MS-13 gang targeted in sweep across Los Angeles

MS-13 gang targeted in sweep across Los Angeles

We recently reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to target the nation’s law enforcement efforts on the barbaric and brutal El Salvadoran gang, MS13.

While the elite media has been attempting to stage a coup-d’-press, it has nearly ignored significant developments that highlight exactly how effective President Donald Trump’s administration has been.  For example, Sessions’ plans were initiated during an early morning sweep of MS13 gangsters that hit its leadership.

Federal prosecutors unsealed a sweeping indictment Wednesday morning charging dozens of members and leaders of the brutal street gang with a variety of crimes, including murder.

Acting U.S. Attorney Sandra Brown said the 127-page anti-racketeering indictment targets 44 members and associates of the gang, including the one-time leader of a Los Angeles faction of MS-13. Three people accused of murder could face the death penalty, she said.

Twenty-one people named in the indictment were arrested in pre-dawn raids across Los Angeles and Brown said warrants were served at more than 50 locations. Jail officials around the region also conducted cell searches, as some of those indicted were already in custody on unrelated charges. About a dozen of those arrested were so-called “shot callers” for the gang. At least three people were still at large Wednesday.

“It’s one of the largest and most entrenched gangs in Los Angeles,” Brown said. “Today’s actions will deal a critical blow to the top leadership.”

Federal prosecutors have been using racketeering and conspiracy charges to undermine MS-13. This approach was used to nab the former leader of the gang and a dozen people who acted as a joint council of leaders.

The lead defendant in the indictment is 43-year-old Jose Balmore Romero, known as “Porky.” Romero called the shots for the gang in Los Angeles in 2013 and 2014 and oversaw the gang’s drug-trafficking activities and coordinated the collection of extortion money, some of which was distributed to the Mexican Mafia, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Romero has been in custody since 2015, charged with ordering a gang-related slaying.

Three men were charged with murder in connection with the gang’s activities, authorities said.

Carlos Alfredo Cardoza Lopez, 23, known as “Little Boy,” faces a violent crime in aid of racketeering murder charge in the fatal shooting of a innocent bystander inside the gang-controlled Little San Salvador Nightclub and Restaurant on Western Avenue, federal prosecutors said in a statement. A friend of the victim also was stabbed.

Two others accused of being in the gang also are facing federal murder charges. Alexander Paredes Rivas, 39, known as “Blacky,” is accused of killing a man in August 2015 at a strip mall in Pacoima. Joffri Molina, 24, known as “Espia,” is accused of killing a man in September 2015 on a North Hollywood street, officials said.

But as surely as the sun rises in the east, elite media types are diminishing these positive developments because it highlights a Trump administration success.

For example, after getting the scoop on President Trump’s ice cream cravings, CNN asserts these arrests will make MS13 stronger.

But the truth about the gang, the first street gang to be labeled a “transnational criminal organization” by the US government, is more complicated — and experts say using MS-13 to justify cracking down on undocumented immigrants could actually make the gang stronger.

CNN’s projections about MS13 strength are likely to be as accurate as their presidential prognostications.

This has been a very good week for American law enforcement and for the American people.

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