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Organized Crime

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By papershoe
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Since the early days of the group in the1960’s Hell’s Angels has been prominent throughout California with their leather-jacketed who got their reputation by terrorizing entire towns with their weapons of choice like lead pipes and bike chains. A simple gang has not been their true nature from early on. According to a Time Magazine article published in 1979, the Hell’s Angels had turned into a business conglomerate when it came to drugs and weapons smuggling. These illicit activities of the past have continued with not much change. They grew in infamy starting in San Francisco, when eighteen members were indicted on a series of charges. The gang was charged with the trafficking an extensive amount of illegal drugs to include heroin, cocaine, LSD and speed. The practices of the gang members protecting their share of this lucrative criminal market by murdering and threatening to commit murder of anyone that interfered with their business practices were also brought to light through these charges. The indictment was a result of a two year probe into the San Francisco charters. With the gang having charters all over the country let alone transnational charters it can only be imagined how far their illicit business extends.
Drug trafficking remains the primary source of illicit income for the Hells Angels to date. Along with the other illicit activities the group is involved in, such as prostitution, fraud and extortion. The Hells Angels are known to traffic numerous drugs, including LSD, PCP, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine (Abadinsky, 2007). While cocaine was once a big product for the group, they have changed with the drug market and now have been in control of the methamphetamine market in the United States for many years (Abadinsky, 2007). Due to the drug’s popularity across the nation the biker gang’s members are even known to transport the drug across the

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