"Primarily they are local individuals who get arrested and get sent to prison and get introduced to the white supremacist gangs there in prison as a way of surviving," Logan Police Capt. Eric Collins said.

And much of what happens in prisons is carried to the outside, in a revolving door of parolees and absconders.

"You have an enclave that are kind of in the west Weber County area," Ogden Police Chief Jon Greiner said. "They've made connections with each other in the prison system."

Logan police said they, too, have seen dozens move into the Cache Valley in recent years.

"They come here because it's a quiet, more rural area than Salt Lake," Collins said. "They like that. They don't like the Salt Lake area, per se. They'd rather be out in a more rural community."

Police said white supremacist gangs don't engage in day-to-day assaults and drive-by shootings like other gangs but have interests in methamphetamine, forgeries and identity theft. Ogden's gang detectives said they are aware of 200 to 300 known white supremacist gang members who rotate in and out of the prisons.

"This last year, they were getting more and more violent," Draper with the Ogden Metro Gang Unit said.

Ogden police have had dealings with many white supremacists, most recently in the shooting death of William "Billy" Maw. During a May 2006 traffic stop, police said Maw pulled a gun on two Ogden officers and was shot to death.

Greiner said Maw's death prompted a rallying cry for retaliation against law enforcement from white supremacists, most notably from Curtis Allgier. It was Ogden police who had also picked up Allgier last year on a parole violation before he was released in October.

"We asked him what his deal was and he made it clear that (retaliation) wasn't going to happen. He was going to go to Wyoming," Draper said. "He was only out for three weeks before we found him and sent him back."

Gang ties

Corrections officials said Allgier was a founder of a small Aryan gang in the prison. Staring at a parole officer during his April 2006 parole hearing, with tattoos that said "Skin Head" and "Hatebreed" written on his face, Allgier denied any gang ties.

"I've no gang affiliations whatsoever," he said on a tape obtained by the Deseret Morning News. "I've never been in a gang. I don't believe in gangs. I don't need someone to tell me what to do. I'm white and proud of it."

Most recently, federal prosecutors have gone after prison gangs on mafia-style racketeering charges. It netted the convictions of numerous members of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture in a court case that included death threats against prosecutors and an all-out brawl in a Utah courtroom.