LONG BEACH, Calif., Oct. 15 — Scattered remnants of Charlie Manson’s family are on a crime spree aimed at freeing the hippie leader and other members of his violence-prone cult from prison, local and federal law enforcement agents have told the Independent, Press-Telegram.

Joining with them, police and prison officials say, are members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Law enforcement groups fear the alliance.

“Our street sources tell us that the Manson-SLA group is planning something that will make the Patty Hearst thing look penny ante,” one intelligence agent said.

FBI agents and police in several California cities have pieced together this scenario:

-— The Manson clan, some of whose members were convicted of murdering actress Sharon Tate and at least eight others, and the SLA, responsible for the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, have recruited new followers and joined forces.

— The Manson-SLA group has gone on a crime spree that includes a series of northern California bank robberies and an intricate, highly lucrative credit card scam.

— To date the group has raised almost $2 million.

— FBI sources say informants have told the agency that the money is being raised to free Manson and other associates of the former hippie guru and the SLA members who are in prison.

Authorities claim they have no idea what kind of escape is being planned with the money, but they do say that:

— Three of the suspects have become proficient helicopter pilots.

— The group has stockpiled weapons and gold.

— The group has purchased thousands of dollars worth of freeze-dried food and camping equipment.

— For some unknown reason, the group has purchased solar panels from a New Jersey scientific laboratory.

Meanwhile, local police authorities in cities where bank robberies have taken place are openly critical of the way the FBI is handling the sensitive situation. They say they have sufficient evidence for arrests to be made immediately in some of the robberies, but that the FBI, which has jurisdiction, has not done so.

However, one FBI agent countered, “I’ve never worked on anything so hard or so long,” referring to the Manson-SLA probe.

Local authorities say they find that hard to believe.

“They (FBI agents) are waiting for some big event to take place,” said a Stockton, Calif., police official, “while our local cases are going down the tubes.”

FBI agents say the Manson-SLA alliance and the escape plot are still under investigation but would give few details.

The FBI says it has delayed filing federal bank robbery charges against three robbery suspects. The agency says it is concentrating on one robbery — a $20,000 bank stick-up in Manteca, Calif., on Aug. 26 — because it is the “most solid.”

Other robberies that FBI agents say they believe the Manson-SLA group was involved in include the robbery of a Sunnydale, Calif., bank April 5 and a $199,000 Stockton, Calif., armored car robbery Aug. 3. In the Stockton robbery, witnesses reported seeing a helicopter land in a parking lot, indicating it may have been used in the successful escape. Also, police sources said, at least three other recent bank robberies have been linked to the Manson-SLA group.

“One thing intelligence agents fear most,” said one federal agent, “is the merging of terrorist and fanatic groups — such as the SLA and the Manson family. Looks like that’s what has happened.”

Law enforcement officials in Sacramento, which has been hit by both the credit card scam and a “matching” bank robbery, estimate that the Manson clan has 60 members and the SLA has more than 100.

Surprisingly, the number of Manson followers, which was only about 25 during the murder spree in 1969, has apparently been growing as new converts are attracted. The SLA’s hard-core members died in a firefight in Los Angeles in 1974 and officials at that time believed that the incident scattered the few remaining followers.

However, Manson’s chief executioner, Charles “Tex” Watson, said at a parole hearing last year, that Manson cults had mushroomed in every juvenile detention facility in the state, with Manson’s picture plastered on walls of the facilities.

Prison officials say letters by the hundreds continue to pour into Manson, offering him support.

Manson has told newsmen that his aim is to get out of prison, although he admits he holds little hope of being released.

Escape has been on his mind, however, and on the minds of his followers since he was convicted for the murders Ms. Tate, Mr. and Mrs. Leno LaBianca and four others in 1971.

Two of his key followers, who had 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, are believed to be spearheading the current escape effort.

The two are Kenneth Como and Catherine “Gypsy” Share.

Como is considered by prison authorities to be one of the most dangerous men in the state’s prison system. Three years ago, he married Gypsy, one of Manson’s hardcore followers. Como is serving a sentence of 20 years to life for armed robbery.

Gypsy, 36, was released on parole in 1975 after serving two years for robberies that were reportedly committed to gather money and guns to free Manson from jail. She is currently being sought on local and federal warrants as the key figure in a four-state fraudulent credit card scheme.

Prison officials say she successfully smuggled a gun, ammunition and a walkie-talkie into the high-security Folsom Prison in 1977, the first time in the facility’s history that a weapon had been brought in that way.

According to police records, Gypsy, who began her credit card scam in 1977, has used six or seven accomplices.

“She picks up credit card carbons out of department store trash bins” said a Sacramento police officer. “We know there were two stores in the (San Francisco) Bay area and one in Los Angeles. She had a Rolex file full of names — there were 600 to 700 names with credit card-numbers and information.

“Then she would rent an office and a phone and set up a phony business. She got girls to answer phones, but many of them never saw her. They were hired and told what to do — even where to pick up keys — over the telephone.

“But they would sign for packages which would pour into the office, all brought by parcel post from stores where credit card numbers had been phoned in for the merchandise.

“When the girl left the office, Gypsy and at least two others, would come in and take the stuff out. Some she’d fence; some she’d keep, especially the gold, of which there was much,” he said.

Some of the unsuspecting girls hired, he said, could not identify her because they never saw her. And, he added, she would use an 800 phone number and a public telephone booth to place the order, thereby foiling any attempt to trace the calls.

The take from just nine of at least 16 office setups, the Sacramento detective says, amounted to $750,000. The total take he estimates at more than double that amount, since bigger cities like Los Angeles and wealthy ones like Palm Springs were not included in his investigation, although they are known to have been hard hit by Gypsy’s scheme.

Meanwhile, a $600 guitar was sent to Manson, and Como is walking around the prison yard at Folsom wearing a $2,400 Tiffany gold watch and gold chain.

Among the victims of the credit card scam is a San Jose police lieutenant. Gypsy, sources say, apparently picked up the lieutenant’s credit card number, along with others, from the wastepaper baskets of a store in San Francisco and charged $1,000 in expensive women’s lingerie to his account.

Although the credit card scheme made money almost faster than it could be counted — Ms. Share deposited $12,000 to a checking account in four days and $50,000 to one bank account in a month — she may still be operating.

Police admit they cannot catch her and she has been at large since she jumped bail in Sacramento after her arrest by federal agents for giving false information to a bank. She even closed her bank accounts, and when police, armed with a search warrant, raided the home in which she was living in Concord, all they found were 3 few diamond trinkets, a few gold cufflinks and Tiffany china. After they left, they say someone — probably Gypsy — returned to the house and dug up the back yard.

The police says they think the person was after gold.

Thus far, Sacramento police detectives estimate that Manson family members aided by SLA associates, have accumulated an estimated $1.5 million in the last two years in the credit scam alone. At least 16 cities have been hit in California, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona. The 16 cities are Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, Roseville, Woodland, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Ceres, Redwood City, Carmichael, Berkeley and San Francisco, in California, and Reno, Nev., Bedford and Baker, Ore., and Phoenix, Ariz.

But the credit card scheme, lucrative as it is, isn’t the only way money is being stockpiled, police say.

Bank robberies — a previous specialty of the SLA — have netted an estimated $400,000.