Federal prosecutors accused four members of a Latin street gang on Tuesday to act as weapons hired in a dispute between two figures of rival Armenian crimes.
The two -year conflict between Robert “Fish” Amiryan and Ara Artuni sometimes turned the suburban streets into the San Fernando Valley into war areas, federal authorities said. The shooters opened fire from the truck beds and on the stairs, used drones to spy on the goals and kept automatic weapons in storage units.
In May, the Federal Agents and the Local Police arrested Amiryan, 47, and Artuni, 41, under suspicion of kidnapping, fraud and attempted murder. With both detained in the same unit, he wrote a detective of the Los Angeles Police Department, Amiryan accused Artuni, declaring in Armenian that “he would” have “Artuni's wife.
The initial demolition in May was addressed to the superiors who allegedly called hits and shooters equipped with weapons and cars, federal authorities said, while the suspects arrested on Tuesday actually brought the triggers on behalf of Artuni. Four reputed members of a small gang of North Hollywood, the crazy people of Vanowen Street, were accused of murder for rent and extortion.
The affidavit of a detective of the Los Angeles Police Department revealed that much of the evidence allegedly came from the mouths of the suspects by grabbing prison calls recorded on not receiving payment for attempts to kill Amyryan and his associates.
A suspect in the attack against the spouse and the children of Robert Amiryan.
(United States District Court)
Maria “Mary Oceans” Mares also stopped on Tuesday, accused of driving the escape car in an attempt at Amiryan's life. According to the detectives who investigated on March 14, 2025, shooting near Universal City, Mares complained that he would not receive his promised rate of $ 50,000 because “it was the wife, not him.”
Amiryan's partner had taken his Cadillac Escalade to a parking lot when two men with Black opened fire with rifles, he wrote a detective in an affidavit. Amiryan's spouse was shot in his leg; His two children in the rear seat were not beaten.
The attack on Amiryan's family marked a brutal turn in a conflict that exploded two years before. On the night of April 3, 2023, when Amiryan returned to his apartment building in San José Avenue in Burbank, a man who wore a ski mask shot him with an AR-15, wrote a federal agent in an affidavit.
The prosecutors claim that Amiryan and their crew kidnapped a man who thought he was behind the attempt of murder, torturing him and interrogating him inside a house in Sun Valley. Police surrounded the house, and Amyryan went out with two other men, Vahan Harutyunyan and Sevak “dry” Gzaryan.
The officers released the men after the victim denied having been kidnapped and explicitly told the police that Amiryan was “not guilty.”
A month later, Amiryan and his spouse were sitting on a balcony when a raised red Ford F-150 stopped outside his building, wrote a Burbank detective in a sworn statement of search warrant. A man with dark clothes stood on the bed of the truck and opened fire. Amiryan, who threw himself on his partner, was shot in the abdomen and arm.
The Burban Police learned that an associate from Artuni had used a false passport to buy the truck for $ 500 six hours before, according to the affidavit.
The following month, a gray truck got into a alley that ran behind Harutyunyan's house in North Hills. When the police then recorded Artuni's phone, Det. Daniel Kaminski of the Lapd wrote in a sworn statement, found images of drones of the house, which was surrounded by a large metal fence that a neighbor said that Harutyunyan installed immediately after moving.
Two shooters opened fire to the backyard of Vahan Harutyunyan.
(United States District Court)
Harutyunyan, a convicted money laundering that told the neighbors that he was a professional player, was hanging out in his backyard with A Amiryan and Gzaryan when two masked men stood up on the bed of the truck. They opened fire with automatic weapons, shooting Harutyunyan six times. The shooters lie on the bed when the truck went to Kaminski.
The detectives obtained cell phone records for members of the Artuni crew, including Vahagn Stepanyan, an alleged member of the Rifa gang of Burbank and José “Ready” Gonzalez Jr. of the premises of Vanowen Street. The records showed that their phones shot with the cell towers near Harutyunyan's house at the time of the shooting, Kaminski wrote.
Vahagn Stepanyan, which is shown in a 2013 photo of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, is accused of attacking a renowned spouse in the figure of the organized Armenian crime.
(Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation of California)
In April 2024, Artuni flew to Armenia, where federal agents suspected that he was rebuked by more senior crime figures about his increasingly bloody dispute with Amiryan. He spent several months in Dubai before returning to Los Angeles in November 2024.
In February 2025, Edir de la Cruz, a member of Vanowen Street, called “Temperament,” called his girlfriend Yeguas from jail, where he was retained by positions of possession of weapons, Kaminski wrote.
Seas delivered the phone to Christopher “hits” Ayala, who said he was still working “in that job.”
Ayala told De la Cruz “that he was about to happen” two days before, but “his wife and children jumped the car with him.”
The next day, Mares told De la Cruz that he had offered to drive because he needed the money, Kaminski wrote.
Carlos Grimaldi was arrested on February 28, 2025 for the LAPD.
(United States District Court)
In his affidavit, Kaminski said that Stepanyan and Carlos “Spanky” Grimaldi were the shooters who attacked the spouse and the children of Amiryan on the night of March 14.
Two weeks before, Grimaldi had charged a $ 8,560 check made by a “simulated” business associated with one of Artuni's subordinates, Kaminski wrote. The detective claimed that this was a payment for Amiryan's attempt to life.
The day after the attack, Mares told her boyfriend that the “work is done,” according to Kaminski. They were going to pay “50,” he said.
But when he spoke with De la Cruz the next day, he said he had read in Los Angeles Times that a woman had been beaten, not a man. Besides, no one had killed, he said. Mares said he didn't know if they would pay him, Kaminski wrote.
De la Cruz got angry, according to the detective. He told Mares that in the past, he was already paid “right there. Just in the spot!”
Meanwhile, the police found the abandoned escape car in Studio City. The detectives determined that Mares had bought Silver Audi in the Facebook market, Kaminski wrote.
When they talked again, the cross told Mares to demand payment. She had put her “life at stake,” he said. He told Mares to tell Stepanyan that he did his share and “you simply did not do well.”
According to Kaminski, Mares told De la Cruz two days after Stepanyan agreed to pay $ 10,000. De la Cruz, “audibly excited,” said Mares could publish his bail, the detective wrote.
Mares, from La Cruz, Ayala and Grimaldi are now accused in a federal court for rent for rent. González is accused of organized crime. It was not clear if the men had lawyers who could speak in their name.
