A tip from a police informant led to the arrest of the Laos Pride gangsters.

Around 11 p.m. Monday, Detective Peter Chabot, a state trooper assigned to the Providence Police Gang Unit, received a tip from a confidential source that a house at 121 Bellevue Ave. in the West End ``had just been shot into.’’

The police received information that the shooters fled in a white Toyota Camry.

The gang unit officers knew of a Laos Pride gang member who drives a car fitting the description of the Toyota used in the shooting.

At the Bellevue Avenue address, several Hanover Boyz were milling around the backyard. They refused to talk to the police about the shooting. Investigators determined that a stray bullet had struck a Volvo parked nearby.

A few minutes later, the police spotted the Toyota turning from Waverly Street onto Cranston Street. Inside were members of Laos Pride wearing blue bandannas that were partially masking their faces. The police turned on their lights and sirens and called for backup. The car continued for several blocks.

Once the car stopped, the police surrounded the Toyota with guns drawn and ordered everyone from the car. The police looked under the seat and found two guns: a semiautomatic Raven and a Colt revolver. The police said that both guns were loaded.

Two of the passengers, juveniles ages 17 and 16, were each charged with possession of a firearm without a license; possession of a firearm by a minor; possession of a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle; discharge of a firearm in a compact area and possession of a ammunition by a minor.

A Family Court judge ordered them held at the Rhode Island Training School.

Two other gang members, Steven Soundara, 19, of Providence, and a 17-year old juvenile, were charged with failing to have a license or permit required for carrying a pistol. In September 2006, Soundara’s older brother, Bobby, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for throwing a pipe bomb into the home of a member of a rival gang, the Young Bloods.

The bomb did not injure the intended target, but it went off in the face of a gang member’s mother and she lost an eye.

Soundara was also a member of Laos Pride.

Detective Sgt. Michael P. Wheeler, who heads the Providence police gang unit, said the arrests and seizure of guns underscores the deep knowledge of gang activity that his officers have developed over the years.

``We are out there and we know who is out there. The fact that we took two guns from these kids is huge, ’’ Wheeler said.

The other two arrests and seizure of guns took place in the city’s South Side.

About 12:30 a.m. today, officers assigned to the department’s Gun Task Force received a tip that a woman would be driving a car with a loaded gun to Chad Brown, a housing development off of Douglas Avenue.

The tipster described the car, a white Chevrolet, and said that it would be traveling on Broad Street within the next 30 minutes. The officers spotted the suspected car near Parkis Avenue and followed it for several blocks. They pulled the female driver over at the intersection of Broad Street and Pearl Street for a moving violation after it allegedly passed a car on the right.

The driver, Althea Latimer, 39, was driving on a suspended license, arrested and taken into custody. The police opened the car trunk and found a loaded .12 gauge shotgun. She was charged with possession of a loaded weapon in a motor vehicle and operating on a suspended license.

Earlier on Monday, at 10:25 p.m., the police arrested Joshua Carpenter, 22, of 224 Pearl St., after he allegedly threatened a woman with a handgun on Providence Street. The police later searched the Pearl Street address and found a chrome revolver stashed in a Remy Martin canister.

Carpenter was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, possession of a weapon without a permit and carrying a dangerous weapon when committing a crime of violence.