Federal prosecutors in Arkansas announced racketeering charges against 54 people who they say belong to a white supremacist gang that kidnapped, maimed and tried to kill to protect its drug-trafficking operations.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday describes the gang, the New Aryan Empire, as a highly organised outfit that sold “copious amounts” of methamphetamine around the Arkansas River Valley. Its leaders kept members in line with threats and acts of violence, and the gang viciously attacked people it suspected of collaborating with authorities, prosecutors wrote.

“The NAE is reprehensible in its admiration for Nazi imagery and racist views, but even more alarming are the crimes and violence perpetrated by these defendants,” said David Rybicki, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

He added that the defendants’ activities were similar to those of gangs like MS-13, the Bloods, the Crips and the Aryan Brotherhood, and said the department was working closely with law enforcement agencies across the country to combat the groups.

Among the charges laid out in the indictment are numerous attempts by gang members to pay others to kill a man identified as Bruce Wayne Hurley. A man by that name was shot and killed near Russellville in May 2016. Prosecutors said that the investigation into his death was continuing.

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Members of the group kidnapped, stabbed and abused others in retaliation for providing information to law enforcement officials, according to the indictment. It also charges that in June 2017, several members pressed a heated knife to a man’s face, leaving him permanently disfigured.

Most of those charged Tuesday are in state or federal custody; others were previously released on bail, while three remain fugitives, authorities said. Information on defence lawyers was not immediately available.

The US attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Cody Hiland, said his office was prosecuting the case using the RICO law, the federal statute enacted in 1970 to combat organised crime. The law — its full name is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — allows prosecutors greater flexibility to hold anyone who is part of a criminal enterprise responsible for its acts.

“In short, with RICO, if you are a member of the criminal organisation, you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound,” Hiland said at a news conference Tuesday.

He said that it was the first time in 15 years that his office had used the RICO law, and that he would use it more extensively going forward.

The superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday adds 10 defendants and additional charges to an indictment announced in October 2017. At that time, authorities said that investigators had seized more than 25 pounds of methamphetamine, 69 firearms and $70,000 in drug proceeds.

Authorities announced the new charges at the Police Department in Russellville, about 75 miles northwest of Little Rock, where authorities said the group — believed to have 5,000 members — was founded.

New Aryan Empire began in a county prison in Russellville in 1990 and was affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood, the indictment charges. It quickly grew and expanded outside of prison as members were released, and they collaborated with White Aryan Resistance, or WAR, in the drug trade, according to prosecutors.

The group’s slogan was “To The Dirt,” meaning that membership is for life. (That was also the name of the investigation). The group had a strict hierarchy, the indictment says, and lower-level members vowed to protect one another — even serving time to protect those of higher rank.