Public Enemy No. 1
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| In |  Long Beach, California, United States |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1980's-present |
| Territory | California, Arizona, Idaho and Nevada |
| Ethnicity | White |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking, arms trafficking, identity theft, murder and dog fighting |
| Allies | Aryan Brotherhood, Nazi Lowriders, Mexican Mafia, Ku Klux Klan |
| Rivals | Bloods, Crips, Norteños, Nuestra Familia, Black Guerilla Family, MS-13, Latin Kings, Jewish Defense League, Israeli mafia, Friends Stand United |
Public Enemy No. 1 (abbreviated as PEN1) is a gang based in Southern California, USA.
The gang started as "Peni Death Squad (PDS), a punk gang in the 1980s, the name being derived from the anarcho-punk/deathrock band, 'Rudimentary Peni'. Originally, PDS were mainly a loose-knit group of suburban kids, runaways and homeless kids. Other punk gangs, La Mirada punks, Vicious Circle, The HB's, FFF (Fight For Freedom), L.A. Death Squad (L.A.D.S.), Circle One, and Bakersfield's Zero-Core, were other examples of Southern California hardcore punk gangs. These groups were typically suburban counter-teenagers, skaters, surfers, etc.
The formation of the group was greatly influenced by members in the hardcore punk rock scene in Long Beach, California during the 1980s. However, by the 1990s, PEN1’s base of operations had partially been relocated to Orange County where they began recruiting suburban adolescents. By the 2000s, the gang’s influence has spread throughout California and Arizona, with some members in Idaho and Nevada. Their allies are the Aryan Brotherhood, Nazi Lowriders, and Armenian Power. Their main rivals are the Bloods, Crips, the Norteños, Nuestra Familia, Black Guerilla Family.
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[edit] Identity theft
PEN1 seems to specialize in identity theft, not a crime usually associated with gangs, although most of the income from this is allegedly used to finance various operations. Originally their methods for this were raiding mailboxes and trash cans for personal information, but the gang later used contacts inside of banks, mortgage companies and state motor vehicle departments in order to gain access to credit profiles. This has led to law enforcement officials requesting that their personal information be removed so that it can't be used by gang members to identify home addresses of police officers.
[edit] Hostility towards law enforcement
In 2007, police forces in Orange County arrested 67 alleged PEN1 members after learning of an extensive "hit list" that included five police officers and a gang prosecutor. Those arrested in the raid were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of illegal weapons and identity theft.
