Boss was a member of the Vietnam Vets MC when 9/11 hit. He worked at the New York site as a clean-up construction boss, then became a Vago.
AS THE CLUB SETTLED IN, ITS PAST CONTINUED to haunt the members. The wild times were still fresh on the authorities’ devious, budget-conscious minds. Even so, club members never lost confidence as they roared into the new millennium aboard faster, more reliable choppers. The outlaw clubs were refined from pure motorcycle maniacs on choppers to organized, experienced, and legally savvy groups of hard-riding patriots, searching for freedom, brotherhood, and a rough-and-tumble reputation. Competitive growth became a factor not only in southern California, but internationally as club charters began to expand around the globe.
The Vagos were as interested in expansion as any other club, but only if that expansion didn’t come at the expense of others. “I wanted to build the largest club in the world without hurting anyone,” Terry said.
Crime became less a lifestyle and more about choice. Terry chose not to pursue that avenue.
There was also a growing, strident, individual survival aspect. Crime became less a lifestyle and more about choice. Terry chose not to pursue that avenue, but if crime wasn’t a vocation for the club, something had to pay the bills. Real jobs, bike shop ownership, various entrepreneurial efforts, product lines, and sales of club paraphernalia became ways to generate income. Club events were another solid source of income in addition to chapter expansion.
Clubs like the Hells Angels expanded into Europe. Initially, the sense of expansion was competitive, even progressive and sexy, but the actual process was daunting. Different states countered with diverse law enforcement practices and techniques, and the states themselves had different outlaw styles. Club guys in Southern California and Detroit were two different breeds, and so were the cops. Clubs in Canada and in Europe used explosives and rocket launchers, not fists, guns, and knives.
Terry began to travel to Hawaii each year to take breaks from the harried day-to-day blitz of troubleshooting, dodging legal arrows in Southern California, negotiating the treacherous waters of intra-and interclub politics, and generally surviving the West Coast hub of club rivalries and tensions. After a couple of years of building relationships with club guys on the islands, Steve Vandal from the Jokers MC approached Terry about initiating a Vago chapter on Maui. Terry instructed Steve in what he believed was the correct manner to establish a chapter. Steve was directed to approach the council of island clubs for consent.
“I didn’t want to step into any area and take over,” Terry said. “We wanted the respect of the other clubs. We wouldn’t back down to anyone, but we would be straight-up about our intentions.”
He also asked Steve to fly to California and attend a Confederation of Clubs meeting.
“We didn’t want to be a bully club,” Terry said, “We also attempted to deal with our own when a member ran into a problem. We tried not to drag the club into personal business.”
In each case, the snitch told the authorities as much bullshit as he did club members.
As the club grew with chapters in Bakersfield, Hemet, Hawaii, Utah, and Nomads in Japan, the authorities couldn’t get over the past, and they sought out snitches to infiltrate the club wherever possible. In 1997, informants tipped authorities off to plans from inside the 200-member Vagos club’s growing ranks. Because the enforcement world couldn’t arrest a club for growing, they needed to demonstrate expanding operations into criminal activities throughout the southwestern U.S. They made every charge appear as devastating as possible.
In October 1998, federal and state agents arrested thirteen members in San Fernando Valley, Las Vegas, and San Diego. They were charged with various crimes, including possessing stolen explosives, illegal firearms, and large amounts of methamphetamine and the ingredients to cook it. All arrests were coupled to snitches and agent infiltrators.
In each case the snitch told the authorities as much bullshit as he did club members. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms spearheaded arrests from the two-year investigation. In addition to the October 28 bust, in May five more Vagos members were charged with robbery, kidnapping, drug possession, and weapons offenses, according to ATF Special Agent John D’Angelo.
“It was another nothing bust,” Terry said. “They busted Vinnie for selling a couple of muscle relaxers to an agent.”
“The explosives—about forty pounds of commercial blasting agents believed stolen from a construction site in the Imperial Valley—were found hidden in a house just outside of San Diego,” D’Angelo said. “About sixty machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and rifles were also found in the house.”
According to D’Angelo, three men in the house also had in their possession about five pounds of methamphetamine and 100 pounds of ingredients used to make the drug, sold to them by undercover federal agents. They were charged with a variety of drug and weapons crimes.
More members from San Fernando, Reseda, and Northridge were charged with illegally possessing firearms. ATF agents went as far as charging members in Las Vegas with kidnapping, torture, extortion, and racketeering. And the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles planned additional weapons-related arrests in the San Fernando Valley.
“Cops are generally weak,” Terry said, “or their applications point out inconsistencies in their stories.”
“The scope and nature of the charges and the gun seizures speak volumes about the nature of the gang,” said ATF Special Agent Richard Carr. “Hopefully, our work will have a lasting and debilitating effect on them.”
D’Angelo said it was unclear what plans the gang had for the explosives and weapons in San Diego.
“It’s not uncommon with these types of organizations where they find they need to arm themselves in such a way for protection,” he said.
Into that atmosphere jumped three undercover federal agents whose mission was to document crimes committed by Vagos gang members in the Los Angeles area.
Posing as hang-arounds, the agents became prospective members. The agents were required to join members at parties and meetings, while they hoped to become initiated into the club. As part of the initiation, they had to purchase beer, work as bodyguards at parties, and guard members’ motorcycles while they met with members from other states.
Two agents were eventually turned down for membership after they filled out their applications, which were carefully scrutinized. The club was learning. Security checks were handled through a private investigator.
“Cops are generally weak,” Terry said, “or their applications point out inconsistencies in their stories.”
According to D’Angelo, the Vagos did not feel comfortable with informants, but didn’t elaborate any further. He said that the members were very organized about backgrounding people and that the ATF had pulled the agents out for their own safety.
Terry traveled to Hawaii annually and oversaw new chapters expanding onto the islands. This photo was taken during the 2000 Tramp Birthday dinner. Big C, left, Steve, Sockatese, and Story Teller.
One agent did become a member. “He only lasted a minute,” Terry said. “There’s a world of difference between a prospect and a member.”
The law enforcement heat was turned on high as authorities suspected the worst from the spreading Vagos organization, led by Terry the Tramp. The paranoid government stepped up efforts to bust anything green that moved.
The old adage, “If you do the crime, ya gotta be prepared to do the time,” surfaced over and over. But some riders weren’t prepared to do the time. In August 2001, a law enforcement task force raided Vago homes and businesses in the Antelope and San Fernando Valleys, arresting twenty-three suspects in an alleged methamphetamine ring. The Los Angeles Times reported that the group had links to white supremacy groups and Mexican drug suppliers.
The army of more than 200 officers and agents from the FBI, Los Angeles Sheriffs, Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department of Corrections, and the Los Angeles Police hit 21 sites in Lancaster, Leona Valley, Chatsworth, and Palmdale at 4:00 a.m.
A predawn raid culminated the eighteen-month Operation Silent Thunder operation, targeting Antelope Valley methamphetamine cookers and dealers. The sweep operation netted 293 arrests and scored $500,000 in cash and more than forty-five pounds of meth with an estimated street value of $2 million.
During those hot summer raids, officers confiscated 125 weapons, including a grenade launcher, AK-47 assault rifles, semiautomatic rifles with bayonets, and explosives. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, motorized water skis, knives with Nazi emblems, and other Nazi paraphernalia were seized.
The cops made a big deal of the score on national television during a news conference, where Sheriff Lee Baca displayed the weapons cache. He proudly pointed out that his operation dismantled a meth network extending throughout the western United States.
The army of more than 200 officers and agents from the FBI, Los Angeles Sheriffs, Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department of Corrections, and the Los Angeles Police hit twenty-one sites in Lancaster, Leona Valley, Chatsworth, and Palmdale at 4:00 a.m.
“The high desert should not be a place where known criminals can come and think they can prosper,” Baca said.
Officials said the purity of the seized methamphetamine ranged from 83 percent to 97 percent, powerful portions of the highly addictive drug. The operation also shut down sixteen meth labs, sheriff’s officials said. Reports published in the newspaper consisted predominately of bullshit assertions and allegations.
“They are career criminals, including many associated with organizations practicing white supremacist ideologies,” said Margarita Velazquez, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman.
Of the 293 suspects arrested during the entire investigation, authorities said 233 had criminal records. Nearly 200 were on parole or probation, including one man on probation for attempted murder, and seventy-two were members of white supremacist groups, Baca claimed.
As usual, the costly commando operation netted few convictions, but it did turn two Hemet chapter Vagos into snitches. One member busted with the forty-five pounds of meth turned, and would return to haunt the club through another law enforcement operation. Another member, Big Roy, was busted for selling a gun as a felon.
“His attorney recommended that he take the plea,” said Terry. “He took the deal, went to jail, then they discovered the weapon was actually a paint gun. Too late.”
The new millennium meant enhanced drug enforcement, with new laws, new threats, and higher police budgets. With club expansion came heightened enforcement and less control for Terry. It was one thing to be the boss of a handful of charters around Southern California, but charters around the globe were not as malleable. Paranoid law enforcement ran out of control, and another evil spirit loomed. Greed within the club festered like infected road rash on an injured elbow. Terry’s toughest decade was yet to come.
