A wide-ranging criminal racketeering trial, four years in the making, is finally set to go to trial today in federal court.

In U.S. v. Luong, 96-00094, two dozen criminal defendants will stand before U.S. District Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel to answer a 21-count indictment that includes a series of million-dollar high-tech takeover robberies and a heroin distribution network that stretched from California to New York.