Los Angeles and Aremenian Power
Organized crime has gained success first in the prohibition era and through gambling, drug trafficking, and other criminal ventures. Organized crime groups have infiltrated into legitimate businesses as well to gain the biggest profit in the fastest way possible. The Armenian Power is prevalent in the Los Angeles area participating in mostly white collar-crime. This organized crime group is involved with kidnapping, bank fraud, credit card theft, and numerous other technology criminal acts. This group has proven to be a powerful and dangerous group, stopping at nothing to reach the goal they set out to obtain.
Determine the group’s national and multination structure and operation methods, pertaining to the drug business. The organized crime group known as the Armenian Power or AP was “formed in the 1980s by Armenian immigrants and others from former Soviet-bloc countries as protections against other ethnic gangs in the neighborhood” (Kandel, 2011, para. 3). The AP crime organization began as a gang and still has gang affiliations that include individuals classified as Armenian Power Associates and not members. The criminal enterprise consists of approximately 200 members who include Armenian Americans, Armenian immigrants, Soviet-bloc immigrants, and Hispanic members. The AP’s list of criminal activities include; defrauding “patrons of 99 Cents Only stores out of millions of dollars (credit and debit card fraud), kidnapping, identity theft, mortgage fraud, gun violations, extortion, gambling, and drug trafficking” (Kandel, 2011, para. 6). The AP is known for technology crimes, but they also trafficked and distributed large amounts of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.
The Armenian Power is a legitimate business structure that owns several companies, including Hallandale Medical Associates Inc. and Family Chiropractic Center Inc. Both clinics defrauded health insurance companies by treating patients who staged accidents, and the insurance companies were bill for medical treatments unnecessary or not provided to the fake patients. Younger members of the AP who are American citizens operate the business structure under the radar and communicate activity to older members who still reside outside the United States. Technology is a huge part of how the AP gain wealth and stay under the radar when facilitating the Internet crimes and fraud operations. Kandel (2011) states:
The 99 Cents Store scam consisted of AP member recording account numbers from magnetic strips of credit and debit cards swiped into the keypads by patrons and used to create counterfeit cards to withdraw money from victims’ bank accounts. The organization made $2 million from this scheme; authorities allege (The Rise and fall of the Armenian Power Street Gang, para. 16).
The AP is such a powerful criminal organization that high ranking member, Arman Sharoperosian along with his co-defendant, Angus Brown was discovered operating a fraud scheme from prison. This is a criminal group that has power in numbers nationally and internationally, recently more than 100 members were arrested and indicted because of the FBI’s, Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force’s, and other law enforcement agencies’ undercover two-year sting operation, Operation Power Outage. Although some members are spending 30 years in prison, this criminal enterprise is still on the rise and will do anything to obtain power and wealth.
Analyze the relationship of the group to its past and to its current role in Prohibition, drug syndicates, political corruption, and other illicit activities.
Armenian Power was established in the Southern California area in the late 1980s. The teenagers and young men wreaking havoc on businesses were members of the Armenian Power, a new street gang in the heavily Armenian areas of East Hollywood and Glendale (Krikorian, 1997). The gang originated with 120 members with a history of murders, money laundering, bank fraud, kidnapping, distribution of drugs, and identity theft.
Armenian Power has strong ties to Russian organized crime, as organized crime in the Soviet Union was multi-ethnic and continues to be multi-ethnic in today's Russia (Lutton, 1996). The migration of Armenian immigrants to Southern California has established the largest population outside the Republic of Armenia. The power of the Armenian Power has strengthened with the alliances made within other organized crime groups, such as Colombian cocaine cartels and Sicilian Mafia. The experience of the Armenian Power expertise has been sophisticated criminal schemes, such as fuel and bank frauds. The latest scandal connected to the Armenian Power was financial scam in which credit-card machines were replaced in a dozen 99-Cent Only stores with a scanner that stole customers banking information and the smuggling of cell phones into state prisons. The RICO law was used to evoke 74 indictments with the help of 1,000 local, state, and federal law enforcement officials.
Include the group’s various business interests over time
The Armenian Organized crime group's various business interest consist of aggravated identity theft, bank fraud, credit card fraud, conducting an illegal gambling business, marijuana distribution, and kidnapping extortion. The Armenian Power organization agenda was not focused on conducting honest business that would be beneficial to themselves as well as the public, but merely making money by any means nessecesary. The organization was selfish and manipulating that prey on the innocent to gain as much wealth with different schemes available. "The financial fraud crimes committed on behalf of Armenian Power were highly sophisticated, targeting hundreds of victims and resulting in millions of dollars of actual and intended losses to banks and individual victims" (USFG, 2011). The cunningness of the organization would involve individuals that were closes to them, such as people in their own society to steal from.
If this type of behavior is shown toward their own people the Armenian Power are heartless individuals who could careless about who they hurt. “The indictments that target the Armenian Power organized crime enterprise provide a window into a group that appears willing to do anything and everything illegal to make a profit,” said The United States Attorney André Birotte Jr., (USFG, 2011). This proves that when a group of individuals get together on one accord for criminal acts there is no telling how far one will go to accomplish the goal. "Armenian Power, which is also known as AP-13, is closely allied with the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang that controls much of the narcotics distribution and other criminal activities within California correctional facilities" (USFG, 2011). The Armenian Organization would go a step farther to with other members for the same destruction. Some of the members have already been convicted and sent to jail or prison, but however still participate in criminal activities.
Conclusion
The Armenian Power enterprise remains on the rise. The Armenian Power formed to protect other ethnic gangs in neighborhoods but this organized crime group is no different when it concerns criminal ventures and what they will do to gain wealth and power. The Armenian Power is a strong and powerful organized crime group still in operation proving their goals of stopping at nothing to gain the wealth and power they desire.

References
Armenian Power Organized Crime Group targeted in federal indictments that allege offenses, including bank fraud schemes, kidnappings, and drug trafficking (2011). Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/losangeles/press-releases/2011/la021611.htm.
Blankstein, A. and Linthicum, K. (2011, February 17). Raids targeting Armenian gang net 74 fraud suspects. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/17/local/la-me-0217-armenian-gang-20110217
Lutton, Wayne. (1996, Summer). Russian Mafia Invades California. Retrieved from http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0604/article_580.shtml
Kandel, J. (2011). The Rise and fall of the Armenian Power Street Gang. Retrieved from http://araratmagazine.org/2011/09/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-armenian-power-street-gang/.
Krikorian, M. (1997, August 17). Violent Gang is a Stain of a Proud Ethnic Community. Retrieved from http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/13516701.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT