New York gangs rounded up thanks to Twitter code words
More than 60 alleged Harlem gangsters have been arrested by New York
investigators after incriminating themselves in a slew of code-filled
exchanges on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, prosecutors said.
New York gangs rounded up thanks to Twitter code words
The words were among a long list of slang terms for a gun, officials said.
Bullets were referred to as "food", "gas", "electricity" and "sea shellz"
Photo: Alamy
Philip Sherwell
By Philip Sherwell, New York
3:35PM BST 05 Apr 2013
Tweeting messages about a "Mariah", "flamingo", "sandwich" and "biscuit" may
have seemed like a smart idea for the alleged members of the Air It Out,
Whoadey and True Money gangs.
But the investigators broke the code and have now rounded up 63 members of
the rival street gangs and indicted them with three murders, more than 30
shootings and a litany of other violent crimes.
The words were among a long list of slang terms for a gun, officials said.
Bullets were referred to as "food", "gas", "electricity" and "sea shellz";
to "clap" was to kill a rival; to "rock to sleep early" was to murder.
"The internet is our 21st century crime scene," Cy Vance, Manhattan's
district attorney. "There's isn't a crime here in Manhattan that doesn't
leave an electronic fingerprint on the Internet.
"The indictments chronicle a bloody gang war that claimed the lives of at
least three teenagers, led to the shooting of dozens of individuals and put
bounties on people's heads".
His office provided a two-page glossary of code words said to have been
deployed by gang members who had operated a reign of terror since 2009 in
three public housing complexes in East Harlem, near the north of Central
Park.
A three-year investigation uncovered hundreds of social media posts and
mobile phone texts. In some pictures posted online, young men posed with
guns. And not all the messages were hard to decode.
"God forgives I dont... somebodie gotta die," an alleged Air It Out member
wrote on Facebook, according to the conspiracy indictments. Another boasted
that he was "2 Glocks strapped" in "the New Iraq".
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