A top leader of MS-13, one of the largest transnational criminal organizations, was captured this month in Southern California, according to court documents.
Freddy Ivan Jandres-Parada, 48, also known as Lucky De Park View, one of the most wanted narcoterrorists by the FBI, He was captured in San Diego, California after having been on the run for almost four years.
Federal prosecutors charged alleged MS-13 gang members with material support for terrorism and narcoterrorismalleging that the group ran “military-style training camps; obtained weapons, pistols, rifles, grenades, improvised explosive devices (“IEDs”) and rocket launchers” and “directed acts of violence and murder in El Salvador, the United States and elsewhere,” according to the accusation.
The arrest of Jandres-Parada, which occurred on March 7, first reported by Court Watchoccurred about four years after his accusation in December 2020 for terrorism crimes related to directing the criminal activities of MS-13 in the United States, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico for almost two decades. according to a statement of the Department of Justice.
Jandres-Parada faces federal charges in New York which include conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism that transcend national borders, conspiracy to finance terrorism, and conspiracy to narcoterrorism.
Jandres-Parada is one of a dozen Ranfla Nacional leaders charged with conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism that transcend national borders, conspiracy to finance terrorism and conspiracy to narcoterrorism, according to to the accusation.
As a member of Ranfla Nacional, Jandres-Parada and others allegedly controlled MS-13 activities, including the approval of murders, assaults and kidnappings, extortion, drug trafficking and other criminal activitiesprosecutors say.
Jandres-Parada is being held at the federal prison in San Diego, according to inmate records, and will be transferred to federal custody in New York, where he was charged, pending trial.
Jandres-Parada and the transnational criminal organization MS-13
The MS-13 gang was established in the 1980s in the United States by Central American immigrants in Southern California, it says the statement from the Department of Justice of October 15, 2023 related to Jandres-Parada.
MS-13 killings are often carried out with machetes, the gang’s weapon of choice, to send intimidating messages to their enemies and those considered disloyal.
Jandres-Parada’s rise in leadership mirrors the rise of MS-13, also known as La Mara Salvatrucha. Born in Jiquilisco, El Salvador, he became part of MS-13 as it evolved from a street gang in the Westlake area, near downtown Los Angeles, in the 1980s. He was convicted in 1994 of drug trafficking. narcotics in Los Angeles County and sent to state prison for three years, according to court documents.
In Los Angeles, more than a dozen MS-13 cliques are based in historically immigrant neighborhoods such as Westlake, Pico-Union, Koreatown and Hollywood, authorities said.
Shortly after his release, Jandres-Parada was arrested again for possession of a firearm and sentenced to three years in prison.authorities said. Like many MS-13 members, he was sent back to El Salvador, where the gang became a massive force with political power.
As MS-13 gang members were returned to Central America, their numbers expanded throughout that region, even taking control of local prisons.
Some of those who emigrated to the United States They formed new cliquesfrom Virginia to Tennessee and Nevada, according to court documents. The gang structure is fueled by money from drug trafficking, extortion and kidnappings, according to prosecutors.
When Jandres-Parada returned to the United States, he was detained again and served time for illegal reentry before being deported back to El Salvador. There, authorities say, he continued to direct MS-13’s extensive transnational operations.
“We allege that Elmer Canales-Rivera, a founding member of MS-13’s ‘Twelve Apostles of the Devil’, is responsible for the gang’s decades-long efforts to terrorize communities, attack law enforcement and sow violence here. in the United States and abroad,” US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement following his arrest.
Keep reading:
– “Hollywood Crook,” a high-ranking MS13 fugitive, was arrested on terrorism charges
– What is the “Mexico Program” of the Mara Salvatrucha and what was the blow that left it on the brink of its disappearance
– The US accuses several detainees identified as leaders of MS-13 of terrorism