Probes Take Aim at Organized Crime in Little Saigon

Federal and local law enforcement officials are in the midst of a major crackdown on organized crime in Orange County’s Little Saigon, hoping to make a dent in the racketeering and drug outfits that have flourished since the area’s founding in the 1970s.

In the last month, authorities targeted what they described as Orange County’s largest supplier of the designer drug Ecstasy, along with operators of gambling and counterfeit clothing operations as well as credit card scams.

More than a dozen law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Customs Service and Westminster police, have investigations underway in Little Saigon, which includes parts of Westminster, Garden Grove and Santa Ana. The FBI has formed a special squad to focus on organized crime in Orange County’s Asian community, while local police have dispatched detectives to Vietnam and China.

For years, the criminal enterprises in central Orange County quietly ran everything from video poker games to loan-sharking, preying on an immigrant community often reluctant to report financial crimes to police, officials said.

The recent spate of busts represents the largest--but not the first--effort to stamp out the fraud.

“These are problems that have been going on for years in Little Saigon,” said Mike Clesceri, head of a district attorney’s office task force that has made some of the busts.

Today, officials said, they are aided by high-tech equipment such as pinhead-sized cameras that informants can wear without being detected.

The recent crackdown has won general support in Little Saigon.

But some say law enforcement must take into account the cultural mores of Vietnamese immigrants, who come from a society without trademark laws where knockoff fashions are common.

“They work on the assumption that there’s nothing wrong with it,” said Lan Quoc Nguyen, a Westminster attorney and community activist. “That’s the way of life in Vietnam and it’s still rampant. . . . [Copyright law] is a Western concept that will be hard to enforce.”

Clesceri, however, insisted that such busts are a necessary part of efforts to undermine criminal syndicates. Moreover, he said, selling knockoffs as the real thing does have victims.

“I would say ask Polo, ask Ralph Lauren, ask Tommy Hilfiger whether they feel it’s a victimless crime when they’re losing millions of dollars,” he said.

In all, law enforcement agencies have launched more than 100 probes of organized crime groups with links to Little Saigon.