Alleged Gang Members Arrested

Twenty-three members of the Black Dragons, a San Gabriel Valley street gang, have been arrested on suspicion of murder, solicitation of murder and a variety of other charges, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Friday.

Among those taken into custody Thursday were Khoanh A. Lam, 36, the alleged leader of the gang; Minh Trang Tran, 50; and Cham Hoang, 21, said May Chung, a prosecutor in the district attorney’s Asian Gangs Unit.

The three are charged in connection with attacks on two people in September 2001.

In addition, Hoang and three other men arrested Thursday -- Tony Phoutthachak, 19; Johnson Le, 20; and Danny Ng, 19 -- are charged in connection with the stabbing death of a man in December and assault with a firearm and attempts to dissuade a witness in January.

Most of the others arrested were booked on parole and probation violations, Chung said. The arrests were made by a task force of FBI agents, state parole agents and police from more than a dozen local communities.

Police said the gang has been operating in the west San Gabriel Valley for almost 20 years. They said the gang’s crimes have included extortion, home-invasion robberies, auto theft, prostitution and commercial burglaries.

According to police and probation officers, the early members of the Black Dragons, many of them ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, came to this country as teenagers in the late 1970s. The youths, many from impoverished families, coalesced into an organized gang by the mid-1980s, expanding to include members of other Asian ethnic groups, officials said.