United Blood Nation

Last updated

United Blood Nation
FoundedOctober 31, 1993;30 years ago (1993-10-31) [1] [2]
Founders Omar Portee and Leonard McKenzie [3]
Founding location Rikers Island, New York City, New York, United States [4] [3]
Years active1993–present [3]
Territory East Coast, Mid Atlantic [3]
EthnicityPredominantly African American [3]
Membership (est.)7,000–15,000 [5]
ActivitiesDrug trafficking, prostitution, robbery, extortion and counterfeiting [6]
Allies Bloods [2]
Rivals
Ñetas [3]

The United Blood Nation, also known as the East Coast Bloods, [4] is a street and prison gang active primarily in the New York metropolitan area. [3] It is the east coast faction of the California-based Bloods street gang. [2] Their main source of income is the trafficking and sale of illegal drugs. [3] [7]

Contents

History

The United Blood Nation was formed on July 16, 1993, when incarcerated gang leaders Omar "OG Mack" Portee and Leonard "OG Dead Eye" McKenzie allied several gangs – including the Nine Trey Gangsters, GKB (G-Shine), Sex Money Murder, 183 Gangster Bloods, Valentine Gangster Bloods, and Blood Stone Villains – to protect members from the dominant Ñetas and Latin Kings gangs. [8] [9] [10] The UBN was established as the New York branch of the California-based Bloods, to which its members are loosely affiliated with, and the gang spread along the East Coast as members were released from prison. [2]

The UBN became the dominant gang on the East Coast during the 1990s, outnumbering the rival Crips. The gang's meteoric rise to the top of the gang hierarchy was halted in 2001, however, when founder Omar Portee was arrested and later convicted of federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges. Portee was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment and is currently incarcerated in the federal supermax ADX Florence prison in Colorado. In the years following Portee's incarceration, the UBN has splintered somewhat, with infighting among the gang's subgroups being reported. The UBN's co-founder and once-prominent member, Leonard McKenzie, has allegedly retired from the gangster lifestyle. [11]

Organization

The structure of the United Blood Nation is hierarchical, with each member being designated a specific rank within the gang, which comes with specific duties and responsibilities. The UBN uses a ranking system often disguised with code names to label the leadership structure. The gang's leadership is based in New York City and the New York prison system. The UBN hierarchy, or chain of command, includes a national council ("the Council") consisting of members selected from the leaders of the gang's subgroups ("sets"). [2]

All UBN subgroups are governed by a common set of rules originally written by founders Omar Portee and Leonard McKenzie. There are 31 UBN rules known as "The 31." Examples of the rules are: Individual gang members are to operate and conduct themselves as defined by "The 31"; Procedures for infractions or disciplinary actions; "Snitching," or cooperating with law enforcement, is strictly prohibited. Dues are collected from each member for the benefit of the organization. A portion of the dues is saved and utilized locally, while another portion is sent up the chain to gang leadership. [2]

Membership

Members of the gang are mostly African-American males. Some sets have Asian-, Hispanic- and White-American members. While some sets allow female members, their status varies between sets. [10] To become a member of the United Blood Nation, one must be introduced by an existing gang member or prove to be the most dominant. A potential new member is "beat in" (physically beaten for 31 seconds by gang members a very minute amount of time compared to most violent gangs)[ citation needed ] and provided with a copy of the UBN history, oaths, and the 31 rules which must be memorized (these traditions reflect social fraternal clubs and are not typical of most Bloods). This process is referred to as being "brought home", alternatively referred to as "Bumming Home". All gang members are required to "put in work," meaning that they must carry out the orders and activities as directed by gang leadership. Old School gangs didn't provide domestic services or follow regimes mandating blue-collar labor. [2]

As of 2005, membership was estimated at 15,000 (an inferior faction in the larger scope of organized crime in America). In 2017, the head of the United Blood Nation was alleged by federal prosecutors to be Pedro Gutierrez, who allegedly directed the UBN despite being imprisoned in New York State while serving a murder sentence. This fact reflects the prison system's lack of ability to 'control' gang activity even while gang members are in full confinement. [12]

Symbols

United Blood Nation factions are identified by the local telephone area code. [9]

Gang graffiti often includes the letter "C" crossed out, the abbreviation "CK" (for "Crip Killer"), the number "031", the letter "S" crossed out (as "Slobs" is an offensive nickname for Bloods). [3]

Gang tattoos often use three dots representing a dog paw, bulldogs, and "M.O.B." (for "Member of Bloods" or "Money Over Bitches"). [10]

Investigations and prosecutions

United Blood Nation founder Omar Portee was among fifteen members and associates of the gang indicted on racketeering charges in New York City on May 8, 2001, following a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and New York Police Department (NYPD). [13] Portee was convicted of ten counts of criminal activity, including racketeering, murder, conspiracy, credit card fraud, and drug trafficking on August 27, 2002. [14] On April 14, 2003, he was sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment. [15]

More than sixty people were arrested on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, or drug crimes on July 25, 2006, during a crackdown on the Nine Trey Gangsters (NTG) faction of the UBN in New Jersey. The indictments were the culmination of an eleven-month investigation, called Operation Nine Connect, involving around five hundred law enforcement officers from federal, state, and local agencies. [16]

Fifteen people linked to the UBN in Charlotte, North Carolina were indicted on February 25, 2009, on federal drug conspiracy and other charges arising from their participation in a cocaine, heroin, and marijuana distribution ring. The prosecutions followed a six-month-long investigation by the FBI and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD). [17]

Operation Heat, an investigation by the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau, uncovered a conspiracy in which the UBN's Nine Trey Gangsters faction entered into an alliance with the Lucchese crime family to smuggle drugs and pre-paid cell phones into East Jersey State Prison, and led to the arrests of thirty-four members and associates of the Lucchese family's Jersey Crew in May 2010. [18] Dwayne Spears, a "five star general" in the NTG, was among those indicted. [19]

Twenty-eight members of the UBN in North Carolina were arrested on May 18, 2012, and charged with racketeering and related charges, including drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, armed robbery, and murder conspiracy. [20] All twenty-eight were convicted on various charges, the last of whom was sentenced in October 2014. The case was investigated by the FBI in cooperation with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and local police departments. [21]

On May 18, 2017, eighty-three members of the Nine Trey Gangsters faction of the UBN were arrested and indicted on federal racketeering conspiracy charges and charges related to murder, attempted murder, violent assault, narcotics distribution, firearms possession, and Hobbs Act robbery. A number were also charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft related to financial crimes. The arrests were made during a series of coordinated raids involving over six-hundred federal, state and local law enforcement officers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, New York and Florida. [22] Eighty-two people were convicted as a result of the investigation, [23] including Pedro Gutierrez, the "Chairman" of the UBN, who was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment on September 4, 2018. [24]

Over forty people were arrested in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia on December 6, 2017, as a result of Operation Tin Panda, an investigation by the ATF, FBI, and local agencies into UBN-related crimes in the Washington metropolitan area. Firearms and thousands of grams of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and THC were seized during the operation. [25] Thirty-nine of the defendants were convicted on federal firearms and drug charges. Tarvell Vandiver, the leader of the UBN subdivision Imperial Gangsta Bloods (IGB) in Northern Virginia, was sentenced to twenty years in prison in October 2018. [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latin Kings (gang)</span> Hispanic and Latino street gang based in Chicago, Illinois, United States

The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation is one of the largest Caribbean and Latino street and prison gangs worldwide. The gang was founded by Puerto Ricans in Chicago, Illinois, in 1954.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gangster Disciples</span> American Street Gang

The Gangster Disciple Nation, also known as Growth & Development, is an African American street and prison gang which was formed in 1968 by Larry Hoover and David Barksdale. The two rival gangsters united together to form the Black Gangster Disciple Nation (BGDN). Since 1989, after a decline in leadership caused friction between the two gangs, the BGDN has divided into different factions known today as the Gangster Disciple Nation and the other being the Black Disciple Nation.

The Genovese crime family, also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American Mafia. They have generally maintained a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside New York, including ties with the Philadelphia, Patriarca, and Buffalo crime families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pagan's Motorcycle Club</span> Outlaw motorcycle club in the United States

Pagan's Motorcycle Club, or simply the Pagans, is an outlaw motorcycle club formed by Lou Dobkin in 1957 in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The club rapidly expanded and by 1959, the Pagans, originally clad in blue denim jackets and riding Triumphs, began to evolve along the lines of the stereotypical one percenter motorcycle club.

The NETA Association is the name of a gang that began in the Puerto Rico prison system and spread to the United States mainland. Although Puerto Rico has many small street gangs claiming its poorer neighborhoods, NETAS is by far the largest and most dominant, controlling the illegal drug trade in the island's prison system.

Omar Portee, also known as "O.G. Mack", is an American gang leader, known for founding the United Blood Nation gang while serving a prison sentence at Rikers Island, New York, in 1993.

The Colombo crime family is an Italian American Mafia crime family and is the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, following the assassinations of "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci became recognized as the Profaci crime family.

Sex, Money, Murder is a Blood street gang operating on the East Coast of the United States. It was formed in the Soundview section of The Bronx in the Soundview Houses, a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) development. It is one of the original sets (subgroups) of the United Blood Nation.

The DeCavalcante crime family, also known as the North Jersey Mafia or North Jersey crime family, is an Italian-American Mafia organized crime family that operates mainly in northern New Jersey, particularly in Elizabeth, Newark, West New York, and various other North Jersey cities and the surrounding areas in North Jersey. It is part of the nationwide criminal network known as the American Mafia. It operates on the opposite side of the Hudson River from the Five Families of New York. It maintains strong relations with many of them, as well as with the Philadelphia crime family and the Patriarca crime family of New England. The Decavalcantes are considered by some to be the "Sixth Family".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patriarca crime family</span> Italian-American organized crime group

The Patriarca crime family, also known as the New England Mafia, the Boston Mafia, the Providence Mafia or The Office, is an Italian-American Mafia family operating in New England. It has two distinct factions, one based in Providence, Rhode Island, and the other in Boston, Massachusetts. The family is currently led by Carmen "The Cheese Man" Dinunzio, who is part of the Boston faction. The family is primarily active in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, with other territory throughout New England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Madonna</span> American mobster (born 1935)

Matthew Madonna is a member of the Lucchese crime family who served as acting boss before being imprisoned in 2017.

The Lucchese crime family's New Jersey faction, also known as the Jersey Crew, is a powerful crew within the Lucchese crime family. The members operate throughout the Northern New Jersey area. During the 1970s into the late 1980s, the crew was led by Anthony Accetturo and his protégé Michael Taccetta. In 1987, Victor Amuso took over the family and began demanding a higher percentage of tribute from the crew. Accetturo refused and a war erupted between the New Jersey members and the New York members. This left brothers Michael and Martin Taccetta in charge of the crew as they tried to have Accetturo and his family murdered. In 1993, Accetturo defected and became a government witness. He helped convict Michael and Martin Taccetta. The crew is currently controlled by George "Georgie Neck" Zappola.

The Lucchese crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. Members refer to the organization as the Lucchese borgata; borgata is Mafia slang for criminal gang, which itself was derived from a Sicilian word meaning close-knit community. The members of other crime families sometimes refer to Lucchese family members as "Lukes".

The Trinitarios is a Dominican American criminal organization founded by Dominicans in New York City, New York in 1993.

The Bonanno crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, and in the United States, as part of the criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia.

Operation Power Outage was a sting operation targeted at arresting and indicting members of the criminal group Armenian Power operating in the United States. The group is accused of racketeering offenses, bank fraud schemes, kidnappings, and drug trafficking. Armenian Power which originated 20 years ago in East Hollywood and has over 200 members, has developed from a street gang into an international criminal organization.

The Nine Trey Gangster Bloods or Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods (NTG) are a violent set of the United Blood Nation street gang, which is itself a set of the Bloods gang. The gang operates on the East Coast of the United States.

Kifano Jordan, better known as Shotti, is a Trinidadian-American convicted felon and former affiliate of Tr3yway Entertainment rapper 6ix9ine. During their tenure, Shotti provided interludes on his singles such as "Billy" and "Blood Walk". He is also a known member of the Nine Trey Gangsters, a set of the larger United Blood Nation which is the East Coast branch of the Bloods gang.

The trial of the Nine Trey Gangsters was a criminal case against eleven alleged members and associates of the street gang Nine Trey Gangsters. The case is notable for its inclusion of rapper 6ix9ine, real name Daniel Hernandez, and his associate Kifano "Shotti" Jordan as defendants.

References

  1. ↑ Wootson, Cleve R. Jr. (30 October 2014). "Final member of local Blood gang sentenced to federal prison". CharlotteObserver.com. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 United Blood Nation history, terminology, background WSOC-TV (May 18, 2017)
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 unsigned (n.d.). "Gang Profile - United Blood Nation" (PDF). Sampson County Sheriff's Office. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
  4. 1 2 "Nine Trey gang members sentenced to prison" . Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  5. ↑ "National Gang Threat Assessment 2009 – Appendix B. Street Gangs". National Gang Intelligence Center. January 2009. Archived from the original on 28 February 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2012.
  6. ↑ Who are the Nine Trey Gangsters? Henry Culvyhouse, The Daily Times (May 18, 2016)
  7. ↑ "fido.nrk.no" (PDF).
  8. ↑ Staff (May 18, 2017) "United Blood Nation history, terminology, background" WSOC-TV
  9. 1 2 Wootson, Cleve R. Jr. (30 October 2014). "Final member of local Blood gang sentenced to federal prison". CharlotteObserver.com. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  10. 1 2 3 "Sureños" (PDF). Sampson County Sheriff's Office. 2005.
  11. ↑ Bloods Street Gang Intelligence Report Virginia State Police (November 2008)
  12. ↑ Gordon, Michael (23 May 2017). "Feds say 'godfather' of Bloods Omari Rosero (definitely not a 'godfather' according to the CIA) ran the Charlotte g". The Charlotte Observer . Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  13. ↑ 15 Indicted in Crackdown on Bloods Gang Kevin Flynn, The New York Times (May 9, 2001)
  14. ↑ "FOUNDER AND LEADER OF VIOLENT PRISON GANG, THE 'UNITED BLOOD NATION', SENTENCED TO 50 YEARS' IMPRISONMENT BY U.S. COURT" (PDF). United States Attorney Southern District of New York. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
  15. ↑ Bloods-Soaked – Gang Lord Gets 50 Yrs For Thug Life John Lehmann, New York Post (April 15, 2003)
  16. ↑ Gang Crackdown in New Jersey Leads to More Than 60 Arrests Laura Mansnerus, The New York Times (July 26, 2006)
  17. ↑ Fifteen Individuals Indicted in Charlotte-area Drug Conspiracy with Gang Ties fbi.gov (February 25, 2009)
  18. ↑ ‘Operation Heat’ brings guilty pleas from crime family bosses, associates Jerry DeMarco, The Daily Voice (June 18, 2015)
  19. ↑ N.J. wiretaps detail alliance of mobsters and Bloods George Anastasia, The Philadelphia Inquirer (May 30, 2010)
  20. ↑ Alleged United Blood Nation Gang Members Indicted on Racketeering Charges fbi.gov (May 23, 2012)
  21. ↑ Last Of 28 "United Blood Nation" Gang Members Sentenced To More Than 6 Years In Prison On Gun Charges justice.gov (October 29, 2014)
  22. ↑ 83 “Bloods” Gang Members Indicted On Federal Charges justice.gov (May 18, 2017)
  23. ↑ Bloods Gang Members Sentenced to Life in Prison for Racketeering Conspiracy Involving Murder and Other Crimes justice.gov (October 27, 2020)
  24. ↑ Two High-Ranking Bloods Gang Leaders Sentenced to Twenty Years in Prison for Racketeering Conspiracy justice.gov (September 4, 2018)
  25. ↑ 28 arrested in DC, Maryland, and Virginia as part of Blood gang-related FBI, ATF operation, Brad Bell, WJLA-TV (December 6, 2017)
  26. ↑ Virginia leader of Bloods gang gets 20 years for drug trafficking and gun crimes WJLA-TV (October 29, 2018)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.