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Public Enemy No. 1

In	Long Beach, California, United States
Years active	1980's-present
Territory	California, Arizona, Idaho and Nevada
Ethnicity	White
Criminal activities	Drug trafficking, arms trafficking, identity theft, murder and dog fighting
Allies	Aryan Brotherhood, Ku Klux Klan, Nazi Lowriders, Mexican Mafia, and Armenian Power
Rivals	Bloods, Crips, Los Angeles crime family, Norteños, Nuestra Familia, Mara Salvatrucha, Russian Mafia, Friends Stand United, Los Zetas, Muslim Brotherhood and Israeli mafia

Public Enemy No. 1 or PEN1 is a white supremacist gang based in Southern California whose members have been convicted of crimes including illegal production of methamphetamines, firearms trafficking, identity theft, murder, and dog fighting.

The gang started as "Peni Death Squad (PDS),a punk gang in the 1980's, the name being derived from the band, 'Rudimentary Peni'. Originally, PDS held no white supremacist views, and were mainly a loose-knit group of runaways and homeless kids. This name would later be hijacked from members that ended up in prison, and possibly needed some kind of affiliation to a gang. Other punk gangs, including La Mirada punks, Vicious Circle, L.A. Death Squad (LADS), and Bakersfield Zero-Core, were other examples of Southern California punk gangs. These groups were typically misfit counter-culture teenagers deemed not part of mainstream society.

The formation of the group was greatly influenced possibly by some former members turned white power skinhead scene in Long Beach, California during the 1980s. However, by the 1990s, PEN1’s base of operations had been relocated to Orange County where they began recruiting suburban adolescents. By the 2000s, the gang’s influence has spread throughout California and Arizona, with some members in Idaho and Nevada. They are affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood and the Ku Klux Klan. Their allies are the Nazi Lowriders, and Armenian Power. Their main rivals are the Italian-American Mafia, the Bloods, the Crips, the Los Angeles crime family, Norteños, Nuestra Familia, Mara Salvatrucha, the Russian Mafia, Friends Stand United, Los Zetas, Muslim Brotherhood and the Israeli mafia.

Contents 1 Identity theft 2 Hostility towards law enforcement 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] Identity theft

PEN1 seems to specialize in identity theft, not a crime usually associated with gangs, although most of the income from this is allegedly used to finance methamphetamine operations. Originally their methods were raiding mailboxes and trash cans for personal information, but the gang later used contacts inside of banks, mortgage companies and state motor vehicle departments in order to gain access to credit profiles. This has led to law enforcement officials requesting that their personal information be removed so that it can't be used by gang members to identify home addresses of police officers.

[edit] Hostility towards law enforcement

In 2007, police forces in Orange County arrested 67 alleged PEN1 members after learning of an extensive "hit list" that included five police officers and a gang prosecutor. Those arrested in the raid were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of illegal weapons and identity theft.

[edit] See also

• Aryan Brotherhood
• Nazi Lowriders
• Neo-Nazi groups of the United States
• Street gang
• White power
• White power skinhead
• White supremacy
• Ku Klux Klan

[edit] External links

• White Power With a Lisp - from OC Weekly
• White Supremacist Gang Gains Clout - from CBS News
• Anti-Defamation League - Public Enemy No.1
• California Department of Justice - Organized Crime in California 2004 Annual Report