A sixth suspect was arrested for the 2015 MS-13 murder in Dale City, Virginia, of 19-year-old Guillermo Hernandez Leyva. The clique allegedly beat and stabbed Leyva to death.
Police investigators found the remains of the teenager with ties to the notoriously violent MS-13 in the woods in Woodbridge, an annex of Dale City, in late September of 2015. His family reported him missing three months earlier. According to a report, authorities found the bones while investigating an unrelated case.
This week, police arrested the latest suspect, 21-year-old Jose Elias Ayala-Gomez, in Maryland. He will be extradited to Virginia, according to Prince William County law enforcement officials.
Five other suspects were arrested last year in Texas, Indiana, New Jersey, and Maryland. They are still in custody.
The other suspects charged with the murder were: Wilians Ernesto Lovos Ayala (24, Atlantic City) and Michael Alexander Campos Lemus (23, Essex County) in New Jersey; Vilas Sail Arugueta Bermudez (30) in Texas; Daniel Alexander Flores Ventura (24) in Indiana; and Carlos Ulises Ochoa Pineda (23) in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Law enforcement officials in various states worked with Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Marshals.
“MS-13 is not only the largest street gang in the United States; it is increasingly the most violent and well-organized,” an official with the FBI told the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Counter-terrorism and Intelligence this past summer. As reported by Breitbart Texas, the FBI assistant director said the gang had a “propensity for gruesome violence.”
William F. Sweeney, Jr., the assistant director in charge of the FBI in New York, told the committee that street gangs in general “show no signs of decreasing memberships or a decline in criminal activity.” In fact, according to the FBI’s 2015 National Gang Report, membership in gangs increased between 2013 to 2015 in 49 percent of jurisdictions. Sweeney told Congress that the FBI estimates there could be up to 10,000 members of the MS-13 living in the United States.
Although the leadership of the notorious MS-13 is based in El Salvador and Honduras, the clique leaders in the U.S. coordinate both locally and internationally, Sweeney said. “They frequently discuss targets, members who have fallen out of favor, and ways to expand their operations.”
The FBI assistant director told the committee that the gang has “gained notoriety” because of their “brutal nature.” “Their motivation is rooted in a desire to kill for the sake of killing. The attacks on their victims are gruesome, typically up close and personal. They often involve mutilation and dismemberment and are sometimes recorded.”
MS-13 members frequently recruit children who are illegal aliens. Sweeney told members of the subcommittee that MS-13 members are “typically much younger than those connected to other street gangs.” They take “cues from the gang instead of relying on a productive family structure. Also, those emigrating from El Salvador to the United States are known to be exposed and desensitized to extreme violence at an early age.”
Breitbart Texas’ Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief Brandon Darby and Ildefonso Ortiz reported: Five Facts Every American Must Know About the Brutal MS-13 Gang. For one, MS-13 members work as domestic foot soldiers for Mexican cartels.
During Fiscal Year 2017, President Trump and the Department of Justice said that immigration enforcement and stopping gang violence was a top priority. The result was the arrest of 5,000 members during FY2017–including nearly 800 MS-13, Breitbart Texas reported in December 2017.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Gab, and Facebook.
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