The operation-carried out by the LAPD, the state Department of Corrections and federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents-was the culmination of a four-month homicide and narcotics investigation, Kroeker said. Thursday’s raid, however, was aimed at curtailing operations of a local Los Angeles gang, police said.

Usually the gangs set up temporary residence in a city first, Kroeker said. LAPD’s Kroeker agreed that the Las Vegas robbery appears to be the latest criminal activity committed outside the state by Los Angeles gangs, which for years have been linked to robberies and narcotics trafficking nationwide. In recent months, bandits have twice robbed the casino cage at the San Remo Hotel casino, which is about a half-block off the Strip.Īll three robberies, he said, are believed to have been committed by Southern California street gangs. Hawkins said the robbery-captured on hotel surveillance videotape-was Las Vegas’ third casino heist in a year. No shots were fired, and the entire incident was over within two minutes, the Las Vegas police official said. The van, which turned out to have been stolen on Monday from a Los Angeles motorist, was found abandoned in the parking lot of an apartment complex about a half-mile from the hotel, he said. Shoving a cage worker to the ground, they then began stuffing stacks of money into pillowcases they had brought along.Īs they fled, their guns trained on the crowd, they tried briefly to abduct a woman who was standing outside the hotel-located on the famed Vegas Strip-passing out Aladdin promotional leaflets.īut when two security guards began to converge on them, Hawkins said, they released the woman and roared away in a Chevrolet van. While three of the bandits stood guard, waving pistols and a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun, Hawkins said, the other two slipped under the bars of the cashier’s cage. The room was so jammed, in fact, that scores of people failed at first even to hear the shouted commands to hit the floor over the din from the slot machines and the lounge orchestra, Lt. Tuesday when the robbers burst through its northwest doors.

Las Vegas police said the massive Aladdin gambling hall was packed at 9:30 p.m.

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