Gangland

American Gangster is the story of Frank Lucas and Leroy "Nicky" Barnes - their rise from street punks to the top of New York's 1970's high-flying drug market. The two men were considered the drug czars of Harlem at the height of the drug-fueled decade. Lucas and his gang "The Country Boys" claim to have smuggled heroin from Asia in the caskets of fallen American soldiers. Barnes, the leader of a cartel of African-American drug dealers called "The Council," made the cover of New York Times Magazine. The headline read "Mr. Untouchable." President Carter was so incensed, he personally ordered the Attorney General to go after him. The story is a violent, action-filled chronicle of Harlem and its kingpins.

In 2003, the body of a pregnant, teenaged informant was found along the banks of the bucolic Shenandoah River. She'd been repeatedly stabbed - her head nearly severed. Brenda Paz had been supplying the authorities with first-hand accounts of MS-13's operations. Paz had been one of 3,000 MS-13 members in the Washington, DC area. The increasingly violent and fast-growing gang operates from the sleepy, middle-class suburbs ringing the city.

Five bodies, riddled with bullets, found in a small apartment on the East Side of Los Angeles. Among the dead are a five-year-old boy and an infant girl, each shot in the head and chest. The mother and father of the children lay beside them on the floor, also soaked in blood. The target of the hit was the family's patriarch, Anthony "Dido" Moreno. He had dropped out of one of California's most notorious prison gangs and this was his payback. No witnesses, was the order. The gang he deserted was the Mexican Mafia. Since it's inception in the 1950's the "Black Hand" has been the prison system's most active shot-callers, controlling thousands of "foot soldiers" on the streets of Southern California. Most laws enforcement officials estimate that 300 homicides per year in LA County have some connection to the Mexican Mafia.

The Hells Angels are the most powerful and well-known biker club on the planet, boasting over 2500 members worldwide. In April 2002, a riot in a Nevada casino between the Hells Angels and their rivals, the Mongols, kills three gang members and creates headlines around the country. Federal authorities seize the opportunity and send a team of undercover agents to infiltrate the outlaw biker group. Along the way, they uncover a world of sex, rampant drug use, and vicious violence - employed to ensure the Hells Angel's place at the top of the biker world.

Home to 900 street gangs and over 80,000 gang members, the city of Los Angeles has the dubious title of "Gang Capital of the World." Territory means power and every gang in LA wants to expand their neighborhood boundaries by any means necessary. Since the 1990's, an ugly new development has surfaced in the gang wars of LA: Gangs are dividing by race. In neighborhoods such as Harbor Gateway, Highland Park, and Firestone, Hispanic gang members are targeting black civilians in an attempt to keep their territory free of the rival race.

King Lil Man," was found decapitated, dismembered, and burned in a bathtub. His Latin King's tattoo had been cut from his skin, his head and hands were never found. According to former Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Zabel, his murderers, fellow Latin King gang members, were "...actually driving around town in a cab with his head because "King Blood," their leader, needed proof of the murder." By the mid-1990's, the New York chapter of the Latin Kings had grown into the most violent and largest street gang every seen in the city. Lead by the murderous "King Blood," they left a path of mayhem that was only brought to an end by "Blood's" 18 guilty verdicts - eight of them for murder. His conviction was largely based on the 20,000 plus letters he wrote detailing the crimes the New York Latin Kings were perpetuating.