The founder of the Punjabi Devils, a Bay Area motorcycle club with ties to the Hells Angels, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on a slew of weapons-related charges after investigators found a small arsenal of guns and explosives in his home, officials said.
Jashanpreet Singh, a 26-year-old Lodi resident, will face charges of dealing firearms, unlawful possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered rifle after he allegedly attempted to sell weapons to an undercover police officer in June, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of California.
Along with the rifle, revolver, three assault weapons and machine gun converters that he allegedly tried to sell to an undercover agent, federal prosecutors said a subsequent search of Singh’s residence uncovered a variety of lethal weaponry — including another machine gun, a silencer, what appeared to be a Claymore mine and a hand grenade.
Singh was originally slated to face charges in San Joaquin County on July 21, but he failed to appear in court. Two days later, he booked a flight from San Francisco to India that was scheduled on July 26, according to a news release. On that day, FBI agents met him at the airport and arrested him before he could board his flight.
In a criminal complaint filed against Singh last month, a federal agent said an investigation into Singh revealed that he founded a subsidiary “puppet” motorcycle group under the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club called the Punjabi Devils, which the agent described as a “1% motorcycle club,” in Stockton. According to the complaint, the 1% label is worn by motorcycle clubs that are immersed in criminality and indicates unlawfulness as a response to a 1947 American Motorcycle Assn. speech that stated “99% of the motorcycling public are law-abiding; there are 1% who are not.”
An attempt by The Times to reach out to the Punjabi Devils Motorcycle Club for comment was unsuccessful.
The investigation and arrest was the result of a local, state and federal multiagency effort that federal prosecutors said is a part of Operation Take Back America, a Department of Justice initiative to support the Trump administration’s criminal policy objectives of repelling illegal immigration, dismantling cartels and transnational organizations and charging individuals with “the most serious, readily provable offense,” according to an Office of the Deputy Attorney General memo from January.
The news release also cited another federal effort: Project Safe Neighborhoods, which promotes the coordination of federal, state and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and gun violence, according to the Department of Justice website.
If convicted as charged, Singh faces up to 25 years and $510,000 in fines, federal prosecutors said.
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