Gang Portent - A Case That Has It All

by Tom Diaz, author of No Boundaries: Transnational Latino Gangs and American Law Enforcement

Los Angeles Police Department Detective Frank Flores is a nationally-recognized expert on the transnational Latino gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).  The gang operates in much of the United States, Central America, Mexico, and lately in Canada.

When I first interviewed Flores in March 2007 I had no idea that just months before he had been the target of an assassination by MS-13.  The plot became public last month when a 66-page federal racketeering indictment was unsealed.  It charges that in December 2006 “shot-callers” (leaders) of the gang’s Hollywood “clique” set in motion a plan to whack Flores, designating a hit-man and providing a handgun to do the job.

The 16-count June indictment centers on the gang’s drug racketeering enterprise.  It is the latest in a series of federal RICO (anti-racketeering) cases that began with the successful 2002 prosecution of members of the Mexican Mafia and the Columbia Little Cycos, an 18th Street gang clique, detailed in No Boundaries: Transnational Latino Gangs and American Law Enforcement.  More cases are certain to unfold, and not just in Los Angeles.  The federal government, working with state and local authorities, has brought enormous resources to bear on these gangs, using “sophisticated techniques” of investigation such as informants, domestic and international wiretaps, and possibly undercover agents.  The U.S. Department of Justice is determined that no Latino gang morph into another La Cosa Nostra, or Mafia.

The plot to murder Frank Flores was derailed.  But it epitomizes the stakes in the ongoing struggle against Latino gangs described in No Boundaries.  The book tells Flores’s life story as an example of the conundrum of gang recruitment.  He grew up  in a gang-infested neighborhood, the child of a single parent.  His uncles belonged to one of the oldest gangs in L.A.  Yet all Flores ever wanted to be was to be an LAPD cop.

The indictment contains another shock.  Among 24 defendants is Alexander (Alex) Sanchez, probably the most well-known anti-gang activist in the Latino gang world. Federal officials claim Sanchez, executive director of Homies Unidos – a group dedicated to saving kids from the gang life— led a double life.   They allege that he has been a secret shot-caller posing as an anti-gang activist.  The indictment charges that Sanchez conspired in May 2006 to murder an MS-13 member (who was executed weeks later in El Salvador).  Scores of prominent figures have filed letters with the court attesting to Sanchez’s character and good works.  But he is held without bond at this writing.

Read more about these issues on Tom Diaz's blog, Fairly Civil.

Read an article from the Los Angeles Times about the indictment: Federal indictment tartgets MS-13, anti-gang