RUKNS' BIG TALK TURNED OFF LIBYANS:[NATIONAL, C Edition]
Liz Sly. Chicago Tribune (Pre-1997 Fulltext). Chicago, Ill.: Nov 4, 
1987.  pg. 7
Copyright Chicago Tribune Co. Nov 4, 1987

The El Rukn street gang's chances of receiving $2.5 million from Libya 
were damaged last year when one member promised more violence and 
terrorism than the gang could deliver, a government witness testified 
Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

Trammell Davis, a gang member testifying for the prosecution at the 
federal conspiracy trial of five gang members, including leader Jeff 
Fort, said that the rash promises were made by Reico Cranshaw, one of 
the defendants, during a trip to Libya in March, 1986.

"He made a whole lot of promises about terrorism and stuff," Davis said. 
"The Libyans were under the impressions that Reico was going to do some 
of the things the Libyans do-like blowing up planes and planting 
explosives around different buildings."

Davis said the Libyans apparently decided to wait for these things to 
occur in the United States before giving the gang the $2.5 million it 
wanted.

Davis, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, is helping federal 
prosecutors translate coded phone conversations between gang members 
that were secretly taped by FBI agents.

One such conversation took place on June 28, 1986, between Fort, who was 
serving a prison term in Texas, and gang members attending a speech in 
the Chicago Hilton and Towers by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation 
of Islam.

Fort had phoned the El Rukn's South Side headquarters from prison, and 
his call had been forwarded electronically to the Hilton.

In the conversation, gang member Eugene Hunter, at the Hilton, was heard 
saying of Cranshaw, "He painted the wrong picture, and one is still 
waiting on the drawing that we can't produce." Davis said this meant 
that the Libyans were waiting for acts of terror to occur.

Fort then said, "We had bit off more than we could actually chew."

On Monday, Davis testified that an envoy sent to Chicago by the Libyans 
to visit the El Rukns was refused entry to the closely guarded gang 
headquarters.

The snub also hurt the efforts by the El Rukns to solicit money from the 
Libyan government when gang members met with Libyan officials in Panama 
in May, 1986, because it dented their claims to be a Moslem organization.

Gang members discussed the envoy and the reaction of Libyan officials to 
the snub in later telephone conversations recorded by the FBI.

Two defendants, Leon McAnderson and Cranshaw, spent a week in Panama 
after money they said was promised when they visited Libya the previous 
March failed to materialize.

The gang members set off expecting the trip to produce a $50,000 
installment of the $2.5 million, Davis testified. They took with them a 
videotape of the El Rukns and press clippings about the gang, Davis 
testified.

But the gang members learned in Panama that a Libyan representative sent 
to Chicago to visit the El Rukns had been turned away from the 
headquarters, an abandoned theater converted to a mosque at 3949 S. 
Drexel Blvd.

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