More than 1,300 FBI agents and officers from the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a massive operation against a los Angeles street gang on June 17 and arrested 50 people.

The operation targeted the Five Deuce Broadway Gangster Crips, a street gang that claims control of a South Los Angeles neighborhood and drug sales in an area west of the Skid Row area. The individuals taken into custody are among 72 defendants named in a 213-page racketeering indictment that outlines two decades of criminal conduct, including murders, robberies, extortion, witness intimidation and narcotics trafficking.

The indictment also alleges that gang members threatened a surviving victim of a 2003 shooting following a concert at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, and conspired to murder a fellow gang member who had provided a statement to law enforcement in relation to the 2012 incident in which four people with no gang ties were shot, including a 10-year-old girl on a bicycle.

Some of the defendants are also accused of firing shots at California Highway Patrol officers who pursued gang members two years ago; engaging in violent “follow-home” robberies that targeted customers of banks; and participating in narcotics sales near schools and playgrounds.

The investigation was called Operation “Gremlin Riderz” because authorities focused on a particularly violent “clique” — or subset of the gang — called the Gremlin Riderz.

According to the 112-count indictment, the Broadway Crips, which has an estimated 200 members, operated as a criminal enterprise that used violence and intimidation to control neighborhoods. The gang was formed in the 1970s to confront other African-American street gangs, according to the indictment, which alleges that the enterprise has grown into a violent and criminal enterprise that conducts annual meetings and enforces a strict set of rules.

“Criminal street gangs make their livelihood by ruthlessly preying on the innocent people that live in the neighborhoods they claim as territory,” United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. said. “What makes the conduct of this gang particularly insidious is not only the violent crimes alleged, but also the exploitation of Skid Row drug users who are already living in difficult circumstances.”

The defendants named in the federal indictment face charges such as conspiracy to engage in racketeering; violent crimes in aid of racketeering; conspiracy to interfere with commerce by conducting a series of robberies that targeted bank customers; weapons offenses; and drug trafficking activities involving crack cocaine, cocaine, methamphetamine, phencyclidine (PCP), ecstasy, marijuana and codeine. The indictment specifically alleges that members of the gang committed four murders, dating back to 1987, that include fatal shootings of unarmed men with no gang affiliations in 2003 and 2012.