New York Times: Salvadoran Gang Leaders and Expert Are Indicted in California

LOS ANGELES — Federal agents announced criminal indictments for 24 high-ranking gang members, along with a prominent gang intervention specialist who associated with city politicians and routinely raised money from Hollywood’s elite.

The specialist, Alex Sanchez, director of Homies Unidos, a gang outreach organization in Los Angeles for more than a decade, was arrested and charged with a federal racketeering count for his alleged role in the assassination of a man in El Salvador in 2006.

The charges capped a three-year investigation into the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a transnational gang of Central American origin with branches throughout the United States. The government charged various “shot-callers,” or leaders, with murders, drug distribution, extortion and other crimes in the 16-count indictment. Federal officials also accused gang members of unsuccessfully conspiring to kill an antigang detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.

In addition to the gang members, many of whom are already in prison on other charges, the Los Angeles police said they had arrested 15 more people associated with MS-13 in the course of the investigation.

Daniel McMullen, a special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Los Angeles bureau said investigators had used a variety of techniques including wiretaps and confidential informants to build their case.

Mr. Sanchez and Homies Unidos have been the source of controversy for nearly a decade. Mr. Sanchez, a rotund man with a goatee and a checkered past as a former member of MS-13, ran Homies Unidos since 2007.

In 2000, immigration officials tried to deport Mr. Sanchez based on his criminal history. After a public campaign in support of Mr. Sanchez joined by Westside liberals, including Tom Hayden, then a state senator, Mr. Sanchez was granted political asylum.

In recent years, he has focused on the human rights of gang members who are deported back to Central America. Human rights organizations have reported that government-backed death squads there have repeatedly focused on gang members.

Kenny Green, a gang intervention worker in south Los Angeles County, said he had known Mr. Sanchez for years and never suspected him of any wrongdoing. But Mr. Green said he understood the pressures of his work.

“We’re peace ambassadors,” he said. “We have to have relationships with everyone — the gangs, the police, the community — and we have to be credible with everyone. People have to know we’re upright.”

Mr. Sanchez was also an associate of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, whose office did not return phone calls.

Two other gang intervention workers who have known Mr. Sanchez for years and spoke anonymously for fear of their safety said he had struggled to leave his gangster past behind.

One of the workers disagreed with F.B.I. accounts that Mr. Sanchez was himself a shot-caller for the gang. “He wasn’t a leader,” the gang worker said. “He was someone they used as a front.”

Source NY Times 24/06/2009

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