LOS ANGELES, Oct. 8 — The FBI says it “has no knowledge” to back up a newspaper report that two terrorist cults have joined forces in a mission to free Charles Manson and jailed members of his “family” and the Symbionese Liberation Army.

The Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram said in a copyrighted story Sunday that SLA and Manson clan members are recruiting new followers to carry out an ongoing crime spree aimed at freeing their imprisoned comrades.

“Our street sources tell us that the group is planning something that will make the Patty Hearst thing look penny ante,” the newspaper quoted one intelligence agent in its copyrighted story.

Law enforcement officers reportedly told the newspaper the two groups have merged to carry out a series of recent crimes, including bank robberies in Northern California and an intricate credit card scam.

The group to date has raised nearly $2 million, intended to help Manson, his followers and SLA members escape from prison, informants reportedly told the FBI.

But Harry Brown, the duty agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, said Sunday his office “has no knowledge of any ongoing conspiracy involving the SLA and the Manson group in the Southern California area.”

Brown added that the FBI’s Los Angeles office would be aware of any such FBI investigation in Northern California because many of the Manson “Family” activities centered in Southern California. The FBI-SLA shootout occurred in Watts and two members of the SLA were tried and convicted in Los Angeles.

The Long Beach paper said three of the suspects have become proficient helicopter pilots, and the group has stockpiled weapons and gold and purchased thousands of dollars worth of freeze-dried food and camping equipment. The group has also purchased solar panels, the paper said, but it is unknown for what purpose.

Officials estimate the Manson clan which numbered about 25 during the 1969 Sharon Tate murder spree – has 60 members and the SLA – whose hard-core members died during a 1974 gunbattle in Los Angeles — at more than 100.

Prison officials say hundreds of letters supporting Manson continue to pour in to the cult leader imprisoned in 1971 for the murders of Ms. Tate, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and four others.

Manson has been talking of escape since his imprisonment. Two of his key followers masterminded an abortive attempt in 1971 to hijack an airplane at Los Angeles International Airport and kill a passenger every hour until Manson was released.

The two, identified as Kenneth Como and Catherine “Gypsy” Share, are believed to be spearheading the current escape plan, the Long Beach paper said.

Como is serving a 20-year-to-life sentence for armed robbery. Ms. Share, 36, one of Manson’s hard-core followers, was released on parole in 1975 after serving two years for robberies reportedly committed to gather money and guns to free Manson.

She’s being sought as a key suspect in a four-state fraudulent credit card scheme begun in 1977. That year, Ms. Share became the first person to ever to successfully smuggle a gun, ammunition and a walkie-talkie into the high-security Folsom Prison.

In the credit card scam, police say, she picks up credit card carbons out of department store trash bins, sets up phony businesses and charges items to those card numbers by phone. At times she uses associates in the scheme.

The newspaper story said Sacramento police estimate Manson followers and their SLA associates have accumulated $1.5 million in the last two years in the credit card scheme, operated in at least 16 cities in California, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona.

Bank robberies have netted the group an estimated $400,000.

Robberies attributed by the FBI to the group include a $20,000 bank holdup in Manteca, Calif., Aug. 26; a $199,000 Stockton armored car stickup Aug 3; the robbery of a Sunnyvale bank April 5, and at least three other recent bank holdups.

Among the key figures in the group are Joseph Remiro, one of the SLA s founders imprisoned, with Russell Little, for killing Oakland School Superintendent Marcus Foster, and Charles Miles Manson, housed at the state prison at Vacaville.

Other key members were identified as Joan Vibbock Carraffa, 20, convicted of car theft and married to Remiro’s cellmate; her husband Victor Frank Carraffa, 36, in prison for parole violation after serving 12 years for murder; William F. Crouch, 48, a Leavenworth parolee who served eight years for two bank robberies, and James Allen Boyland, held on parole violations.