EL MONTE, Calif.—On a recent summer night, a caravan of a dozen cruisers crawled through residential streets toward a drab industrial stretch where sheriffs suspected gang members were running a “slap house”—an underground casino named for the tell-tale sounds of players furiously smashing buttons on digital table-top games imported from China.
An alert came out over the radio: “countersurveillance.” A lone lookout on a scooter was patrolling the streets. The slap house operators had also installed security cameras, which fed to a large monitor inside their decrepit lair.
But by the time suspects saw the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) coming, they had nowhere to run, surrounded on three sides by high walls and barbed wire. Deputies found one man calmly waiting by the front door when they came to bust it open….