[LSDailyNews] Mexican Mafia Murders; Operation Maria sweep six soldiers in major arrests.

[Los Santos Daily News]

 

NEWS • Crime

Written by Yunisa DELGADO-FLORES • May 24th, 2022 = 10:58PM

Mexican Mafia Murders; Operation Maria sweep six soldiers in major arrests.

 

Following Operation Maria, led by the Los Santos Sheriff's Department, a crushing blow was dealt to the Mexican Mafia prison gang. Six arrests were carried out in relation to this investigation over the course of May.

 

Two leaders of the Mexican Mafia, Dominic "Devious" Ruelas (left) and George "Flippem" Palamino (right), indicted on charges of murder, racketeering and extortion. - Courtesy of the Los Santos Sheriff's Department

 

A string of six arrests have been carried out over the month of May against the Los Santos County’s Mexican Mafia, a notorious prison gang that has influence across the entire western United States. The arrests include indictments of two leaders for the murder of a fellow gang member, and the arrests include four lower-level associates for the murder of a Law Enforcement Officer.

 

These string of arrests follow a two-month long operation dubbed Operation Maria; an initiative undertaken by detectives and deputies working with Operation Safe Streets in the Los Santos Sheriff’s Department to cripple the Los Santos County’s chapter of the Mexican Mafia.

 

The Mexican Mafia, also referred to as La eMe, is a large scale prison gang operating out of the Western United States. It has infiltrated many prison systems throughout the states of San Andreas, Arizona, Nevada and even federal penitentiary systems, according the office of the District Attorney of San Andreas, and has been in large-scale operation since the 70s.

 

A sergeant who worked on Operation Maria’s task-force shared the gang’s hierarchical structure.

 

“The Mexican Mafia's rather a council of leadership. You have multiple factions of it in different areas. These factions are known as mesas. … There are multiple made members, whom are either inside of our state prison systems or jail.

 

“In our case, we have the Los Santos faction.”

The operation started only two and a half months ago, according to the lead detective spearheading Maria’s task-force. “I hit the ground running, that's a good way of saying this. I had this case fall right into my lap, it was half luck, really.” The lead detective shared.

 

“Amount of hours in overtime, surveillance, report writing, that was all done together…”, the lead detective shared. “Once it started going, it didn't really ever stop, you know? We'd built a web of E-S-Ws that [led to] our web of information snowball[ing].”

 

The detectives of Operation Maria’s primary methods of investigation were through the use of ESW’s (Electronic Surveillance Warrants), which contains methods such as cell-phone tracing, wire-tapping, and recording and analyzing calls and texts through and from numbers of known affiliates.

 

A sergeant who worked within Operation Maria added “This investigation and following indictment was a snowball of evidence and compilation. We took a faithful amount of time to build evidence and finally struck once we were ready.

 

“[The lead detective], among our other investigators, worked tirelessly in order to achieve the indictment.”

 

Operation Maria, a sergeant who works with the task force (left) and the lead detective behind the indictments (right). - Yunisa Delgado-Flores, May 22nd 2022

 

The lead detective shared one of the first steps leading up to the indictments, which kick started the investigation. “After liaising with Operation Safe Jails some, I'd gotten the phone of a high ranking member's - who we ended up charging later on, phone. Contraband cellphone.”

 

The high ranking member in question is Dominic ‘Devious’ Ruelas, a longtime member of the Mexican Mafia and described “leader”, who is currently indicted alongside George “Flippem” Palomino, who also is a ‘leader’ according to the District Attorney’s office. They are both facing charges for first degree murder, racketeering and extortion.

 

A press release was issued by the LS County District Attorney’s Office on May the 1^st, where District Attorney Terenity Shwetz issued the following statement.

 

 

    Terenity Shwetz, Los Santos County District Attorney's Office.

“Dominic Ruelas and George Palamino are convicted gang members who also are verified members of the Mexican Mafia. Both men have used their time behind bars to commit ruthless killings and order the killings of subordinates both inside and outside of prison. My office today, working hand-in-hand with the Los Santos County Sheriff's Department has brought an indictment against these two cold hearted men in the Courts, and we will ensure justice is done for the victims of their repeated, pernicious crimes. We will not allow our jails to be used as headquarters for violent prison gangs, and this indictment serves as a warning to anyone who thinks otherwise

The count of murder that Ruelas and Palomino was indicted for was for the death of Santos Ortega who, according to the lead detective of the Operation Maria taskforce, was “equal to to Palamino and Ruelas”, and a “long time member of The Mexican Mafia.”

 

As of right now, neither the DA’s office nor law enforcement are at liberty to say the exact motives of the murder of Ortega.

 

The arrests also include four of their “gunmen” – “gunmen” being the term used by Operation Maria’s lead detective to describe associates of the Mexican Mafia carrying out their orders on the streets. The gunmen were supposedly involved in the murder of a Los Santos police officer.

 

“Through a placed wiretap on a vehicle, we were able to catch various Mexican Mafia associates committing the murder of a City Police Officer”, the detective spearheading Operation Maria shared.  “The detective I'd had listening to that audio?  Had the volume up too much, almost blew out his ear drums, they were shooting long arms”

 

Long arms referencing large firearms, ranging from assault rifles to shot-guns.

 

When questioned for a possible motive for the murder, the task-force was unable to give a comment due to the investigation being ongoing. However, the sergeant present stated that “We don't wanna question the policies or motives of the Officers present. We aren't sure of their policies.

 

“Like I explained, we were aware that members of La eMe were violent. This just went to give us real, hardcore evidence of it.”

 

The associated gunmen that have been arrested have not been identified to the Daily as of yet, nor the identity of the victim.

 

Twin Towers Correctional Facility - Stephen Yun, Getty Images. April 15th 2021

“Most leaders are in solitary confinement, but they issue orders to members, who in turn issue orders to street gangs.”, the DA explained to the Daily in a written statement when asked how the gang holds presence on the streets of Los Santos.

 

According from accounts both from law enforcement and the DA’s office, these two men and their gang have caused countless death to associates and subordinates of the Mexican Mafia and their rivals.

 

Both the DA’s office and law enforcement personnel claim that the Mexican Mafia’s induction involves intimidation and murder, where an inmate who is groomed to join their ranks will have to commit and act of murder. The DA notes how freshly inducted inmates to the prison system will have to act in accordance to the Mexican Mafia’s rules.

 

“If you do not play ball with the Mexican Mafia, they threaten to use their powerful influence on prison and jail yards to kill, and they do kill. To be made a member of the Mexican Mafia, you must murder.”

 

The lead detective and a sergeant serving on behalf of Operation Maria notes how the recruitment process works for Mexican Mafia inductees.

 

“A lot of these kids'll do something stupid and end up in our county jail system.”, the sergeant shared. “There, they'll be inducted by members of the Mexican Mafia into doing their bidding and extending their time in our county jail system. That's how a lot of people's lives get ruined.

 

“They'll head into this because they're forced to and end up getting a life sentence.”

 

The Los Santos Sheriff's Department at a scene. - Courtesy of Ashton Love of Paradise, October 15th 2021

 

“A key part of recruitment for the Mexican Mafia relies in training some of the younger Sureños that do serve time.”, the lead detective added. “They train 'em into cold, calculated, loyal killers.”

 

The Sureños, translated to ‘Southerners’ from Spanish, are one of many gangs that work on behalf of the Mexican Mafia. From figures issued from the Los Santos Police Department in 2006, there were

approximately 21,000 Sureño gang members in 400 different subsets across Los Santos County alone.

 

There are many other gangs across Los Santos County that are subordinate to the Mexican Mafia. One of which is Mara Salvatrucha 13.

 

David Skarbek, an associate professor of political science at Brown University who specializes in the research of criminal street gangs globally, wrote about how prison gangs govern in a 2011 journal titled Governance and Prison Gangs. In the journal, he referenced the Mexican Mafia’s operation extensively, as well as how gangs subservient to this gang marks themselves as affiliates through the number 13.

 

    David Skarbek, Governance and Prison Gangs

“Street gang members display their receipt of Mexican Mafia protection to potential thieves and competitors in a variety of ways. Gangs use the number 13 to identify an affiliation with the Mexican Mafia because M is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. Some gangs add "13" to their name (for example, MS-13), and gang members tattoo the number prominently on their bodies, necks, and faces (United States v. Alfaro et al. 2008, 5). These practices provide the most deterrence because they are so visible, but members and associates of the Mexican Mafia can also easily observe these on people in jail and on the street. To free ride on the Mexican Mafia's governance services requires taking actions that Mexican Mafia members can easily observe, so street gangs cannot falsely claim to have their protection.”

 

The Mexican Mafia profiteers primarily off of extortion, both to gangs out in the streets as well as, according to the DA’s office, to legitimate businesses owned by law-abiding citizens of Los Santos county.

“The Mexican Mafia extorts local businesses, other criminals, and generally collects most of their money from street gangs paying taxes. Local businesses are one target, and individuals adjacent to the gang life with large amounts of money are another.”, wrote the DA’s office.

 

“They force gangs to pay them tax or face death.”

 

Derek Skarbek detailed the tax process in more detail, saying how the Mexican Mafia has been known to use incarcerated members of local street gangs as hostages to coerce the gangs to pay taxes.

 

“Incarcerated gang members become vulnerable hostages, and therefore can motivate Sureño gang members who might not anticipate future incarceration to pay taxes.” Skarberk wrote. “Phone calls to incarcerated Mexican Mafia associates that identify the entire gang—rather than particular gang members who have not paid taxes suggest that this plays an important role.“

 

 

 

The indictments against George “Flippem” Palomino and Dominic "Devious" Ruelas sees them both facing a total of 130 years in prison.

 

The exact details as to how long their gunmen will be facing remains unknown, as the DA continues to construct a case against them.

 

The lead detective noted the cut-throat nature of the syndicates politics, saying how “Instead of looking out for each other, these other guys were probably taking a look about how they could spin this for themselves, you know?”

 

Because of this comment, as well as the nature of recruitment that this gang uses with how arrested gang members will often find themselves further entrenched in their service to a gang like the Mexican Mafia, the Daily questioned whether or not the members of the task force believe there will be an end to these types of gangs in our prisons.

 

“Whilst what we did no doubt had an impact, the work doesn't stop here, and trust me- we know this.” The lead detective said in response. “We haven't stopped just 'cause we made a few high profile arrests, you know? Got our headlines.

 

“All I can say is that we're committed to safer streets.”

 

 

 

 

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Edited Friday at 08:39 AM by Los Santos Daily News

Edited June 1, 2022 by Los Santos Daily News
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