker gang, who was shot dead at a bar in Fort Worth, a city in northern Texas.

The indictment also accused the Bandidos of harassment and assaults against bikers from other motorcycle gangs throughout the state as part of a "war" declared in 2013 by Portillo.

The indictment outlined coordinated efforts between the Texas Bandidos and the club's members between spring and fall of last year in the U.S. state of New Mexico, including an attempt by three New Mexico members to supply guns and ammunition to arm the Texas branch to confront Cossacks members.

The Bandidos, which first gained notoriety in Texas during the 1960s, has about 2,000 members who "do not fear authority and have a complete disdain for the rules of society," according to the indictment.

They are also alleged by prosecutors to have instituted a tax scheme after amassing money and territory over the years through the use of extortion and intimidation of other motorcycle gangs and by drug distribution and sales. Endi