"I'm still the king," Tyrese Sharod Smith said in 2003 after a federal jury found him guilty of running a pattern of racketeering through his violent gang.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard McKelvie's response was, "We'll find out how well he rules in a maximum-security federal prison."

Today, Smith is housed in a high-security penitentiary in Tucson and has served about five years of a life sentence. Smith, prosecutors say, was a prime example of how destructive gangs can be.

Smith claimed to be the "king" and founder of the King Mafia Disciples gang. In 1996, Smith was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a 19-year-old man he mistakenly thought was a rival gang member. Joey Miera was sleeping on the floor of his cousin's Salt Lake house when he was killed by a shotgun blast fired through an open window.

Even in state prison, Smith continued to issue orders for killings of rival gang members and other crimes. KMD rules also called for members who failed to follow his orders to be "canceled."

Authorities found that while they could put violent gang leaders behind bars, they continued to influence crimes on the outside.

That's when federal officials decided to use the RICO statute, typically used to fight organized crime, to combat gangs. In the first case of its kind in Utah, the KMD RICO case not only resulted in the conviction of Smith but also the guilty pleas of nine other KMD gang members.

"KMD has not made a resurgence on the street that I'm aware of," McKelvie said.

Since then, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Utah has successfully prosecuted members of two other violent gangs.

The second one to face RICO prosecution were the leaders of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture, a violent white-supremacist prison gang responsible for an array of violent stabbings, other attacks and drug dealing within the state prison system. Known for their copious tattoos on their bodies, SAC members built their standing in the gang based on violent attacks.

The gang was headed in part by two brothers, Steve and Tracy Swena. At the end, both brothers were sentenced to 12 and 20 years in federal prison, respectively.

In addition, about 10 other SAC members were also sentenced to federal prison time.

Prosecutors call the effort "scattering them to the winds," in that gang members are separated and sent to various federal penitentiaries across the country.

McKelvie said the problem with gangs is that if you go after one, another member moves in to take his place. "If you have a garden and you live next door to a yard overwrought with dandelions, you need to go next door and eradicate the source — that's what we do with RICO," he said. "We get to the core of the organization and bring it down as a whole."