After an 18-month investigation, law enforcement officials arrested 57 members of the 38th Street gang early Tuesday morning, which is one of Los Angeles’ most notorious gangs for gun violence and drug trafficking.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villariagosa, alongside many law enforcement officials, applauded the effort as a successful collaboration between state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agents closely watched four residences in South Los Angeles that were associated with drug dealing, violence and loud partying during the investigation; a 130-page federal racketeering indictment was filed last month against these suspects.

“For far too long, these criminals have victimized some of the most vulnerable communities in South Los Angeles…and I’m proud to say they are off the streets,” Villariagosa said at a news conference Tuesday.

The 38th Street gang is one of Los Angeles’ oldest gangs, which has roots all the way back to the 1920s, has around 200 members and shares close ties to the Mexican Mafia, a dominant prison gang.

Some of the federal charges against the gang members include racketeering, fire arms, narcotics, extortion, murder and conspiracy, Villagrosia said. Thirty-seven of the arrests are under the federal indictment, whereas 20 were taken in on state weapons and drug charges.

More than 780 officers from eight different agencies, including the United States and Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, worked on the investigation, according to David Doan, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. Thirty-four more arrests, Doan said, are likely to progress in the future.

Fifty-nine firearms and $122,000 in cash were confiscated during the house raid, as well as $2.5 million worth of dangerous drugs, including cocaine, crack cocaine, methanfedemie and marijuana, from the residences, which have a straight drug pipeline to Mexico.

“To put this in perspective, this is enough drugs to supply more than 40,000 users,” said Timothy J. Landrum of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

United States District Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said the gang has been alleged to extort South Los Angeles businesses, especially in the Alameda Swamp Meet.

Birotte also described some of the dangerous activities the gang have been associated with, such as a specific instance when members allegedly dressed up as law enforcement officials, burst into a South Gate home, kidnapped and later shot the man in the head during a high-speed chase.

The mayor emphasized that the crime rate has gone down in South Los Angeles recently, and that this raid is yet another good sign for restoring gang territory to neighborhoods safe for families. Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich said that this operation is a scare tactic toward all gangs.

“Our message is clear,” Trutanich said. “We will not allow gang members to highjack our neighborhood and use them as their own turf. These are our neighborhoods…we are not stopping until we take back all our neighborhoods.”

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Take a closer look at some of the residences that were raided Tuesday morning: