The Iron Horsemen Motorcycle Club is an outlaw motorcycle club that was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio in the mid 1960's.[6] The club now also has chapters in New Jersey, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine and Maryland. Their insignia is a winged horse's head and their motto is "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if it weren’t for the Iron Horsemen, the highways would rust".[7] Law enforcement classify them an "Outlaw Motorcycle Gang".[8]
There is also another club in Australia which uses the same name. This club was founded in Melbourne in 1969.[9]
[edit] Publicized crimes
Police arrested three Iron Horsemen for beating a man to death and assaulting another on April 20, 1997. The attacks took place on two different occasions at bars in Leonardtown, Maryland.[10]
Two members of the Iron Horsemen were sentenced to five years in prison, and another three were given sixteen years in total on June 26, 2008 for drug dealing. They sold methamphetamine and speed in the Western District of Kentucky between December 2003 and December 2005, and distributed between 50 and 200 grams each. Both the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were involved in the case.[11]
On May 19, 2009, fifteen Iron Horsemen, including a State President, were convicted of drug trafficking at the District Court in Portland, Maine.[12] They smuggled cocaine and marijuana, which they obtained from drug cartels in Mexico, to Atlanta, Georgia and then Haverhill, Massachusetts before trafficking it to Maine where they distributed it throughout the state. The ring operated from 2004 until December 2007.[13] The Drug Enforcement Agency and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigated the club for over a year and carried out the final raids on March 12, 2008.[14] During these raids, they arrested a total of 29 people and seized 10 kilos of cocaine, 600 pounds of marijuana, AK-47s, AR-15s, handguns and $37,000 in cash. The case was known as "Operation Trojan Horse".[15]
[edit] References
