Feds Announce Arrests In Boston Gang Takedown

Boston U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz says 27 people have been arrested after a large-scale gun and drug investigation in Boston that authorities expect will reduce crime in hard-hit neighborhoods.

Ortiz said at a news conference Thursday that more than 300 federal and local law enforcement officers carried out the arrests earlier in the day. Those arrested include members of the Woodward Avenue and Hendry Street gangs in the Bowdoin-Geneva section of Dorchester and the Uphams Corner section of Roxbury.

Authorities said 25 are from the Boston area, one is from California and one from Maine. Two others were already in custody and one is still sought. Thirty people have been charged in the investigation, which began in 2011.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said the arrests are expected to reduce violent crime.

"We have seen over and over again, to terrible and tragic effect, that [gang] rivalry continues to claim bystanders, children and other citizens with no stake in this drama," he said.

Conley says local law enforcement officials were instrumental in the operations, which were organized by the FBI.

"Their encyclopedic knowledge of Boston's impact players allowed them to target the most egregious offenders, the ones most closely linked to the drug trade and violent crime," he said.

With reporting by The Associated Press and the WBUR Newsroom