Hitmen on motorbikes, wearing clown masks: Armenian gang war roils San Fernando Valley
A motorcyclist coasted to a stop on a sun-baked street in the San Fernando Valley.
He retrieved a stepladder from the bed of a pickup truck and leaned it against a high metal fence that encircled a two-story house.
Observing the late afternoon scene was a man who lived next door to the fenced-off home. The neighbor, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, told The Times he watched in disbelief as the motorcyclist — still wearing a helmet — climbed up the ladder and opened fire with a rifle.
According to federal authorities, the neighbor had witnessed a salvo in a war between rival crews of Armenian criminals. The target of the attempted hit on Aug. 18, 2023, was Vahan Harutyunyan, a convicted fraud artist and money launderer, a federal agent wrote in an affidavit.
The affidavit describes a violent turn within Armenian organized crime circles, whose operators have historically preferred to make money quietly rather than wage wars that invite attention from the police. In normally-placid suburbs of the San Fernando Valley and Burbank, organized crime leaders and their families were targeted by masked shooters who allegedly used drones and tracking devices to conduct surveillance.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-11/armenian-crime-war
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