Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jul 2003
Source: Daily News-Record, The (VA)
Copyright: 2003 The Daily News-Record
Contact:  http://www.dnronline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1519
Author: Wendy Pagonis
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?188 (Outlaw Bikers)

26 ARRESTED ON DRUG, WEAPON CHARGES

Motorcycle Club Members Targeted After Six-State Raid

WOODSTOCK -- Federal, state and local agents arrested 26 people in the
Shenandoah Valley on drugs and weapons charges Thursday, all either
members or associates of the Florida-based Warlocks Motorcycle Club,
according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of
Virginia.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives agency said officers arrested a total of 34
people and conducted 47 searches during early-morning raids Thursday
in six Eastern states. Originating in Shenandoah County, the two-year
investigation crept into West Virginia, New York, Maryland, South
Carolina and Florida.

Three men believed to be the presidents of the Warlocks chapters in
Charlottesville, Shenandoah County and Martinsburg, W.Va., were among
those arrested.

The national case stemmed from arrests in April 2000 during a separate
drug-trafficking case in Shenandoah and Warren counties.

Agents with the Northwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force discovered
from those arrests that members of the Warlocks club were trafficking
methamphetamine and cocaine throughout the northern Shenandoah Valley.
The ATF and U.S. Department of Justice also worked to build a case
against members of the Warlocks and the Hell's Angels gang.

"We tried for months to figure out how to move into this group," said
Capt. Timothy C. Carter, chief deputy of the Shenandoah County
Sheriff's Office. "They're suspicious people."

Several of the buildings raided Thursday had camera surveillance, he
said, evidence of the difficulty in winning the Warlocks' trust.

Since November 2001, two ATF agents have been infiltrating the gang's
local chapters. Carter said the two agents came in from their
undercover work late Wednesday and spent all night into Thursday
morning helping fellow agents prepare for the multi-state raids.

Among numerous guns, agents collected more than a pound of meth and a
pound of cocaine during the raids. Carter could not provide estimates
of how much the arrests would impact drug trafficking in the Valley.
He said residents should feel safer because of the arrests.

"These are some dangerous people," Carter said. "Now they're in jail
and off the street."

Gangs In Rural Areas

Some of the streets where the Warlocks rode their Harley-Davidson
motorcycles and flaunted red-and-black gang patches and tattoos
awakened otherwise sleepy rural communities.

A seemingly quiet farmhouse on the south end of Mount Jackson served
as a clubhouse for local Warlocks. Agents say the Warlocks housed
weapons and explosives across U.S. 11 from the Triplett Business &
Technical Institute, a vocational school for high school students. In
addition to at least one wanted member of the gang who was staying at
the clubhouse, agents say they found a pipe bomb at the two-story home
Thursday morning. The explosive was detonated on site.

Mount Jackson, marked along Interstate 81 by an apple-decorated water
tower, has seen a lot of police activity for one week.

Less than one mile from the supposed clubhouse, a fisherman and his
son discovered a woman's decomposing body in the North Fork of the
Shenandoah River on July 17. Investigators are still trying to
identify the body, which had numerous tattoos. Authorities say the
tattoos were not affiliated with the Warlocks or Hells Angels.

Shenandoah County Sheriff Larry W. Green quelled suspicions that the
woman's death may have been tied somehow to the motorcycle gang's
activities.

"We do not have any direct evidence to indicate that," Green said
during the press conference in the parking lot of the John O. Marsh
Jr. National Guard Building in Woodstock.

As for the drug and weapons charges brought Thursday, agents said more
will come as the investigation continues.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin