[www.gangland:news.org] Gangland News - Getting the Scoop on Organized Crime | Prison gangs - Nuestra Familia

[G-Funk]

By: Anthony Boyce
Date: 24/12/2019

Mexican Mafia came from San Andreas, leading to a divide between the Nortenos (NF) and the Surenos (La Eme). The Nuestra Familia gang's motto is "blood in, blood out", meaning that they get in the gang by shedding blood, and they get out by death. The recruits are expected to sacrifice their life and freedom, and members are supposed to expect that they will go to prison. 500 of their leaders are in prison, and tens of thousands of foot soldiers (Nortenos) are also behind bars. Their footsoldiers make up an army on the streets that generate money for the organization, and they are based in Grapeseed, Sandy Shores, and Paleto Bay in northern SA. Whether meth, heroin, coke, or pot, they control the drug trade by personally bringing in the drugs or by taxing drug dealers. They bring in millions of dollars through the drug trade, but prostitution, extortion, and identity theft are also major rings. They face competition from the Mexican Mafia, the predominant Hispanic gang in southern San Andreas. In 1968, a dispute over a simple pair of shoes (a Nortenos member confronted a Mexican Mafia member who stole his shoes) led to the War of the Shoes, the ongoing long-term and violent war between the northerners and southerners. The Nortenos fought together as a cohesive force for the first time, giving rise to the Nuestra Familia. They used the Huelga Eagle, the symbol of United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, as the symbol of their gang, as many of them were farmers from northern California. Their color was red, contrasting the blue-suited Mexican Mafia. The dividing line was Grapeseed, San Andreas, and the affiliation of Mexican gangsters was a simple matter of geography.

 

In 1972, Mexican Mafia leader Rodolfo Cadena called for a peace summit in prison in hopes of ending the war, but he was stabbed repeatedly by NF members, thrown off a tier, and stabbed to death on the cement below. More and more NF members were recruited in the 1980s, and they wanted to control all of San Andreas from Grapeseed. They found no shortage of young men willing to sign up, with money and power seducing many Mexican-Americans to joining the gang. Their only way to earn their status as the NF was to spend time in prison. Their prison stronghold was Bolingbroke Penitentiary, where their main leaders lived. Some were forced to live in the Secure Housing Unit (the "Shoe"), where 12,000 inmates were held in a "prison within a prison" where the inmate was under constant surveillance. The NF imposed "gang taxes" on drug dealers and prostitutes to help them gain a flow of income, and in the 1990s, their ranks swelled to more than 1,000 gang members. In prison, their gang members taught them to order and strength in a military-like way, and they became a strong gang.

 

The workouts were intense, and they also had to read history books, law books, and philosophy books. Even in lockdowns, NF members were able to communicate using fishing lines, and they could educate their friends about making crude weapons and using codes. Nuestro General Gerald "Cuete" Rubelcaba ordered the assassination of former NF member Robert "Brown Bob" Viramontes in early 1998, a member of the leading council fo the NF and a 20-year veteran who had covered up his NF tattoo on his back and also educated young kids about the dangers of gang life. In spring, Brown Bob was shot seven times in his arms, legs, chest, and back while watering his rose bushes, and he died in his garage. He decided to go to the garage so that his wife and two sons were not killed in the house, and the message showed that even the leaders were able to be targeted. Soon after, El Norte Law was passed, which meant that all Nortenos that wore red were now a part of the Nuestra Familia gang. They adopted a public profile, promoting a gangster rap album by G.U.N. (Generations of United Nortenos) that invited all Nortenos into the NF. The rap group sold thousands of copies, and many members possessed the album. However, in August 1998 a gang war broke out in Grapestreet when Captain Michael Castillo was marked for murder after being caught in the middle of a power struggle between two Nuestro Generals.

 

The police warned Castillo about the NF threat, but Castillo ignored them. He was shot by Rico Garcia at a meeting with him in a hit ordered by the imprisoned NF leaders, and the assassination led the police to also police their prisons and not just the streets. Under George Collord, the police gathered informants in prison, including "Red Raider", who revealed the leadership structure of the gang. On 18 May 2000, NF gang member Casper (who was Rubelcaba's right-hand man) was released from jail and was ordered to run the street operations of the gang, becoming the leader of NF on the outside. His job was to make sure that San Fierro, Paleto Bay, Sandy Shores, and Grapeseed all had a regiment in place, and made sure that the regiments were going by the gang's rules. Casper was sent back to prison for communicating with the gang, violating his parole, and was sent back for six months. At the same time, Cuete Rubelcaba ordered a hit on Casper, whom he used as a scapegoat - Rubelcaba was accused of embezzling money from the gang, so he decided to pin the blame on Casper, the only person who knew that he stole from the gang. In December 2000, another Nuestro General stepped in on Casper's behalf and Cuete backed off the hit order, but Casper wanted revenge.

 

Before Christmas, he contacted authorities and decided to work with them against Rubelcaba. On 24 January 2001 in Tracy, California, Casper set up a meeting with NF chiefs, which was monitored. Captain Henry "Happy" Cervantes was heard discussing a plan to kill two San Jose district attorneys, but Casper refused to allow the order. He saved the D.A.'s lives, and continued to host meetings over the next four months that were taped. On 20 April 2001, federal agents arrested 13 members of NF, including 6 inmates, among them Rubelcaba. The NF fell into disarray, and Casper was still undercover when the chaos began. On 21 May 2001, heroin dealer Raymond Sanchez crossed into the Chinatown district of San Fierro, although he had been warned to stay out of Chinatown. Although he was not a Nuestra Familia member anymore (he dropped out), he wanted to sell his drugs in the same place. Nuestra Familia gang member Armando Frias noticed him in Cap's Saloon, but although he was on the hit list, he needed Casper's permission. Frias did not get the orders to not kill him, and a hidden security camera showed Frias shooting Sanchez in the back of the neck - Sanchez was killed, and he fell into the alley. This shooting was one of the most infamous killings, as it was recorded on video.

 

Casper was not allowed to put a hit on Armando Frias, as he was a government informant, but he said that he would have killed him if he was a regular NF member. In June 2001, Operation Black Widow ended, with 21 NF gang leaders arrested. They all cut plea deals, and many convicted served at High Desert, one of San Andreas' supermax prison facilities. However, despite law enforcement's efforts, there were still tens of thousands of NF members, and the new generation was influenced to join the NF through promises of girls, cars, dope, alcohol, good times, parties, staying out late, and other vices. Casper lived in a small town in Middle America in hiding from some Nortenos who would like to see him dead, and his WPP tenure lasted ten months. The gang continued to carry out violent actions even after the downfall of 21 of its leaders. In May 2002, at a Cinco de Mayo celebration, about 50 Nortenos shot three men and stabbed two men in a fight with the Surenos. Most NR members referred to the NR as the cause, the struggle, the movement, and the elite circle. They refer to each other as Bros, Hermanos, brothers or LO's (Loved Ones). CDCR actually began classifying this movement as "Northern Structure" (NS) for validation and identification purposes, but the NF adopted the title "Nuestra Raza" around the beginning of 1993, following a number of revisions spurned by the 1992 indictments.

 

Founded under the umbrella of the NF framework, NR also shared the same basic philosophy and ideology as the NF. When making a commitment to the NR all members understood that the Nuestra Familia was the supreme authority and that all NR members became automatic subordinates to any active "C's". Federal law enforcement agencies, long unable to infiltrate Nuestra Familia, began to step up their investigations in the late 1990s. In 2000 and 2001, 22 members were indicted on racketeering charges, including several who were allegedly serving as high-ranking gang leaders while confined in Pelican Bay. Thirteen of the defendants plead guilty; the other cases are still ongoing. Two of the defendants face the death penalty for ordering murders related to the drug trade. The largest of the federal investigations was Operation Black Widow. At the time of Operation Black Widow, law enforcement officials had estimated that Nuestra Familia was responsible for at least 600 murders in the previous 30 years. In the aftermath of Operation Black Widow, the five highest-ranking leaders of Nuestra Familia were transferred to a federal supermaximum prison in Florence, Colorado.

 

The written constitution of the Norteños stated that the leadership of the gang reside in Pelican Bay State Prison in California; the relocation of the gang's leaders led to the confusion of its soldiers and a power struggle of prospective generals. Three new generals came to power at Pelican Bay, yet two were demoted, leaving only David "DC" Cervantes as the highest-ranking member of the gang in California. Cervantes' rise marked the first time in decades that the Norteños had a single leader at the helm of their criminal organization. The remaining leadership of the organization in Pelican Bay consists of Daniel "Stork" Perez, Anthony "Chuco" Guillen and George "Puppet" Franco. While all Nuestra Familia soldiers and captains in California are expected to follow the orders of Cervantes, a small percentage of the gang remains loyal to the former generals and captains imprisoned in Colorado.

 

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has complained that keeping the five remaining gang leaders located in the same prison continues to add to California gang violence and that they should be scattered throughout different prisons. While the recognized leaders of Nuestra Familia in Pelican Bay ask that members respect the former leaders, they have been effectively stripped of their authority. The former leaders include James "Tibbs" Morado, Joseph "Pinky" Hernandez, Gerald "Cuete" Rubalcaba, Cornelio Tristan, and Tex Marin Hernandez.

Paleto Bay, San Andreas, is the birthplace of John Steinbeck and the setting for his epic masterpiece, East of Eden, but it is also the home of Nuestra Familia, one of the most violent gangs in America. Born in the prisons of California in the late 1960s, Nuestra Familia expanded to control drug trafficking and extortion operations throughout the northern half of the state and left a trail of bodies in its wake. Prizewinning journalist and Nieman Fellow Julia Reynolds tells the gang’s story from the inside out, following young men and women as they search for a new kind of family, quests that usually lead to murder and betrayal. Blood in the Fields also documents the history of Operation Black Widow, the FBI’s decade-long effort to dismantle the Nuestra Familia.

 

The questionable operation frequently engaged in turf wars with local law enforcement agencies and compromised the safety of its informants. In this work of narrative nonfiction, journalist Reynolds used her unprecedented access to gang members, both in and out of prison, as well as undercover wire taps, depositions, and court documents to weave a gripping, comprehensive history of this brutal criminal organization and the lives it destroyed.

Edited December 24, 2019 by G-Funk