The Most Dangerous Gangs Still Operating in the United States

Law enforcement agencies estimate that tens of thousands of gangs operate across the United States today. These groups range from street gangs and prison gangs to organized criminal networks. According to the FBI and other law enforcement sources, many gangs are involved in crimes such as drug trafficking, robbery, fraud, human trafficking, and other illegal activities.

Gang activity can have a significant impact on communities and local economies. Law enforcement officials say gangs often use violence to maintain control over territory and criminal operations. The economic and social costs associated with gang-related crime include law enforcement efforts, medical care, and broader community impacts.

Despite the large number of gangs operating nationwide, a relatively small number of organizations are responsible for a significant portion of gang-related crime. Using publicly available law enforcement data and research, we looked at some of the gangs that authorities say remain among the most active and dangerous in the United States today.

Around 1.4 million people in the United States are formally members of a gang, with many more probably informal members or gang supporters. The earliest gangs in the United States began popping up soon after the American Revolutionary War.

Usually, gangs only receive notoriety or widespread recognition as they clash with rival gangs for territory, control of drug routes, or other assets.

Gang membership exploded during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, especially in the Western states as right-wing economic policies, the cutting of welfare, the War on Drugs, and Reaganomics drove unemployment and poverty higher than ever before, and more so in minority populations.

Some African-American neighborhoods had unemployment levels as high as 50% during the 1980s, making them rich areas for gang recruitment.

For this list, however, we will focus on groups that are listed by the FBI as a gang, or accepted as a gang in wider popular culture and academic circles. All these organizations include some formal membership, hazing rituals, criminal activity, violence, and rules and hierarchy.

• Estimated membership: 3,000+

Florencia 13 is a Mexican-American gang founded in Los Angeles in the 1960s. This gang is controlled by the Mexican Mafia and is primarily involved in drug smuggling, violent crime, and robbery.

In 2007, Florencia 13 was the subject of the largest gang raid in the United States up to that point, when 96 members were arrested on charges of drug trafficking, murder, extortion, and more.

• Estimated membership: 4,000+

The Vagos Motorcycle Club is a gang founded in San Bernardina in 1964 with territory from Canada to Mexico and Serbia.

The United States government considers the Vagos Motorcycle Club to be a second-tier motorcycle gang after the "big four" gangs: Hells Angels, Pagans, Outlaws, and Bandidos. However, all these gangs are big enough with a strong central structure and national influence to be prosecuted for racketeering and corruption charges.

Vagos Motorcycle Club is involved in creating booby traps to kill police detectives, drug production and smuggling, and weapon smuggling.

• Estimated membership: 6,000+

The Proud Boys is a neo-fascist, far-right, extremist militant organization that primarily engages in political violence, intimidation, and racial oppression. It is designated as a terrorist group in Canada and New Zealand. It also has significant ties and connections with white supremacist groups, figures, and ideologies.

The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism says that the group regularly engages in fascist, anti-socialist, and anti-left violence and spreads misinformation to support the white genocide conspiracy theory.

• Estimated membership: 6,000+

Hell's Angels is an international organize crime syndicate that was founded in Fontana, California in 1948. It is the biggest of the "big four" motorcycle gangs, and the largest outlaw motorcycle club in the world.

Hell's Angels is primarily active in the production and trafficking of drugs, and violence with other motorcycle gangs and organized crime groups.

• Estimated membership: 8,000+

The Ku Klux Klan is the largest and most powerful of American white supremacist group in America with influence, control, and command over many other white supremacist gangs and organizations.

The original incarnation of the KKK was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1865, originally as a joke that quickly adopted white supremacist ideologies.

At its peak, the KKK had over eight million members and has participated in terrorism, murder, torture, voter suppression, political intimidation, corruption, and more including calls for genocide against minorities.

The KKK is classified as a terrorist organization by many institutions around the world and currently espouses neo-Nazism, anti-globalization, islamophobia, segregationism, anti-miscegenation, and more. There are currently 51 known Klan organizations that pledge allegiance to the KKK, though the true extent is unknown.

The KKK claims credit for many of the 4,743 people who were killed by lynching between 1882 and 1968. Most of these people were black but also included Catholics, Jews, and other minorities or left-leaning leaders and politicians.

• Estimated membership: 10,000+

The Tiny Rascal Gang is a Cambodian-American gang founded in Long Beach, California in 1981. It was created to protect Cambodian youth who managed to escape the Cambodian genocide, with many early members being young children. It is also common among Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Taiwanese communities.

• Estimated membership: 15,000+

The Jewish Defense League is listed as a far-right terrorist group by several government organizations, including the FBI. Others list it as a hate group. It has been involved in "protecting Jews" through acts of terrorism. It was founded in 1968 and became famous for bombing Soviet and Arab locations in the United States and assassinating several people, including Arab-American activists. Its beliefs include racism, political extremism, and violence.

• Estimated membership: 20,000+

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Aryan Brotherhood is the "oldest major white supremacist prison gang" in the United States. It is a neo-Nazi organized crime syndicate founded in 1964, and while its membership includes a very small percentage of the prison population in the U.S., it is responsible for an unusually high and disproportionately large number of murders in prison. It is a whites-only gang primarily involved in drug trafficking, prostitution, murder-for-hire, and more.

• Estimated membership: 30,000

The Bloods is a mostly African-American gang founded in Los Angeles in 1972 and is most famous for its ongoing and violent rivalry with the Crips. It uses hand signs and the color red to identify itself. It was originally created to protect young community members from the Crips but eventually grew to compete with it. Its primary income is from drug smuggling in prisons and cocaine distribution.

• Estimated membership: 30,000+

The Gangster Disciple Nation is an African-American street gang founded in Englewood, Chicago, Illinois in 1964. It is primarily active in money laundering, drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, organized crime, and more, though intra-gang violence and rivalries have hindered its growth and success.

• Estimated membership: 35,000

The Crips was founded in Los Angeles in 1969 and is mostly an African-American gang. Its members usually wear the color blue. It is considered one of the most violent gangs in the United States, particularly after the growth of the Blood Gang, which caused the Crips to become much more violent.

Much of the Crips' success came from CIA operations to fund and support anti-communist militias in Nicaragua. After putting Enrique Bermúdez in charge of the contras, the CIA decided to use cocaine to fund their anti-communist military operations, primarily targeting black communities in California.

• Estimated membership: 35,000+

The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation is the largest Hispanic and Latino street gang in the United States and one of the largest in the world. It was founded in 1954 in Chicago, and there are 60 chapters that operate in more than 158 cities across the country. It is also very powerful in the U.S. prison system and is active in drug dealing, identity theft, money laundering, murder, and more.

• Estimated membership: 50,000

The 18th Street Gang is a multinational and multi-racial street gang founded in Los Angeles in the 1960s, though most of its membership is Central American and Mexican. It is one of the largest and most powerful gangs in the entire region (Between the U.S., Mexico, and Central America). The rivalry between the 18th Street Gang and MS-13 "have turned the Central American northern triangle into the area with the highest homicide rate in the world" according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

• Estimated membership: 50,000 (worldwide), 10,000 (USA)

Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, is an international organized crime syndicate and terrorist organization. It was founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s to protect Salvadoran immigrants from violence from American citizens. After many of its members were deported to El Salvador in the 1990s, it was able to spread its control and influence much easier. Most of the members of MS-13 are impoverished, estranged, or homeless young men. It is well-known for its violence and brutality in killing, especially for its widespread use of machetes.