By New Criminologist Contributing Writer, Ron Chepesiuk

In 1986, nearly fifteen years before 9-11 and the terrorist atrocities at the World Trade Center in New York City, the El Rukns, a street gang from Chicago threatened to declare War on Uncle Sam in the service of a terrorist state.

Jeff Fort, the leader of the El Rukns (formerly known as the Blackstone Rangers and Black P. Stone Nation), founded the gang in the mid 1960s in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. The charismatic Fort showed remarkable leadership and organizational abilities in absorbing rival street gangs and by the late 1970s, he headed Chicago’s most powerful gang. Fort tried to portray himself as a community leader and in 1980 he had announced his conversion to Islam, but law enforcement believed him to be a drug dealer, extortionist and ruthless gangbanger. 

Beginning in 1972, law enforcement was successful in putting Fort behind bars. Finally, in 1983 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison on drug trafficking charges. The authorities sent the gang leader as far away as possible from Chicago: the Federal Correctional Institution at Bastrup, Texas. Fort, however, continued to direct his gang through the telephone calls he made from prison.
 
In designing a code for his calls, Fort thought he was clever, but with the help of an informant from the El Rukns, the authorities broke the code and began monitoring his instructions to the gang back in Chicago. Soon it was discovered that Fort and the El Rukns were conspiring to commit hostile acts against the U .S. on behalf of a foreign government.

The plot began in early 1986, when Fort discovered that Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, had received $5 million from Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Khadafy, who had ruled Libya since 1969. In the 1970s and ‘80s, Khadafy supported revolutionary movements, mostly Muslim, throughout the world, and he hated Uncle Sam.

The way Fort looked at it, Farrakhan had done nothing to justify the $5 million. In conversations, Fort used the code word “Pecan” to refer to Farrakhan. “We know Pecan wasn’t a live soldier from the jump… he’s a good mouthpiece, but he’s not a live soldier,” Fort told his gang in a scathing critique. In other words, Farrakhan was just talk.  Fort saw an opportunity to obtain money from Khadafy by showing him that he was willing to carry out attacks on the U.S. for him.

Fort sent a delegation to Libya to see about getting some money. The delegation included Leon McAnderson, Reico Crenshaw, and Charles Knox, who owned an unaccredited law school in Chicago and whom the authorities eventually learned had visited Fort at Bastrup under false pretenses. The trio would later claim that they had traveled to Libya to attend a peace conference, but the U.S. government charged that they met with some of Khadafy’s top generals to discuss a deal. In return for perhaps a million dollars a year, the El Rukns would do all it could to help the Libyans attack the U.S.

The Libyans said they would start paying the El Rukns for their services, and the El Rukns agreed to go to Panama to pick up the money. The gang members expected to get at least a $50,000 installment of the money they wanted. To impress the Libyans, they took a videotape and a package of press clippings. For the video, Fort’s generals, dressed in their Sunday’s finest, sat around a table under two photos; one of Fort and the other of Khadafy. The generals then described themselves in the video as El Rukn representatives and Khadafy supporters from 25 cities around the United States and pledged their support to Brother Colonel Khadafy.

Fort knew that there was no free lunch with the Libyans, and that his gang would have to earn its money. As the Feds listened in, Fort described in coded language the various things the gang could do to impress the Libyans to show that the gang was serious. We can damage a government building, plant bombs and blow up an airplane, Fort mused. He told his generals that the Libyans should be aware of  “what crops we wanted to plant and how long it will take to grow them and how to cultivate the soil…. and let it manifest.” The authorities interpreted that comment as code for “the gang needed training on how to make and use explosives.”

On April 4, 1986, McAnderson and Crenshaw informed Fort that Charles Knox had discussed with a Libyan general the potential killing a Milwaukee alderman who had spoken out against Khadafy. That would show our loyalty to the Colonel, Crenshaw told Fort. The leader agreed, stating that after the killing was done, the El Rukns would be like brothers with the Libyans.

But before the gang would do that, Fort needed to know something. He told his generals to verify that the idea to kill the alderman really came from the Libyan general. The El Rukns would only carry out the hit if the request came from the Libyan general, Fort said. According to one government brief related to the case: "the only concern that Fort expressed about the killing (of the alderman), or “canvass’ in El Rukn code, was his insistence that they first learn the identity of the Libyan general who requested the murder so the defendants (the El Rukns) would be sure to get proper credit for killing the alderman. Once that was taken care of, the murder itself was no problem, according to Fort.”

The El Rukns planned another trip to Libya, but tensions were high in the Gulf of Sidra, where, in January 1986, the U.S. has attacked Libyan patrol boats during clashes. A month after the El Rukns’ visit to Libya, the U.S. launched Operation El Dorado, which led to major bombing raids against the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. An estimated 20 Libyans were killed, including Khadafy’s adopted daughter.

A meeting was planned for Panama instead. Still the Libyans did not give the El Rukns any money when they came to the country.

Toward the end of April 1986, Fort began to express doubts that the gang would get some of the money anytime soon. Perhaps Ayatollah Rubollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, might be interested. The Feds taped El Rukn Melvin Mayes telling Fort that Khomeini had agreed to meet with the gang members. However, it is unclear whether gang members planned to travel to Iran or go to Washington to meet with an Iranian official, for the meeting never materialized.  

Fort, however,  had not totally given up on the Libyans, although he believed they still needed convincing that the El Rukns were serious and would give them their money’s worth. To convince them, Fort decided to send some of his men to Libya to get training in how to make and detonate explosives. According to Fort’s plan, the El Rukns who went to Libya would train other gang members when they returned to Chicago. The training would make the El Rukns more powerful, Fort told his gang. He directed Crenshaw and McAnderson to discuss the idea of explosive training in their future conversations with the Libyans. Get passports so they could travel back and forth between Libya and the U.S. once arrangements for the training were made, Fort instructed his generals.

Sometime in the spring and early summer of 1986, Fort thought of another scheme to impress the Libyans. The gang would buy a rocket, and then use it on one of their enemies.

The FBI saw an opportunity and arranged a sting operation whereby they would sell the El Rukns a rocket. At the time, undercover FBI agent Willie Hurlon was cultivating a relationship with Alan Knox, an El Rukn general. Sam Buford, a drug dealer who was cooperating with Hurlon’s investigation, knew the El Rukns and introduced Hurlon to Knox. Now in direct contact with the gang, Hurlon told Knox that he had friend who worked at an army base from which he stole a lot of property.

“Do you know any one interested in buying some off the property?” Huron asked Knox.

“Sure do,” Knox said. “I’m interested in buying rocket launchers, bullet proof vests, grenade launchers and infrared field glasses.” He described the type of rocket launcher he wanted as the kind used in a recent Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movie (“The Enforcer”).

It was a LAW rocket launcher, a powerful weapon that in the hands of a terrorist can do a lot of damage. The LAW rocket’s warhead contains a high powered explosive, which after exploding, sets off a blast capable of penetrating armor ten to twelve inches thick. The LAW rocket is designed to destroy an armored tank or penetrate concrete bunker type fortifications.

Hurlon played it cool and told Knox he would check with his friend. Through June and July, Knox bugged Hurlon about the weapons before undercover agent finally relented. Hurlon’s friend was ready to deal. Knox wanted five rocket launchers and ten bulletproof vests. The number of bulletproof vests was okay, Hurlon said, but his friend would sell Knox just two LAW rocket launchers.
 
The deal was in the works, but Fort was nervous. Be careful, he told his generals. Hurlon may be an undercover agent.  Melvyn Mayes and Alan Knox (not related to Charles), the El Rukn generals who would make the missile deal, assured Fort that Hurlon was not an undercover agent. Satisfied, Fort gave the green light.

On July 31, 1986, Mayes and Knox went to a Holiday Inn in the southern Chicago suburb of Lansing to buy the first rocket for $1850. Fort was still cautious and he ordered his two generals not be present when money changed hands. Further, they should not bring the rocket directly back to Chicago. Instead, he ordered Sam Buford to make payment, and Roosevelt Hawkins, a low ranking El Rukn, to bring the rocket back to Chicago.
 
The El Rukns put the rocket, which was contained in a canvas bag, in the trunk of Hawkins car and headed for Chicago. But Hawkins’s car broke down, and the El Rukns had to transfer the rocket to the Mayes’ car before continuing to Chicago, where they put the rocket in a hiding place at Trammel Davis’s residence.

Jeff Fort still was concerned that the sellers might be undercover agents. “If they’re the cops,’ Fort told Mayes: “They’re going to arrest us within 20 minutes.” But nothing happened that day or the next and Fort relaxed, instructing his generals to arrange the purchase of five more rockets.

Meanwhile, the purchase made Fort drunk with power. “Nobody will be able to stand up to the El Rukns.” he told his gang. “We have secured our place in history.”

The LAW rocket was a powerful weapon, but its impressive features were academic. The one the El Rukns purchased was equipped with an electronic beeper, not explosives.

It was time for the authorities to move in. For five days since the rocket’s purchase, the Feds had followed the rocket via the electronic monitoring device. On August 5, 1986, at 6 a.m., five days after the sale of the rocket, they raided Trammel Davis’s home and found the rocket stashed in a hollowed out stairwell. Behind the rocket, the raiding party also found 32 firearms, including two sub machine guns and numerous rounds of ammo piercing ammunition designed for a sub machine gun.  Fort and five other El Rukns—Alan Knox, Leon McAnderson, Reico Crenshaw, Melvin Mayes and Trammel Davis—were charged with conspiracy to wage a terrorist campaign against the U.S. in exchange for $2.5 million from Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy.

The trial of Jeff Fort and other El Rukn defendants became a media event. Journalists from all over descended on Chicago to report on the sensational story about a Chicago street gang that had ties to a foreign government and were being tried as terrorists.
 
The jury deliberated 47 ½ hours over six days before convicting Fort of all 49 counts of the indictment. Crenshaw, McAnderson, Knox and Hawkins were also found guilty on various charges.
Melvyn Mayes became a fugitive and was wanted for racketeering and drug conspiracy charges. The fugitive’s capture became a top priority or the CPD. Mayes was put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List on February 7, 1989, and was not captured until March 9, 1995.

Fort had screwed up big time. With good behavior, the gang leader could have been out on parole in less than a year. Jeff Fort and his conspirators needed the life span of Methuselah to survive the sentence the court handed down for their crimes against America. In 1987, Jeff Fort was sentenced to 80 years in prison without the possibility of parole and given a $225,000 fine. His three co-conspirators received stiff sentences and fines as well: Reico Crenshaw, 63 years and $241,000 fine; Leon McAnderson, 51 years and $241,000; and Alan Knox, 84 years and $229,000 fine. Informant Trammell Davis pleaded guilty to three counts of the conspiracy charge and was placed on probation for 15 years. In all, Uncle Sam indicted 65 members of the El Rukns.

Today, Jeff Fort is spending the rest of his life in Florence Maximum Security Prison in Colorado, the country’s toughest prison, where is under lockdown 23 hours a day. The names of the inmates locked up with Fort read like a who’s who of 20th and early 21st century crime and terrorism: anarchist Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Sammy “The Bull Gravano, La Cosa Nostra mobster; ”Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber; Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber; and Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Egyptian Muslim cleric who conspired to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993, for starters.

Jeff Fort paid a heavy price for being the mastermind of what is the first case in U.S. history where American citizens were convicted of planning terrorist acts against their country on behalf of a foreign government.

Contributing writer Ron Chepesiuk (dmonitor1@yahoo.com) is the author of several award wining true crime books, including Gangsters of Harlem, Black Gangsters of Chicago and Drug Lords; the Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel. In collaboration with Ike Atkinson, former drug kingpin, he will publish Atkinson’s biography in 2009.