413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

are not documented by the police as being part of a gang, they cannot be referred to as a documented gang
member.
If a pimp is gang-affiliated, this will not stop him from partnering with someone from a rival gang to
maximize profits. In these situations, gang turf wars are put aside to capitalize on demand:
I am going to give you a little pimping 101. So you have your lower end stuff and we call
them “sneaker pimps” or “gorilla pimps.” Different pimps are out there and they are on
the lower end, they are hustling. A lot of them will be gang members or gang associates.
Whereas pimping and prostitution used to be looked at, in my opinion, as a crime of
opportunity … it has always been in the black community just because that is one of the
crimes that is kind of handed off from generation to generation that they would be
involved with. And now, instead of being a crime of opportunity it is being looked at by
organized and documented street gangs as a guaranteed money maker. I think the street
gangs always have to some degree dabbled in it, but now they are really looking at it as a
financial base to bankroll other criminal activity. Another thing about “the blade” is that it
is considered … it is for making money. It is not about bringing in your gang beefs and
getting into a gang fight and flashing your colors. That is the unwritten rule, that you do
not bring that stuff with you. When you do, obviously law enforcement will respond and
then nobody is making any money. I equate it to the free trade zone or the DMZ or
whatever, when you get there it is about making money. You see very few instances where
you see gang on gang crime going on, but it has happened. I have talked to people after it
has happened and they have literally been like, “That stupid so and so, what is he doing
We are here to make money, this isn’t about this” … We have seen gang members who
would normally be at each other’s throats or arch enemies. I am not saying that they are
holding hands but they are not … if they were slinging dope on a corner it is not the same
dynamics that you have going on. (Federal Law Enforcement Official)
The gang situation described above is known as “hybrid gangs,” which are gangs configured solely for the
purpose of pimping and often include members from enemy gangs. There are a few different kinds of
hybrid gangs that vary in their member make-up:
Some are straight gang members: PHD, Pimpin’ Hoes Daily. That gang started in a high
school here, solely for pimping. It evolved as more hierarchical, and the pimping got
extraordinarily violent. It developed into a criminal street gang. More worrisome is the
hybrid gang that brings in different and sometimes conflicting sects, from: MOB: Money
Over Bitches; LFD: Love ‘em, Fuck ‘em, Dump ‘em …They’re devoted to pimping. They
were shooting at each other, and now they’re working together to traffic. (San Diego
Prosecutor)
Law enforcement officials also explained how responsibilities were divvyed up within a gang, where often
one person would run the entire operation, which includes drug and weapon sales and sex work:
The gangs often run their underground commercial sex business like a pyramid scheme.
You have a person at the top and he hires two people underneath him who hire two
underneath them and so forth. This way the person at the top is removed from the day-today
operations. Then, the individuals who are doing the actual pimping will kick money
back to the main leader of the gang. Often times, the proceeds from pimping are used to
fund other criminal enterprises, such as guns and narcotics.
The older guys within the gang will have a lot more prostitutes that work for them.
They’re on a larger scale. They try to cleanse themselves of the actual day to day
operations so they’ll have people underneath them running the girls or doing the driving
of the girls to the different johns. The rest were getting of the 18, 19, 20 year-old gang
members, each one of them had one girl to operate so they would drive them themselves
and probably like with most groups or clubs or gangs, everybody has their own specialty
and some guys just don’t have enough guts to go out there and do robberies or do driveby
shootings or do things that are the violent part of the street gangs and they have to
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