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" It&amp;#039;s not exactly a secret that running a food truck is not just hard but dangerous work. Beyond the local laws that seem hell-bent on keeping the food truckers down, operators tend to get robbed of their money, robbed of their trucks, shot and killed, shot and left for dead, and then captured on video for the Internet to watch. Who in his right mind would want to start a food truck business after seeing news like this? No wonder some want to arm themselves for protection. The latest news we&amp;#039;ve seen is this bit, out of Los Angeles: A grand jury indictment was scheduled to be unsealed Monday for about two dozen reputed members of the notorious MS-13 gang in connection with a violent extortion racket that targeted food-truck operators. Now this particular racket wasn&amp;#039;t exactly your trendy, Twitter-popularized, Paul Qui-owned operation, but a truck that served &amp;quot;blue collar workers at construction sites,&amp;quot; the LA Times reports. Let&amp;#039;s ignore for a moment the fact that you have to be a real scumbag to extort money from a construction worker&amp;#039;s lunch joint, and think about the implications of a multinational organization like MS-13 getting into the food truck business. This isn&amp;#039;t exactly virgin territory. As early as January 2011, Los Angeles was prosecuting &amp;quot;reputed gang members&amp;quot; (unclear on whether they were MS-13 or not) for food-truck extortions. The popularity of trucks has only skyrocketed in the last two years, with Google searches for food trucks now at four times what they were in 2011 and food trucks are now a $1.5 billion industry as of last year. That number is only growing, meaning we&amp;#039;ll probably see more weasels trying to bleed these vendors for money, and most likely more violence for the operators out there. PLUS: The Food Truck That Fed Hurricane Sandy&amp;#039;s Victims "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/a20661/food-truck-extortion-15234148/>