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SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's biggest gang trial in many years ended today when a jury convicted six men of racketeering and conspiracy as members of MS-13, a crime organization that waged war against rivals and defectors in San Francisco's Mission District and was found responsible for at least three 2008 murders. A seventh defendant, Walter Cruz-Zavala, was acquitted. The six men face up to life in prison when sentenced Nov. 30. Jurors deliberated for a week after a federal court trial that lasted more than four months. Prosecutors portrayed the young men as leaders or soldiers of a heavily...

Seven members and associates of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang are charged with three murders as part of a squad that allegedly killed, robbed and dealt drugs on the streets of Houston, officials said Thursday. The defendants are tied to the gang, which is known as MS-13 and has roots in Central America, federal authorities said as they announced the unsealing of a federal indictment. "Gang activities reach out from far beyond the neighborhoods in which they are ongoing and into the communities in which we live," said Jose Angel Moreno, the top federal prosecutor for a region that stretches...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A Salvadoran national and MS-13 gang leader was convicted today of prostituting a 12-year-old female with clients throughout northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Jose Ciro Juarez-Santamaria, 24, indicted on May 12, 2011, was convicted today of conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation of a minor for prostitution. He faces a mandatory minimum term of 15 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 28, 2011. "Forcing girls into prostitution for the purpose of turning...

In Billy Hoover's office today: U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens. My favorite Hugo Llorens quote: "One can't violate the Constitution in order to create another Constitution, because if one doesn't respect the Constitution, then we all live under the law of the jungle." Hugo Llorens, June 2009, in reference to President Manuel Zelaya's planned referendum on a proposed constitutional assembly. I guess we'll see if what Llorens thinks is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. Maybe he's there to give Billy Hoover a lesson on our Constitution. He could sure as hell use it.

Sitting on a bus in Honduras in 2002, Denis Alvarez Alvarado says he overheard two men in front of him discussing how he was going to die. Unaware that he was there, the men said that members of a gang called MS3 — who had kidnapped Alvarez a few days earlier, beaten him and eventually released him — intended to silence him so that he would not tell police about the abduction.I left Honduras because I was afraid that MS3 members would kill me," Alvarez, now 32, says in court documents drawn up in his legal fight against the U.S....

Julio Chavez is charged with emptying his revolver into Maurice Parker on May 18, 2007, in Flushing. Chavez then hopped into a SUV, flashed gang signs and yelled in Spanish, former MS-13 gang member Jose Molina said in Brooklyn Federal Court. " 'Yeah, homie, that's how you're supposed to do it,'" Chavez said, according to Molina. "'You see the blood coming out of his head?'" Molina said Chavez then uttered, "The beast has eaten!" Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Kazemi asked the witness to translate the meaning of Chavez's rant. "That he had just given a soul to the devil," Molina...

Last week, Alexander Rivas, 18, was arrested by Alexandria police, following an investigation that began in November, when the father of a 14-year-old runaway told police his daughter was living with Rivas. Court documents state that the girl was found in the gang member’s apartment and she was being used as a prostitute. According to prosecutors, Rivas ran a prostitution ring, operating in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, using underage runaways. The affidavit states that the business catered to “construction workers and illegal immigrants.” On a typical Friday or Saturday night, the operation would see about 100 customers...

Two members of a notorious Central American gang face life in federal prison in a murder-for-hire scheme cooked up over bad blood in Honduras that ended in gunfire in West Columbia, a prosecutor said Friday. Josue Benitez, 22, and Martin Teran, 36, were convicted Thursday after a three-week trial of a hit on Jorge Ramos, U.S. prosecutor Jay Richardson said. Ramos was gunned down while he worked on his car Nov. 2, 2008, in Hendrix Mobile Home Park on Leaphart Road. The MS-13 gang members drove from Houston to South Carolina to carry out the contract killing, Richardson said. Jurors...

A man wanted for rape in Fairfax County, who had been released from custody in Loudoun County a month before the assault because of an apparent gap in immigration databases, was captured Sunday in Houston, Fairfax police said Monday. Salvador Portillo-Saravia is being held in the Houston jail pending extradition to Fairfax. His case highlighted flaws in the much-touted Secure Communities program that is supposed to keep dangerous illegal immigrants off the street. Authorities said Portillo-Saravia, 29, was a member of the street gang MS-13 who had been picked up by gang officers in Prince William County in 2003 and...

Last week, Mexican authorities seized over 23 tons of ethyl phenylacetate, which is used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. The drug component was discovered at the Pacific port of Manzanillo, in a shipment from China. In April 2010, Mexican officials seized 80 tons of phenylacetic acid and its derivatives shipped from Shanghai, China. Imports of ethyl phenylacetate require authorization from the country’s health ministry, so the shipments are intentionally mis-labeled before leaving China. Last year, an anonymous U.S. official told Reuters that between October and November 2010, Mexican authorities seized 818 tons of chemicals used in making crystal meth. Due...

29-year-old Salvador Portillo-Saravia is a fugitive from justice, wanted for raping the 8-year-old daughter of an acquaintance on December 26th of last year. Portillo-Saravia is a native of El Salvador and a known member of MS-13 who just days before the alleged rape of the child was in a Loudoun County jail on public intoxication charges. Police claim that when they released him they didn’t know he was an illegal alien. Authorities believe that while Portillo-Saravia and a friend were visiting a woman, reportedly the friend’s girlfriend, the fugitive sneaked into the child’s bedroom and sexually assaulted her. The woman...

A 2-year-old boy watched his mother get shot to death by MS-13 gang members in a wooded section of Central Islip last year before one of them turned the gun on the crying toddler, killing him, according to federal court papers. The mother, Vanessa Argueta, 19, had taken her young son, Diego Torres, with her on what she thought was a dinner date last February because she didn't have a baby-sitter, the court papers said. Among those who took part in the execution-style killings, according to the federal documents, was the mother's former boyfriend. The account of the killings is...

Salvador Portillo-Saravia, a member of the MS-13 street gang, was charged with raping an 8-year-old girl at her Fairfax County home last month. But he never should have been in Fairfax in the first place. Federal officials deported Portillo-Saravia, of Sterling, to El Salvador in 2003, and he sneaked back in illegally. Now, officials are wondering why a much-touted federal program didn't catch him before the rape. Four weeks before the crime, Portillo-Saravia was in the Loudoun County jail for public intoxication. That's when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program, called Secure Communities, should have identified him as an...

CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police are investigating a murder plot that sounds more like something out of a made-for-TV movie. The participants are a 26-year-old gang member and two girls who are both 13-years-old and students at Northridge Middle School.Investigators say Jorge Feria-Leon is a known member of "Sur 13," a violent Latino street gang. Feria-Leon is being investigated for trying to get one teen to kill the other. The situation sprang from a party at their apartment last week. Police say that underage teen girls were present and they were drinking alcohol. Feria-Leon got arrested and supposedly he blamed a...

U.S. marshals are on the hunt for an illegal immigrant wanted for raping an 8-year-old girl, and they are asking the public to help track him down. Salvador Portillo-Saravia, 29, had been deported from the United States six years ago, but illegally re-entered the country and recently sexually assaulted the young daughter of an acquaintance. Fairfax County has issued warrants for felony charges of rape and sodomy of a victim under 13 years old. "Portillo-Saravia is a vicious and violent individual," said Marshals Deputy Lenny Reynolds. "Anyone capable of such a horrid and senseless act cannot be allowed to participate...

Mexico has belatedly discovered that its criminal syndicates have become so powerful that they directly threaten the state. In fact, Mexico hovers on the brink of becoming a narco-state. Its criminal syndicates control the Mexican side of the Texas/Mexico border and the smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants into Texas. Their influence and reach have crossed the Rio Grande River in ways that many politicians and media prefer to not acknowledge. Caught in this crossfire are ranchers trying to protect their property and their way of life. Here are some of the problems they face daily. The criminal organizations To...

"Salvadoran Immigrant Ingmar Guandique Found Guilty of Murdering D.C. Intern Chandra Levy [12:45 p.m. ET]" That was the breaking news headline that was blasted to my inbox from ABCNews.com regarding today's murder conviction of the suspect in the 2001 murder of the former congressional intern for then-Rep. Gary Condit (D). In the Associated Press story by Matthew Barakat at the ABCNews.com website, there is no mention of the fact that Guandique is an illegal immigrant nor of the fact that he is involved in the ruthless gang Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13. This despite the fact that numerous...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1009/100917washingtondc2.htm September 17, 2010 4 indicted in Washington, D.C. for MS-13 gang activities WASHINGTON - Three alleged members and associates of the MS-13 gang have been indicted for various violent crimes stemming from a home invasion last year in the District of Columbia in which several persons were held at gunpoint. A fourth alleged member has been indicted for subsequent efforts to threaten potential witnesses in the case. The indictment was returned Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny...

UNIONDALE, N.Y. (CBS 2) — He was arrested for protecting his property and family. But it’s how the Long Island man did it that police say crossed the line. He got an AK-47 assault rifle, pulled the trigger and he ended up in jail, reports CBS 2’s Pablo Guzman. George Grier said he had to use his rifle on Sunday night to stop what he thought was going to be an invasion of his Uniondale home by a gang he thought might have been the vicious “MS-13.” He said the whole deal happened as he was about to drive his...

NEW YORK — A homeowner who grabbed a rifle from his house and fired warning shots in a confrontation with a group of men on his lawn faced arraignment on criminal charges Monday as his family said he was defending his home from a threatening mass of strangers. George Grier, 30, fired rounds into the ground and air from an assault-style rifle after arguing with a large group of men gathered outside his Long Island home Sunday evening, Nassau County police said. No one was hurt. His sister, Caprice Rines, said Grier feared for the safety of his wife and...

UNIONDALE, N.Y. (CBS 2) — He was arrested for protecting his property and family. But it’s how the Long Island man did it that police say crossed the line. He got an AK-47 assault rifle, pulled the trigger and he ended up in jail, reports CBS 2’s Pablo Guzman. George Grier said he had to use his rifle on Sunday night to stop what he thought was going to be an invasion of his Uniondale home by a gang he thought might have been the vicious “MS-13.” He said the whole deal happened as he was about to drive his...

A homeowner who grabbed a rifle from his house and fired warning shots in a confrontation with a group of men on his lawn faces criminal charges, but his family said he was defending his home from a threatening mass of strangers. George Grier, 30, fired rounds into the ground and air from an assault-style rifle after arguing with a large group of men gathered outside his Long Island home Sunday evening, Nassau County police said Monday. No one was hurt. His sister, Caprice Rines, said Grier feared for the safety of his wife and two small children when about...

Chandra Ann Levy (April 14, 1977–ca. May 1, 2001) was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001 and is presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002. The investigation led to media allegations of an extramarital affair with then-U.S. Representative Gary Condit,[1] a Democrat representing California's 18th congressional district and a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Condit was never named a suspect by police and was ultimately cleared of involvement, however the cloud of suspicion raised by the...

NOTE The following text is a quote: August 11, 2010 ICE arrests 14 men in southern Indiana during operation targeting foreign-born gang members INDIANAPOLIS - Agents with the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in close partnership with other federal, state and local law enforcement partners, arrested 14 foreign-born gang members and gang associates during a two-day operation ending Tuesday. This is the latest joint local action of an ongoing national ICE HSI effort to target foreign-born members of violent street gangs. These arrests were made Aug. 9 and 10 in the Indiana...

NOTE The following text is a quote: August 11, 2010 ICE's Operation Community Shield goes global with new task force in Honduras Operation Double Impact from the videographer's view "We knew these operations were different from the states. There was a feeling of heightened awareness of our surroundings and increased tension in the air. Shootings and murders are taking place all over the city on a daily basis. When we were driving to a location downtown to look for gang members, we saw a body with a gunshot wound to the head lying on the sidewalk. " - Chuck Reed,...

MS-13 gang leader sentenced to death for 4 murdersby GLENN COUNTS / NewsChannel 36 WCNC.com Posted on July 27, 2010 at 5:59 PM CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Alejandro Umana flashed gang signs on his way inside the federal courthouse for sentencing Tuesday morning. Umana, an MS-13 gang member, was convicted on multiple counts of murder of this year. “He was a leader, he was sent in by the leadership in El Salvador to come to Charlotte and surrounding areas to help organize the gang,” says Sam Nazzaro, a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. In April, Umana was convicted of...

Gov Brewer to Obama: Warning Signs are Not Enough.

The U.S. Border Patrol has quietly reduced its current force of available agents along the U.S.-Mexico border by cutting the overtime hours they can work even as the Obama administration is asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars to hire 1,000 new agents, and Congress and the public are clamoring for beefed-up border security. Several rank-and-file and senior agents told The Washington Times that a new overtime directive issued at the agency's Washington headquarters will limit their ability to get their jobs done, reduce coverage during peak smuggling periods and allow more criminals to avoid apprehension. "By lowering the...

Last week the Cochise County Sheriff's Department released some formerly undisclosed information about the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, In the heavily redacted police report, we learn that shortly before he was shot to death, Krentz radioed his brother Phil, that he came across some illegal aliens and someone was hurt on his 35,000 acre ranch. He asked his brother to contact Border Patrol and to get some medical attention for whomever was hurt. That was the last time anyone heard from Robert. The report stated that another rancher, who's name was blacked out from the report had...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday the federal government will move to let state and local police in non-border states rotate down to the border to help local authorities go after smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico line. In a major policy speech in which she took aim at what she called "bumper sticker" slogans and said the Obama administration has made huge strides on security, Miss Napolitano said the border can be made still more secure and said administration officials are in the middle of "surging" more boots on the ground. "We are not satisfied. There is more work to...

Mexican drug cartels have set up shop on American soil, maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona from which their scouts can monitor every move made by law enforcement officials, federal agents tell Fox News. The scouts are supplied by drivers who bring them food, water, batteries for radios -- all the items they need to stay in the wilderness for a long time.

Royal City, a town with a population less than 2,000, has had its sixth drive-by shooting this year. A 10-year-old boy sleeping in his bed is the latest victim. Royal City Police Chief Darin Smith says there have been six drive by shootings within city limits this year, that’s as many as all of last year. Chief Smith says the shootings are getting more blatant and are happening in the middle of the day.

Note: The following text is a quote: May 28, 2010 Charlotte ICE gang operation yields 12 arrests CHARLOTTE, N.C. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents assigned to the Charlotte Gang Unit continue making arrests in North Carolina with its recent weekend effort yielding 12 arrests and the seizure of cocaine, marijuana and brass knuckles. Among the 12 arrests last weekend were four gang members and affiliates: one Asian Boyz gang member, two MS-13 gang members and one MS-13 affiliate. All four are foreign-born nationals from Vietnam, Uruguay and Honduras. One is a naturalized U. S. citizen, one has...

NOTE The following text is a quote: MS-13 Driver in 2007 Murder in Springfield Sentenced to Life in Prison ALEXANDRIA, VA—Carlos Bladimir Montoya, also known as "Ciego," 26, of Sterling, Va., was sentenced today to life plus a consecutive 120 months in prison for his role in the murder of a rival gang member on May 5, 2007. Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Shawn Henry, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office; and Colonel David Rohrer, Fairfax County Chief of Police, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District...

Just happened in the last hour or so. One of the killed police officers is the son of the Chief of Police.

“Itz tym 2 go.” Those were the chilling last words – sent in a desperate text message – from a New Jersey teenager moments before he and his friends were shot to death execution-style by a gang of thugs in a Newark schoolyard nearly three years ago, according to his sister, who survived the attack. Terrance Aeriel, 18, tapped out the frantic text to his sister, Natasha, as he spied a group of beer-drinking men gathering near the metal bleachers of Newark’s Mount Vernon School playground. Terrance feared his sister and their two friends were about to be set-upon by...

Note: The following text is a quote: North Carolina MS-13 Gang Member Convicted of Racketeering Charges Related to Murder; First MS-13 Member Sentenced to Death Defendant Shot and Killed Two Brothers in December 2007 in Guilford County, N.C. WASHINGTON—A 12-person federal jury in Charlotte, N.C., today voted unanimously to impose the death penalty against Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umana, aka “Wizard,” 25. Umana was convicted by the same jury on April 19, 2010, for the murders of Ruben Garcia Salinas and his brother, Manuel Garcia Salinas, on Dec. 8, 2007, in Guilford County, N.C. The jury also found that Umana was...

Nearly three years later, this city on Tuesday began to relive one of the most notorious crimes in its recent history, as the first of six defendants went on trial in the execution-style murders of three students in a schoolyard on a summer night. --snip-- The murders brought the first reports to many people here of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, the violent street gang that the authorities say Mr. Godinez, a native of Nicaragua, belonged to.

Los Zetas, the paramilitary organization founded by former Mexican army soldiers which previously was providing enforcement muscle for the Gulf cartel, has asserted itself as an independent drug trafficking organization, and early reports are that it may be forming an alliance with the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang in El Salvador to move cocaine through Central America as reported by KGBT. Leo Navarrete, the legal attache at the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador, confirms "that authorities are on the lookout for connections between gangs and big-time drug traffickers," and appropriately compares them to domestic terrorists as reported by Alex Renderos...

El Salvadoran officials are worried that a Mexican drug trafficking organization may be forming an alliance with a feared Central American gang. Mexico’s El Universal newspaper is reporting that members of the Zetas are in El Salvador where they may be working on an alliance with the Mara Salvatrucha gang. El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes told reporters the Zetas are believed to be in his country and working on forming the alliance. El Universal reported that the Zetas and other Mexican drug trafficking organizations are vying for control of cocaine smuggling routes through Central America. Click here to watch the...

Note: The following text is a quote: Seventeen Members and Associates of the MS-13 Street Gang Arraigned in Federal Court on Racketeering, Witness Tampering, and Firearms Charges Earlier today, 12 alleged members and associates of La Mara Salvatrucha, or the “MS-13” street gang, were arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge E. Thomas Boyle, at the United States Courthouse in Central Islip, New York, on federal criminal charges, including murder, assault with dangerous weapons, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, witness tampering, firearms offenses, and conspiracy. Five additional defendants named in the indictment were arraigned earlier this week, also before United...

The violent street gangs that largely profit from retail drug trafficking increasingly are taking aim at law enforcement authorities from the East to the West coasts. The NYPD has announced two separate plots against its officers. Yesterday, New York's finest announced "a massive gang takedown" which "uncovered a rare alliance between Bloods and Crips and a ruthless plot to assassinate cops" as reported by Rocco Parascandola for the Daily News. And last week the NYPD announced an investigation into an alleged plot by the transnational MS-13 to assassinate "an officer in every command" as reported by Rocco Parascandola for the...

(snip) McCain went on to discuss border concerns, expressing his frustration regarding the recent death of Douglas area rancher Robert Krentz, who authorities suspect was killed by drug smugglers. “The border is not secure and there is an increase in border violence. There have been more than 14,000 people killed in Mexico in the past few years. These include government officials, police and three Americans,” he explained. McCain’s believes a physical fence is what is needed, not the virtual fence with surveillance UAV’s (unmanned aerial vehicles) that he believes are ineffective. “The bad news is that the government has contracted...

The MS-13 gang may have issued a hit on the NYPD, police sources said Saturday. The tip came last week from a cab driver in Brooklyn, whose hack friend overheard a gang member talk about a murder contract on police from the driver's back seat, sources said. The cabbie told cops the thug spoke about the group killing an officer in every command, sources said. "We're investigating the report based on an overheard conversation," said NYPD spokesman Sgt. Kevin Hayes. "At this time, there's nothing to indicate there's a city-wide threat." But sources said Gang Unit cops are pushing informants...

Montgomery County is opening its doors to illegal immigrants as its neighbors around the Washington region crack down on them. While counties across the area are slamming their doors shut to illegals through federal enforcement, Montgomery County's communication with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials is limited to a weekly fax of names. And now the county is fighting an effort to crack down statewide. The county's Department of Corrections sends the name of every inmate detained on charges of violent crime — without regard to their immigration status — to ICE weekly, according to county spokesman Patrick Lacefield. "If...

Three illegal immigrant gang members who faced the death penalty for murdering a Maryland man last summer have been spared by the nation’s chief law enforcement officer who has ordered prosecutors not to seek the maximum punishment. Attorney General Eric Holder intervened on behalf of the El Salvadoran gangbangers by directing federal prosecutors handling their conspiracy and murder case to rule out the death penalty, according to a Virginia-based news web site that broke the story this week. The three illegal immigrants are members of a notoriously violent street gang called Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) that has spread throughout the country...

Sixty years. That’s how long Antonio Neftali Urrutia-Barrera, 20, of Reston, will spend in federal prison after being sentenced March 19 for two of the many crimes he either committed or is accused of committing in late summer and early fall 2008. One of those crimes was a triple shooting in Sterling Park that left a Loudoun resident paralyzed from the waist down. During a period of a little more than two months, Urrutia-Barrera—who is in the country illegally from Central America—spent time in three Virginia counties and one Maryland county. His crimes left at least four innocent bystanders injured....

Rest of Title: Charged With Murder in Washington Suburb Attorney General Eric Holder has directed prosecutors in a federal conspiracy and murder trial not to seek the death penalty for three El Salvadoran men who are in the United States illegally. The three are accused of robbing and shooting Claros Luna on July 29, 2009 in Alexandria, Va., just a few miles from the Justice Department, as Luna transported a prostitute from Maryland to Virginia. The suspects, Eris Arguera, Alcides Umana and Adolfo Amaya Portillo, admitted to being members of the MS-13 gang, court documents show. They were indicted on...

A 16-year-old girl was raped early Saturday in Alexandria by three members of the MS-13 street gang, Alexandria police alleged in court documents Tuesday. Police said the attack occurred in a vacant apartment in the 5700 block of Dunster Court on the west side of Alexandria, off North Beauregard Street. Police were called at 12:48 a.m. to the apartment, and the victim told police she was inside with friends when the gang members, armed with an aluminum baseball bat, burst in, according to a affidavit written by Alexandria Detective Sean Casey. The suspects confronted the girl and her friends and...

Note: The following text is a quote: March 10, 2010 Queens MS-13 gang leader sentenced to life in prison for racketeering and murder NEW YORK - The leader of a Queens chapter of the international street gang La Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as "MS-13," was sentenced March 10 to life imprisonment for racketeering conspiracy, including the acts of murder and attempted murder; murder in-aid-of-racketeering; and using a firearm in connection with a crime of violence. A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Amilcar Gomez, 26, on April 3, 2009, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with...