5 Alleged MS-13 Members Charged In Violent Racketeering Conspiracy, Including 8 Murders
SILVER SPRING, Md. (WJZ) -- Five alleged members of an MS-13 gang were charged in a violent racketeering conspiracy.
A federal grand jury returned an eleventh superseding indictment Monday, charging five men from Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey, allegedly linked to La Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, with conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise. Authorities said the men were allegedly involved with at least eight murders and four attempted murders and drug trafficking.
The 10-count indictment named the following men as defendants: 23-year-old Junior Noe Alvarado-Requeno, a/k/a "Insolente" and "Trankilo" of Landover, 38-year-old Jairo Arnaldo Jacome, a/k/a "Abuelo" of Langley Park, 20-year-old Brayan Alexander Contreras-Avalos, a/k/a "Anonimo," "Malia," and "Humilde" of Silver Spring, 39-year-old Luis Arnoldo Flores-Reyes, a/k/a "Maloso" and "Lobo" of Arlington, Virginia and 38-year-old Miguel Angel Corea Diaz, a/k/a "Reaper" of Long Branch, New Jersey.
Jacome was a member of the Langley Park Salvatrucha Clique of MS-13 and all of the other defendants were members of the Sailors Clique of MS-13.
According to the indictment, federal agents allege that the defendants engaged in a racketeering conspiracy that included extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and robbery prior to 2015 through at least January 2018.
Contreras-Avalos was added as a new defendant in this case Monday and alleges he was involved in a 2016 murders of two people believed to be a member of a rival 18th Street gang.
Authorities allege that in June 2016, Alvarado-Requeno another others planned to search for and murder gang rivals around Hyattsville, Maryland. On June 8, 2016, Alvarado-Requeno allegedly directed Contreras-Avalos two murder two members of a rival gang. They allegedly stabbed the victims to death.
Alvarado-Requeno and Jacome went to Germantown with a machete and other weapons in order to murder a person for his infractions with the gang on Dec. 4, 2016, the feds allege. They allegedly stabbed the victim to death and fled the area. They returned the next day to bury the victim's body.
Alvarado-Requeno, Flores-Reyes, and Corea-Diaz arranged for members and associates of the Sailors Clique to travel from Maryland to Lynchburg for the purpose of murdering an individual in the Lynchburg area on March 27, 2017, according to the indictment.
According to court documents, Flores-Reyes provided the vehicle in which the members and associates drove and called them to provide encouragement to murder the victim. The victim was murdered that same day in Bedford County, Virginia. On March 27 and March 28, 2017, multiple individuals were arrested in connection with the murder. Alvarado-Requeno, Flores-Reyes, and Corea-Diaz made phone calls on those dates trying to locate the individuals who had traveled to Virginia to commit the murder. Two of the participants in the murder escaped from Bedford County and were hidden in Maryland by members and associates of the Sailors Clique.
Alvarado-Requeno, Flores-Reyes, and Corea-Diaz are charged in the 2017 murder of a victim in Lynchburg, Virginia.
MS-13 is a national and international gang primarily made up of immigrants of descendants from El Salvador. Cliques of the gang operate through Maryland in Frederick, Anne Arundel, Prince George's and Montgomery counties.
If convicted, the defendants all face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison for the racketeering conspiracy.