Gang leader sentenced to 9 years after running illegal gambling and extortion schemes

A gang leader has been sentenced to 9 years in federal prison for orchestrating a 2023 gambling operation and heading up a list of extortion schemes.

The man identified as Luis Ramirez, head of the Los Angeles Riverside County-based street gang, has been found to have organized the illegal activity while already incarcerated on separate charges.

Gang leader sentenced for extortion plot

U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., who ordered that Ramirez’s federal term run consecutively to his existing life sentence in California state prison, determined that he broke multiple laws whilst incarcerated.

Ramirez allegedly continued to organize and control the Westside Riva (WSR), a Jurupa Valley-based street gang, and carried out the acts as part of a wider swathe of violence and criminal intimidation.

Leader of Inland Empire street gang sentenced to 9 years in federal prison for ordering 2023 kidnapping in Riverside https://t.co/w2mxcOy9pi

— US Attorney L.A. (@USAO_LosAngeles) January 13, 2026

This included, says the Department of Justice (DoJ) publication, that the WSR under his command “conducted, managed, and supervised an illegal gambling business within its territory. It required other gambling businesses operating within its territory to pay a portion of revenue for the gang’s permission to operate.”

Court filings and reports by the LA Times have indicated that the WSR has, at times, explored a host of alleged activities beyond drug trafficking and extortion, including illegal gambling operations and, in the case of Ramirez, extortion.

Ramirez’s deal shows VICAR plea

The plea deal and the court documents presented also show that the WSR, under Ramirez’s instruction, demanded “taxes” be paid in exchange for protection.

This extortion of local businesses was a long list of criminal behaviour that the WSR allegedly committed in a region they had designated as “territory.”

The gang leader, in Judge Blumenfield Jr’s decision, accepted the activity he orchestrated in connection with violent crime in aid of racketeering (VICAR).

Ramirez’s plea, according to the DoJ, shows his ordering of the 2023 kidnapping of a victim identified as “Person 1.”

Prosecutors said two gang associates abducted and held the victim inside a Riverside clothing store for several days without regular access to food or medication before she escaped on October 1, 2023.

Both co-defendants, Jose Jonathan Rubalcaba Alarcon, 23, and Gilbert Rey Martinez, 22, later pleaded guilty and received federal prison sentences of 46 months and 41 months, respectively.

Featured image: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

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