Patrick Semansky / AP
President Donald Trump speaks alongside Attorney General William Barr during a law enforcement briefing on the MS-13 gang in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, July 15, 2020, in Washington.
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020 | 9:30 p.m.
The federal indictment this summer in Las Vegas of about a dozen members of the MS-13 gang on drug and weapons charges was touted in a Justice Department report released Wednesday on the transnational criminal organization, which claims that about 75% of its members targeted for prosecution in the past four years in the U.S. were here illegally.
Eleven of the 13 suspects in the local case, who were “leaders, members and associates” of the gang, were taken into custody on July 14 during a national law enforcement operation across the U.S., the report said.
The 21-count grand jury indictment, which was unsealed the day of their arrests, accuses them of trafficking large shipments of methamphetamine from Los Angeles to the valley. It was filed under seal six days earlier, court records show.
One of the suspects, Adali Arnulfo Escalante-Trujillo — who used the alias “Buchaca” — was a “shot caller” or leader for the Hollywood Locos “clique” in Las Vegas.
Escalante-Trujillo had direct contact with a founding member of MS-13 in El Salvador and hosted gang members in his Las Vegas home, where they coordinated drug-trafficking deals, according to the report.
The 13 suspects also are accused of sending “bulk” contraband pills laced with fentanyl, the powerful opioid that’s driven an increase of drug-related deaths across the country, including in Clark County, which in July reported 63 fentanyl-related deaths, or about the same number reported during all of 2019.
Authorities confiscated about 30 guns, ammunition, magazines and gun silencers, which they possessed illegally, according to the complaint.
From 2016 to 2020, federal authorities have prosecuted 749 MS-13 members, convicting over 500 of them, including 37 who’ve received life sentences, the report said. A total of 74% were undocumented immigrants, while the status of 15% couldn’t not be determined. Additionally, 8% are U.S. citizens, and 3% could live here legally, the report said.
"The data also show that for decades MS-13 has exploited weaknesses in border enforcement policies," authorities said in a news release.
The efforts against MS-13 were amplified by President Donald Trump, who through executive order soon after he took office, directed authorities to “dismantle” criminal organizations here, such as MS-13, the release said.
In August of last year, the Joint Task Force Vulcan was formed under Attorney General William Barr. Since then, U.S. officials have stepped up collaborating with governments in Mexico and Central America, where the California-born gang has strong footholds.
More than 50 MS-13 suspects have been extradited to the United States, the release said.
Around the same time the Las Vegas group was indicted, federal prosecutors in Virginia charged Armando Eliu Melgar Diaz with terrorism, the first terror-related prosecution of MS-13 in the U.S., according to authorities.
Melgar Diaz emigrated from El Salvador to Virginia in 2003, where he initially joined the gang. He was deported 10 years later but returned a few months later, before he was deported again in 2016, authorities said. He’s in custody in El Salvador, where he’s facing additional charges, including murder.
As a leader, he oversaw cliques in 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, and in Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala, authorities said. He also oversaw financing, including collecting dues and drug trafficking money, and ordered acts of violence, including murder, authorities said.
“In 2017, the president directed the Department of Justice to go to war against MS-13, and we did just that,” said Barr in the news release. “Joint Task Force Vulcan’s operations have significantly degraded MS-13 capabilities.”
