← Return to Main Database Target Profile: Armenian Power
Known Aliases: AP, AP-13, Armenian Power 13, Los Armenios.
Origin: East Hollywood / Little Armenia, Los Angeles, California — Late 1980s. Formed essentially as an aggressive street-level protective element constructed by teenage Armenian refugees fleeing the collapsed Soviet Union and the immediate, violent regional conflicts in the Caucasus. Desperately requiring brutal defense against established, predatory Hispanic gang networks heavily dominating East Hollywood, AP transitioned rapidly from community defense into an organized criminal organization.
Active Regions: Primary AOR: Southern California (insulated density across Glendale, Burbank, North Hollywood, East Hollywood / Little Armenia). Secondary AOR: Fresno (CA), Las Vegas (NV). Operational intelligence verifies deep, critical logistical networks successfully stretching heavily into Miami, New York, and executing complex international reach bridging into Armenia and the broader Russian/Eurasian mainland. Evaluated managing roughly 200–250 elite, 'made' members, heavily augmented by thousands of violent street-level associates/enforcers.
Known Alliances: notable, unique alliance maintaining an official tributary charter subservient to the Mexican Mafia (La Eme). Operates heavily documented, highly fluid transnational connections bridging with elite Russian Organized Crime (Vory v Zakone) architectures.
Known Rivalries: White Fence 13 / Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) — AP survived the bloody, defining 1990s street wars directly against these large, legacy Hispanic organizations operating across East Hollywood, culminating when the overarching Mexican Mafia mandated a ceasefire. Sureños — Periodic, violent structural friction, though broadly AP-13 successfully operates fully insulated under Sureño protection mandates.
Primary Identifiers: Colors: Not specifically color-reliant; adopting traditional Southern California gang aesthetics heavily utilizing utilitarian/dark clothing and designer overlays. Symbols: 'AP', 'AP-13', elaborate Armenian nationalistic imagery (e.g., Mount Ararat), complex Armenian script, '13' (signaling their unique, profitable subjugation/alignment directly with the Mexican Mafia). Numeric codes: 13, 1-16 (A-P). Tattoos: 'Armenian Power', intricate 'AP' styling on the chest or neck, profound Armenian orthodox crosses, stylized Armenian historical warriors/swords. Apparel: High-end luxury designer apparel prominently mixed with traditional Southern California gang silhouettes.
Affiliated Sets: Operations are generally centralized without large formal geographical subset fracturing; typically dividing by functional age/tier groups (e.g., younger street-level trigger-pullers vs. The older 'Armenian Mafia' fraud/command tier).
Executive Summary:
Armenian Power (AP-13) operates as an unique, sophisticated structural hybrid—functioning as a violent traditional Californian street gang simultaneously married perfectly to an elite, white-collar Eurasian transnational organized crime syndicate. Forged viciously in the 1980s to protect Armenian immigrants arriving in East Hollywood, AP initially executed brutal, block-by-block warfare directly against larger Hispanic forces like MS-13 and White Fence 13. Demonstrating significant organizational prowess, AP leadership successfully brokered a historic, lucrative alliance directly with the Mexican Mafia (La Eme) in the late 1990s—becoming recognized as an official '13' Sureño subset, granting them protection securely inside the significant CDCR penal matrix while allowing La Eme direct access to AP's complex white-collar fraud revenues.
AP-13 executes a dual-tier illicit structure. The street-level echelons execute traditional racketeering: violent extortion strategies (frequently shaking down legitimate domestic Armenian businesses), localized kidnappings, large wholesale narcotics distribution loops, and extreme retaliatory violence strictly defending their Glendale/Burbank borders. Simultaneously, the elite, insulated older echelon commands substantial, multi-million dollar sophisticated white-collar operations. These operations encompass unimaginable identity theft infrastructures, large bank fraud hacking rings, highly technical credit card skimming networks spanning national gas station grids, and substantial Medicare/Medicaid health-care fraud organizations—frequently funneling substantial profits offshore into Eastern Europe.
The U.S. Government unleashed a large, historic decapitation strike in 2011 executing 'Operation Power Outage'. This large multi-agency FBI/IRS sweep decimated AP's command structure, federally indicting nearly 100 suspected members charging large racketeering, significant extortion operations, broad bank fraud stealing tens of millions, and illegal gambling heavily linked back to Russian organized crime elements. Regardless, their successful hybrid operational model—fusing significant street-level enforcement perfectly with highly educated, cyber-capable fraud infrastructures—guarantees AP-13 remains an extraordinarily complex, Tier-1 domestic and transnational threat network.