Forty alleged gang members were indicted by a grand jury in what officials are calling "the largest federal racketeering case in South Carolina history." Authorities said that incarcerated leaders of the Insane Gangster Disciples used contraband cell phones to maintain their control over the gang from behind bars.
The inmates used the phones to contact gang members on the outside and ordered murders, kidnappings, and violent retaliation against rival gang members and people believed to be working with the police.
Prosecutors said that the gang managed to traffic over $50 million worth of methamphetamine every year since the investigation was launched in 2017.
The defendants were charged with 147 crimes, including murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, extortion, arson, assault and battery, drug trafficking, money laundering, and obstruction of justice. Seventeen of the defendants are facing charges of conspiracy under the RICO Act. Officials said that 35 of the defendants are facing life in prison.
"It is alleged these violent acts, to include murder and kidnapping, were often carried out by IGD members outside the jails," authorities said in a statement. "Additionally, the 101-page indictment alleges that to perpetuate the enterprise and to maintain and extend its power, members and associates of the gang committed, attempted to commit, and conspired to commit, additional acts such as armed robbery, extortion, arson, assault and battery, drug trafficking, money laundering, and obstruction of justice."
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