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Mexican Mafia Leaders Responsible for Running LA Jails Taken Down!

83 high ranking members and associates of the Mexican Mafia were charged in federal racketeering conspiracies that alleged drug dealing, extortion, violent assaults and even murders.

 The gang operated like an illegal government, collecting “taxes” on smuggled drugs,  ordering hits on people who didn’t follow their rules and even calling  the shots on street crimes. Used wives, girlfriends and lawyers to help  relay orders to be carried out by members who were not incarcerated.

Gang members would deliberately get arrested on low-level charges so they  could smuggle drugs into the jail and be released days later.

Via KRON4:

“We just delivered a blow to a cold-blooded prison gang and their  associates,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said during a news conference.   

  A poster showing photos of suspects, some of whom remain at large, is  seen at a news conference to announce indictments against the Mexican Mafia in Los Angeles Wednesday, May 23, 2018.     

The  so-called “gang of gangs” — an organization of imprisoned Latino street  gang leaders who control operations inside and outside California  prisons and jails — started in the 1950s at a juvenile jail and grew to  an international criminal organization that has controlled smuggling,  drug sales and extortion inside the nation’s largest jail system.

“These  Mexican Mafia members and associates, working together to control  criminal activity within (LA County jails), have become their own entity  or enterprise and effectively function as an illegal government,” an  indictment said.

The gang was also able to control street crime by  using wives, girlfriends and lawyers to help relay orders to be carried  out by members who were not incarcerated, an indictment said.

In  some instances, gang members would deliberately get arrested on  low-level charges so they could smuggle drugs into the jail and be  released days later.

Because the Mexican Mafia controlled drug  trafficking in the jails, they got the first shot to sell their supply  of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin or marijuana, prosecutors said.  Other groups had to wait and give a third of their contraband to the  Mexican Mafia leadership.

The fee, known as a “thirds” tax, gave  the name “Operation Dirty Thirds” to the investigation that led to the  indictments and arrest of 32 people Wednesday. Another 35 defendants  were in custody and 16 were fugitives.

The gang enriched itself  through drug sales, taxes on drugs and even collected a share of  purchases on candy bars, deodorant and other items at the jail  commissary, the indictment said, adding that the gang was able to exert  control by threatening and carrying out violence if people didn’t pay up  or follow the rules.

The gang members were accused of committing vicious beatings, stabbings, kidnappings and murders in retaliation, Hanna said.

The  indictment alleges crimes between 2012 and 2016, when a grand jury was  convened and before President Donald Trump took office.

Trump has  focused on gang violence but has singled out MS-13, pointing to the  gang’s gruesome crimes in a push for stronger immigration policies.

While  MS-13 is associated with the Mexican Mafia, the majority of the crimes  listed in the indictments Wednesday are alleged to have been committed  by members affiliated with other street gangs.

The jail indictment  said Jose Landa-Rodriguez and two now-deceased members of the Mexican  Mafia controlled operations in the jail between 2012 and 2016.

Landa-Rodriquez,  55, is accused of sanctioning murders, assaults and the kidnapping and  planned murder of a relative of a gang member who defied him,  prosecutors said.

Landa-Rodriguez is not a U.S. citizen, though  nearly all of the other defendants charged in the indictment are  citizens, Hanna said.

A second higher-up, Luis Vega, 33, ordered a  murder and directed assaults against those who showed disrespect or  didn’t obey rules, the indictment said.

In an effort to disrupt  the gang’s stronghold, the suspects will be held in federal facilities,  and those already in custody in state prisons will be moved, authorities  said.

Sheriff Jim McDonnell acknowledged that others will follow  in their wake, as leadership in the gang that operates in most prisons  and jails in the state is always changing.

“There will be new  leaders, that’s kinda how the whole system works. It’s hierarchical,”  McDonnell said. “When one goes to jail or passes away then someone else  backfills their spot just like any multilevel organization.”

One  of the group’s facilitators was attorney Gabriel Zendejas-Chavez, who  was able to carry messages to the gang members while operating under the  shield of attorney-client privilege, the indictment said. He is also  accused of enabling a plot to extort $100,000 from the Mongols outlaw  motorcycle gang.

Zendejas-Chavez was arrested Wednesday. A woman  who answered the phone at his office was unaware of the arrest and  didn’t comment.


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