By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.
War rages in California Armenian Mafia as two factions clashed for underworld supremacy. The case led to the arrests earlier this year of leaders of the Armenian mafia. Last week, the feds came knocking again. This time, they arrested five suspected gang members linked to a murder-for-hire killing that was supposed to take out an Armenian crime boss. Instead, the bullets hit his wife, in front of their two young children.
The Armenian mafia has become one of the Californiathe most powerful criminal groups in the region. Based in the city of Los Angeles, the group maintains close ties with the Russian mafia and La Eme, the Mexican Mafia. It also has a strong presence in Los Angeles County.
Since 2022, two local leaders within the organization, also known as avtoritetwhich means “authority” in Russian, is said to be engaged in a power struggle for control of their territory, leading to multiple attacks, attempted murders and a kidnapping.
“In Los Angeles County, avtoritet “generally operated independently and led their own organized crime groups, thereby exercising incredible power over Armenian criminal organizations, including (the Armenian Mafia), the Armenian criminal street gang, the Armenian Power, and non-member Armenians who committed crimes,” according to prosecutors.
Two Armenian mafia bosses go to war
The two men who collided were Robert “Rubo Fish” Amiryan, 47, of Hollywood, and Ara Artuni, 41, of Porter Ranch. Amiryan is an avtoritet who was the target of attacks and multiple murder attempts ordered by Artuni, also an avtoritet. Artuni is a “self-proclaimed Iranian citizen, but it is suspected that he was in fact an Armenian who commanded a small army and a veritable arsenal in the valley.”
Their dispute turned the San Fernando Valley into a war zone resulting in “multiple murder attempts and a kidnapping.”
The war was being fought because millions of people were at stake. Authorities say the Artuni crew defrauded tech giant Amazon out of $83 million in an elaborate scheme in which, prosecutors say, they “signed up with Amazon as carriers, entered into contracts for trucking routes, and then, while transporting the goods, deviated from the route and stole all or part of the cargo”.
Artuni was the first to strike. On July 21, 2020, he allegedly asked Sureño gang member Edward Lopez to shoot a husband and wife as they slept in bed. One survived, the other did not. On October 25, 2022, Artuni would have fired his henchmen again. This time, they shot Mikael Stepanian, a member of Amiryan's crew.
Stepanian was standing in his driveway while on the phone when a vehicle drove up and stopped several feet from his residence. The rear passenger door opened and an individual got out. The individual shot him in the upper right back, after which he fell to the ground. Then, the individual began brandishing the weapon as he approached him and attempted to shoot him. He got back in the car and fled. Stepanian described the individual as a man wearing a black mask, a dark hoodie, a multi-colored plaid shirt, black jeans and black gloves. He carried a handgun with a suppressor.
“Come to the king…”
Then Artuni turned to the big man with status, his fellow avtoritet.
On the night of April 3, 2023, Robert Amiryan arrived at his apartment building on San Jose Avenue in Burbank. While he was in his garage, a man wearing a ski mask shot him with an AR-15.
The man missed. And Amiryan went looking for those who wanted him dead. He and his team kidnapped a man they believed to be behind the attempted murder. They beat him and interrogated him at a house in Sun Valley.
Thanks to the location of his mobile phone, the police were able to prevent the situation from getting any worse. They surrounded the house and ordered everyone to get out. Amiryan dated two other men, Vahan Harutyunyan, a convicted money launderer who told people he was a professional gambler, and Sevak “Seco” Gzraryan. The men were arrested, but were released after the victim denied being kidnapped and explicitly told police that Amiryan was “not guilty.”
It's funny how that works.
But Amiryan's troubles were far from over. On July 7, he and his wife were sitting on their balcony when a red Ford F-150 pulled up in front of their apartment building. In the truck bed stood a man dressed in dark clothing who opened fire. Bullets pulverized the balcony and hit Amiryan in the abdomen and arm as he lunged at his partner.
The attacks continued. On August 18, someone shot at Vahan Harutyunyan's house. Even though he was inside, he wasn't hit. A week later the assassins returned. That day, Harutyunyan was hanging out in his backyard with Amiryan and Gzraryan when two masked men stood up on the bed of a pickup truck. They opened fire with automatic weapons, hitting Harutyunyan six times.
His neighbors now realized that he was not just a regular professional player.
In April 2024, Artuni flew to Armenia, the Los Angeles Times reported. Federal agents told the newspaper they suspect Artuni “was reprimanded by higher-ranking crime officials over his increasingly bloody dispute with Amiryan. He spent several months in Dubai before returning to Los Angeles in November 2024.”
Despite the attempt to make sense of Artuni, the attacks continued. He had acquired a taste for blood and didn't care who was hurt.
On March 14, 2025, Amiryan's wife had parked her Cadillac Escalade in a parking lot when two men dressed in black opened fire with rifles, hitting her in the leg as her two children watched from the back seat.
The feds come to the table
The authorities became aware of the violence and began investigating Armenian mobsters. Dubbed “Supper is Ready” by federal officials, the investigation led to the indictment of leaders and members of both factions in May 2025, who are charged with a series of crimes.
Artuni was primarily accused of ordering Amiryan's murder on multiple occasions in 2023. In retaliation, Amiryan conspired with members of his own criminal organization to kidnap and torture one of Artuni's associates in June 2023. They are both in federal custody after being indicted and are scheduled to stand trial in December 2025 and August 2026, respectively.
This got the shooters off the street. But some of the triggers were still on the move. But the authorities were far from completing their investigation. On September 30, 2025, five members and associates of the San Fernando Valley-based Vanowen Street Locos and Elmwood Rifa 13 gangs were arrested.
They are: Carlos Armando Ochoa Grimaldi, 47, aka “Spanky,” of Sylmar; Christopher Ayala, 29, aka “Hits,” of Sylmar; Edir De La Cruz, 34, aka “Temper,” of Van Nuys; Maria de Jesus Mares, 39, aka “Mary Oceans,” of Van Nuys; Jose de Jesus Gonzalez, Jr., 49, member of the Vanowen Street Locos gang, aka “Listo,” of Llano.
De Jesus Gonzalez, Jr. is separately charged in connection with the August 2023 shooting of Vahan Harutyunyan, who is currently in federal custody on kidnapping charges. Grimaldi, Ayala, De La Cruz and Mares are accused of participating in a murder-for-hire plot that targeted Amiryan, but which resulted in his wife being shot and wounded in front of their two young children.
In early 2025, Grimaldi, Ayala, De La Cruz and others began tracking Amiryan and renewed their efforts to kill him. In February 2025, Ayala informed De La Cruz that he and others were still “on the job” to kill Amiryan.
On March 14, 2025, Grimaldi and Vahagn Stepanian, 40, of Burbank, fatally shot Amiryan's wife as she was returning home in her car with their two children. Stepanian is already in federal custody and is accused of racketeering, fraud and firearms offenses alongside other Armenian gangsters.
After the shooting, Mares called De La Cruz and reported that “the job was done” and that Stepanian would pay him $50,000 for his role as getaway driver. In the days that followed, Mares told De La Cruz that she thought she wouldn't be paid because “she was his wife, not him.” Stepanian ultimately paid Mares a reduced rate because Amiryan was not killed.
If convicted, the failed assassins face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
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