Tongan Crip Gang
Tongan Crip Gang, TCG 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.
| Founding location | Inglewood, California, United States |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1970s–present |
| Territory | United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Pacific islands |
| Ethnicity | Primarily Tongan, with Samoan and Fijian with a small percentage of African American, Asian and white Australian and New Zealand members |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, murder, burglary, identification theft, car theft |
| Allies | Sons of Samoa |
| Rivals | Bloods, Sureños, Avenue Piru Gang, Kearns Town Bloods, Baby Regulators,[1] Park Village Compton Crips,[1] Carver Park Crips |
History
The TCG 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 TCG 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]
In the early 2000s the TCG joined forces with the 18 Street Gang, a Latin gang from the Pico Union District of Los Angeles to fight a rival gang, MS-13, a Central American gang formed in the United States after the Central American Revolution for territory held in the MacArthur's Park area of Los Angeles.
With the increasing number of deportees in Tonga over the years there are several sets appearing all over the Island Kingdom eg. TCG, Park village crips,14 South Auckland crips and many other crip sets as well as Blood gangs such as Inglewood Family Bloods, Westside piru and Biker gangs such as Mongrel mob and Black power. The gangs presence seen everywhere in markings as they claim their territory so one must beware of certain neighborhoods.
Criminal activities
The TCG's crimes include burglaries, auto theft, selling drugs, home invasions, credit card fraud, bank fraud, federal fraud (theft of Federal Documents, Passports, Driver's License), 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 TCG 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]
References
- Sullivan, Tim. "The Gangs of Zion", High Country News, August 8, 2005.
- 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.
- 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.
- "The Gangs of Zion". hcn.org. Retrieved 11 October 2015.