The founder of Punjabi Devils, a Bay Area motorcycle club with ties to Hells Angels, was charged Thursday by the Federal Jury on weapons-related charges after investigators found small weapons and explosives in their homes, officials said.
Jashan Preet Singh, a 26-year-old resident of Rody, is charged with illegal possession of a firearm and possession of an unregistered rifle after allegedly attempting to sell a weapon to a secret agent in June, according to a statement from the US Lawyer’s Office for the Eastern District of California.
Along with a rifle, a revolver, three offensive weapons, and a machine gun converter allegedly attempting to sell to undercover agents, the subsequent search of Singh’s residence said it discovered a variety of deadly weapons, including another machine gun, a silencer, and a variety of deadly weapons that looked like Claymore’s mines and hand-g-built construction.
Singh was originally scheduled to face charges in San Joaquin County on July 21, but he did not appear in court. Two days later, he booked a flight from San Francisco to India, scheduled for July 26th, according to a news release. That day, FBI agents met him at the airport and arrested him before he could board his flight.
In a criminal charge filed against Singh last month, federal agents said in Singh’s investigation that he had established a subsidiary “doll” motorcycle group under the Hells Angels motorcycle club known as the Punjabi Devils, known as the “1% Motorcycle Club” in Stockton. According to the complaints, the 1% label is worn by motorcycle clubs who are immersed in crime and have shown illegality as a response to the 1947 American motorcycle Assn. “99% of the motorcycling masses are law-abiding, 1% of people don’t.”
The times’s attempts to reach out to the Punjabi Devils Motorcycle Club for comment have failed.
The investigation and arrests were the result of a multi-joint local, state and federal efforts that federal prosecutors have said they are part of Take Back America, a Justice Department initiative that supports the Trump administration’s crime policy goals of dismantling illegal immigration, cartels and transnational organisations and “dismantling the most serious and easily visible crimes and claiming individuals.”
The news release also cited another federal initiative: Project Safe Neighborhoods. It encourages coordination of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to reduce violent crime and gun violence, according to the Department of Justice website.
If convicted as a charge, Singh faces fines of up to 25 years and $510,000, federal prosecutors said.
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