Feds Raid Outlaws Biker Gang, Bust 41

Dozens of bikers and their associates were busted yesterday as hundreds of federal, state, and local police raided Outlaws clubhouses in Indiana. The 41 people arrested on charges including drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering, witness tampering, and illegal gambling include every member of the biker gang's Indianapolis chapter, the AP reports. (A 42nd man remains at large.) The raids followed a year-long investigation in which federal agents used a variety of methods to infiltrate the gang.

The bikers ran a "criminal operation that was as well-layered and sophisticated as most businesses in this city," according to US Attorney Joe Hogsett, who says he's not sure why nobody has tried to dismantle the organization before. The raids came as no surprise to a lawyer who represented numerous Outlaws in the 1970s and '80s. "Let’s assume there is something of an afterlife," he tells the Indianapolis Star. "There is no question at all that all of the Outlaws will be found partying at a lower rung of Dante’s seventh level of hell. It’s simply what’s destined to happen." (More Outlaws stories.)