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Raids resulted in five arrests Police seized guns, cash Wednesday Wire and staff reports ROSEBURG -- Dawn raids by SWAT teams equipped with armored personnel carriers and a helicopter were part of an investigation into an outlaw motorcycle gang involved in drugs, robbery, extortion, and prostitution, authorities said Thursday. State and local investigators filled tables in the Douglas County Sheriff's Department headquarters with a pile of guns, $43,700 in cash, motorcycle gang vests, and marijuana seized in raids Wednesday in Josephine and Douglas counties aimed at the southern Oregon chapter of the Vagos motorcycle gang. "They are involved in theft by extortion, kidnapping, armed robbery, assault, prostitution, methamphetamine and marijuana," said Douglas County sheriff's detective commander Tim Robeson. Fearful for their lives, some victims of the gang are in hiding, he said. The Vagos had their origins in Mexico and established a chapter in the Grants Pass-Wolf Creek area 6 to 8 years ago, authorities said. In recent years, members of Vagos chapters in California have been arrested on firearms, drug and insurance fraud charges. Jackson County Sheriff's Lt. Dewey Patten said Thursday that Douglas County authorities met with his agency to discuss the case, but that the investigation does not involve any crimes or suspects in Jackson County. The Vagos probably travel through Jackson County or come here to shop, but are not known to have a presence in the county, Patten said. Coordinated from a command center set up in the National Guard Armory in Merlin, some 100 police backed up by two National Guard armored personnel carriers, a State Police armored vehicle, and a National Guard helicopter with a medic on board staged dawn raids at eight sites Wednesday, Robeson said. Police surrounded sites in Wolf Creek, Myrtle Creek, Murphy and Grants Pass, some of them backwoods homes, and used loudspeakers to call on people inside to surrender, Robeson said. No shots were fired, and five men were arrested without resistance on a variety of firearms, theft and drug charges. Police were still looking for a married couple on extortion and conspiracy counts. Robeson said only one of the people arrested, Steve "Six-ball" Rives, 46, of Murphy, was a target in their year-long investigation into the Vagos. Rives was charged with theft by extortion and criminal extortion. The others were described as "collateral" arrests. Robeson said he could not say who was and was not a member of the gang. Investigators ultimately hoped to bring state or federal racketeering charges against gang members, but that might be a year away, Robeson added. The two people being sought were identified as Robert "Razor" Perius, 31, of Wolf Creek and his wife, Alisha Marie Perius, 26. Authorities said they found $43,700 in cash in a safe in the attic of Robert Perius' mother's house in Myrtle Creek. Seven faded denim vests with green Vagos emblems, some T-shirts with skulls and the word Vagos were also found there. But Robeson refused to characterize Perius as a leader or even a gang member. The weapons -- many of them stolen -- included two assault rifles, eight shotguns, and eight pistols, police said. Authorities also displayed a banner saying "Green Nation Gear," two jars of marijuana buds, a mirror with a swastika, a computer and an empty storage container for an armor-piercing rocket. Also arrested were tattoo parlor owner John "Chief" Banner, 29, of Grants Pass, charged with five counts of a felon in possession of a firearm and three counts of a felon in possession of a restricted weapon; Larry "Stonewall" Cox, 46, of Merlin, charged with seven counts of a felon in possession of a firearm; Brian Wayne White, 32, of California, charged with possession of marijuana, and Mark Frederick Hummel, 40, of Wolf Creek, charged with two counts of theft and one count of possession of stolen property. All had been released on bail, Robeson said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA