BUENA PARK, Calif. — The white-supremacist gang Public Enemy No. 1 began two decades ago as a group of teenage punk-rock fans from upper-middle class communities in Southern California.

Now, the violent gang that deals in drugs, guns, and identity theft is gaining clout across the West after forging an alliance with the notorious Aryan Brotherhood, authorities say.

Police say the gang has compiled a “hit list” targeting five officers and a gang prosecutor — a sign of just how brazen it has become.

“They make police officers very, very nervous,” said Corporal Nate Booth, a gang detective with the Buena Park Police Department in Orange County.

Law enforcement officials trace the gang’s rise to shifts in the power structure inside prisons.

The Aryan Brotherhood has long been the dominant white-supremacist gang behind bars, with the Nazi Low Riders acting as its foot soldiers on the outside for drug dealing and identity theft.

In 2000, officials reclassified the Low Riders as a prison-based gang and began sending its members to solitary confinement as soon as they were imprisoned.

The crackdown hurt the gang’s ability to interact with the Aryan Brotherhood, which turned to Public Enemy, authorities say. The alliance was cemented in 2005 when Donald Reed “Popeye” Mazza, an alleged leader of Public Enemy, was inducted into the Aryan Brotherhood.

The pact has increased Public Enemy’s wealth and recruiting power, said Steve Slaten, a special agent for the California Department of Corrections.