Federal prosecutors have announced the arrest of nearly two dozen suspected MS-13 gang members allegedly behind a wave of “brutal violence” in the New York City borough of Queens.
The 48-count indictment, unsealed this week in a federal court in Brooklyn, charges 22 individuals, whose ages range from 19 to 35, with “racketeering conspiracy and related offenses, including multiple murders and other acts of violence, drug distribution conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York.
“The murders and other crimes of violence allegedly committed by these defendants were brutal, cold-blooded, and utterly senseless,” said United States Attorney Breon Peace. “This Office and our law enforcement partners are working tirelessly to dismantle the MS-13 at all of its levels, and we will not relent until this transnational criminal organization, its leaders, members, and associates are held accountable for the extreme violence and other criminal activity that they have perpetrated in our communities.”
The indictment adds murder charges against suspect Leyla Carranza, who prosecutors say allegedly lured 17-year-old Andy Peralta to Kissena Park in Flushing, Queens, in April 2018, when he was “fatally beat, stabbed and strangled.”
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A tree with MS-13 graffiti is pictured in the Langley Hampshire Neighborhood Park in Langley Park in a gang hangout area known as the cemetery. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“Peralta’s killers photographed themselves posing over Peralta’s corpse while they displayed MS-13 gang signs with their hands,” the attorney’s office said.
It also adds more charges to individuals involved with the murders of Victor Alvarenga – who was shot and killed near his home in Flushing in November 2018 – and Abel Mosso on a subway platform in February 2019.
“As alleged, in the early afternoon of February 3, 2019, Victor Lopez and Tito Martinez-Alvarenga followed Mosso, who they believed to be a member of the rival 18th Street gang, onto the No. 7-train at the Main Street station in Flushing, trailed by Ramiro Gutierrez. Lopez and Martinez-Alvarenga assaulted Mosso inside the subway car and then dragged him out onto the platform at the 90th Street station in Jackson Heights,” the attorney’s office said.
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Police tape is seen in a wooded area in Long Island, New York, in September 2018, where remains were discovered. It is believed that the victims were killed by MS-13 gang members. (AP)
“The defendants pulled out a gun, but Mosso wrestled it away. Gutierrez shouted in Spanish, ‘Nobody get involved, we’re MS-13, we’re going to kill him,’” it added. “Gutierrez then grabbed the gun from Mosso and allegedly shot him multiple times, killing him.”
In another killing, former alleged MS-13 member Eric Monge was fatally shot near his home in Queens in September 2020 by another suspected member he previously assaulted, in an attack that happened right after his wife dropped their young children off inside the property, according to prosecutors.
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Four unidentified members of the Mara Salvatrucha “MS-13” show their tattoos in the unit where they are kept imprisoned in the National Penitentiary in Tamara, Honduras, in February 2006. (ELMER MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell says the newly-announced charges “again show that NYPD investigators, in close collaboration with our law enforcement partners, are relentless in seeking justice against gangs – no matter when or where their brutal violence is carried out.”
The defendants in the indictment have been identified as Edenilson Larin – an alleged national MS-13 leader — Christian Leon, Carlos Alvarado, Jose Iraheta, Erick Leon, Blanca Garcia, Jose Aguilar, Oscar Baires, Keila May, Yonathan Hernandez, Leyla Carranza, Jose Hernandez, Jose Sanchez, Tylor Salmeron, Erick Hernandez, Juan Amaya-Ramirez, Oscar Flores-Mejia, Ramiro Gutierrez, Victor Lopez, Tito Martinez-Alvarenga, Emerson Martinez-Lara and Ismael Santos-Novoa.
