Hitmen on motorbikes, wearing clown masks: Armenian gang war roils San Fernando Valley
Federal prosecutors have charged 13 alleged Armenian organized crime figures and their associates with attempted murder, kidnapping and other crimes.
(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; Photos via L.A. Superior Court, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, L.A. County Medical Examiner, Getty Images)
By Matthew OrmsethLos Angeles Times
A motorcyclist coasted to a stop on a sun-baked street in the 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.
Last month, authorities arrested 13 men, including Harutyunyan, 49, who has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping charges. His former neighbor said he had no idea he was living next door to an alleged gangster.
But after Harutyunyan was shot six times in a second attack, the neighbor said, “I figured he had enemies.”
A ‘thief in law’ in a Rolls Royce
In Los Angeles, home to a thriving community of Armenian emigres, there is no single group that can be described as the “Armenian mob,” according to law enforcement and criminal sources who requested anonymity to discuss pending investigations and avoid retaliation.
The sources said the city’s Armenian underworld is comprised of independent operators who collaborate on rackets that include insurance fraud, drug dealing, fuel theft, credit card scams, protection shakedowns and kidnappings for ransom.
When a deal goes wrong, these criminals rely on an informal mediation system overseen by bosses called “thieves in law,” who are backed by organized crime leaders in Russia, Jerome Sandoval, a Homeland Security Investigations agent, wrote in an affidavit.
For years, the only “thief in law” in Los Angeles was Armen Kazarian, Sandoval wrote. Kazarian, nicknamed Pzo, was admitted to the United States in 1996 as a refugee, prosecutors wrote in a 2010 memo. He settled in Glendale, where he lived in a luxury condominium tower and was chauffeured in a white Rolls Royce Phantom, according to surveillance records reviewed by The Times.
A home where federal authorities said Vahan Harutyunyan resided in North Hills.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Agents watched the 5-feet-3 Kazarian, who favored velour track suits and newsboy caps, meet at spas and restaurants with scammers and drug traffickers.
“Everybody had to bow down to him,” said a former Kazarian associate who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.
In 2010, Kazarian was charged with racketeering. Federal prosecutors in New York alleged he arbitrated conflicts between operators of sham clinics that defrauded Medicare of $35 million. He pleaded guilty and served three years in prison.
After he was spotted gambling in Las Vegas — a violation of his probation — Kazarian was deported to Armenia in 2017.
His departure led to a changing of the guard. After he left, Kazarian’s former lieutenant narrowly avoided assassination by a crew of hitmen who used a drone to spy on him, according to Sandoval’s affidavit.
According to a Sandoval, two men fought to take Kazaryan’s place: Robert Amiryan and Ara Artuni.
Born in Armenia, Amiryan, nicknamed Fish, served time in federal prison for illegal firearm sales, the agent wrote. A burly man with a beard, shaved head and no neck, Amiryan, 46, is a reputed member of Toonerville, a predominantly Latino gang in Atwater Village.
Artuni was born either in Armenia or Iran, Sandoval wrote. Bald and clean-shaven, Artuni, 41, had no criminal record and lived in Porter Ranch.
According to Sandoval, Amiryan and Artuni were not “thieves in law” like Kazarian, but rather “avtoritets,” a lower-ranking title that still conferred respect within Armenian organized crime circles.
Melanie Killedjian, an attorney representing Amiryan, said her client “denies all the allegations against him and maintains his innocence.” She declined to comment further.
Artuni’s lawyer declined to comment.
According to the federal agent’s affidavit, Artuni collected “tribute” from a crew of underlings who fleeced banks, state medical insurers — and even Amazon.
Using fake trucking companies, Artuni’s men allegedly stole loads of Keurig coffee pods, coconut coffee body scrub, Weber grills, vacuums, Crockpots, air fryers, toasters and ice makers from the e-commerce giant, which estimated its losses at $83.5 million, the affidavit said.
Artuni drew the attention of a task force of Department of Homeland Security agents and Los Angeles and Burbank detectives, who suspected him of orchestrating a mysterious homicide.
Authorities charge that Artuni’s crew contracted a killer to take out Armen Sahakyan, 41, who lived with his wife and three children in a two-story house near the Verdugo Mountains, a tony part of Burbank where the palm tree-lined streets are named after British towns and Ivy League colleges.
Sahakyan’s family didn’t respond to a message seeking comment, and it’s unclear whether he was involved in criminal activity. Whatever his line of work, a coroner’s report showed Sahakyan was concerned enough about his safety to sleep with a shotgun under his bed and a revolver within reach.
Around 1 a.m. on July 21, 2020, a man wearing black clothes and a clown mask slipped through an unlocked sliding door and crept upstairs to the master bedroom, the coroner’s report said. He shot Sahakyan and his wife with a silencer-equipped handgun before Sahakyan grabbed his revolver and fired back.
Shot twice in the abdomen, the intruder jumped from a balcony and collapsed in the driveway, the coroner’s report says. He tossed his gun under Sahakyan’s Rolls Royce before dying.
Officers found Sahakyan’s wife wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket, shot in the torso and arm, unable to speak, Sandoval wrote. Her husband lay dead on the floor.
Edward Lopez, photographed here by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, was killed July 21, 2020, in Burbank.
(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Detectives learned the intruder, Edward Lopez, 34, was a reputed member of a gang called PAL, short for “Psycho Ass Life.” Nicknamed “Bandit,” Lopez had been released from prison three weeks before his death after serving two years for possessing drugs. His family didn’t return a request for comment.
Lopez left his phone in a black Mercedes Benz parked a block from Sahakyan’s house. On it, detectives saw text messages that an alleged member of Artuni’s crew sent Lopez the day he got out of prison, offering to take him shopping for clothes and shoes.
Phone records indicated he contemplated killing Sahakyan three days earlier, Sandoval wrote. But after lingering near the house for 15 minutes, Lopez left.
“Something told me not tonight,” he texted Artuni’s reputed associate.
A hit, a kidnapping and a shoot-out
The first act of violence directly targeting Amiryan came the night of April 3, 2023.
As Amiryan pulled into his underground garage, a man wearing a ski mask shot at him with an AR-15, Sandoval wrote.
To find out who was behind the attempted hit, Amiryan and his crew kidnapped one of Artuni’s associates and tortured him for information, according to the agent.
The victim’s family tracked his phone to a house in Sun Valley. LAPD officers surrounded the home, and Amiryan exited with two others — Harutyunyan and Sevak “Seco” Gzraryan, the affidavit said.
Inside, the decor suggested men taking a break from a grisly job: bottles of Johnnie Walker and Macallan scotch. A pack of Camel cigarettes. Blood spatter and bullet holes in the walls.
Hospitalized with broken facial bones, the victim denied to police that he’d been kidnapped and said the men arrested at the house were “not guilty,” Sandoval wrote.
Harutyunyan’s lawyer declined to comment. Gzraryan’s attorney didn’t return a request for comment.
A month after the kidnapping, Amiryan and his spouse were sitting on their balcony when a gunman fired from the bed of a red Ford F-150 truck. Amiryan shielded the woman from bullets that struck his abdomen and arm, Sandoval wrote.
Then the motorcyclist showed up at Harutyunyan’s house.
The alleged gangster next door
When Harutyunyan moved into the two-story stucco with a red tile roof in North Hills, his neighbor asked what he did for a living.
“Professional gambler,” Harutyunyan replied, according to the neighbor.
Born in Armenia, Harutyunyan was convicted in the 1990s of brandishing a replica gun and trying to pass a fraudulent check in Fresno, according to a probation report reviewed by The Times.
In 2005, he got involved in a Glendale-based group of fraud artists who used stolen identities of doctors and patients to bill Medicare for fake services, the report said. Harutyunyan didn’t know the man he trusted to cash $1.5 million in Medicare checks was an informant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He served four years in prison for conspiring to commit grand theft, money laundering and possessing an assault weapon, court records show.
Immediately after moving into the North Hills house, Harutyunyan replaced the railed fence with a solid metal one, his neighbor told The Times. Artuni still managed to spy on Harutyunyan, Sandoval wrote — his phone allegedly contained drone footage of the house filmed 19 days before the motorcyclist opened fire from the stepladder.
A week after that shooting, two men standing in the bed of a truck fired rifles into Harutyunyan’s backyard, where he was gathered with Amiryan, Gzraryan and others, Sandoval wrote.
The barrage “sounded like machine gun fire, armor piercing rounds,” Harutyunyan’s neighbor recalled. A policeman told him the bullets flew through the walls of Harutyunyan’s house — even piercing a refrigerator, he said.
Shot six times, Harutyunyan told police he had “no idea” why he was targeted, Sandoval wrote.
In April 2024, Artuni flew to Armenia, where Sandoval believed he was reprimanded by “thieves in law” displeased by his conflict with Amiryan. Photographed at an airport in Dubai, Artuni “appears to have sustained several injuries and bruises,” the agent wrote.
According to Sandoval, Artuni remained in Dubai until November, when he crossed legally from Mexico into the United States — and the war roared back to life.
In March, masked men shot Amiryan’s spouse as she returned to her Universal City apartment, Sandoval wrote. Two children in her Escalade were apparently unharmed.
Federal agents arrested Amiryan, Artuni and 11 alleged members of their respective crews on May 20.
On Monday, the two reputed rivals and their associates were led by deputy U.S. marshals into a courtroom in downtown Los Angeles, dressed in white jumpsuits and shackles. Gzraryan hobbled in with a cane and sat just a few feet from the men accused of having him shot outside his Sun Valley home in March.
Between smiles, winks and mouthed “I love you’s” to relatives in the audience, the men entered not guilty pleas to charges of kidnapping, racketeering and attempted murder.
