Powered by Blogger.

rss

Thursday 31 January 2008

Ruben "Nite Owl" Castro,Shatto Park Locos , Hoover Locos



Ruben "Nite Owl" Castro, 46, a leader of the Mexican Mafia prison gang who authorities said controlled the two cliques of the 18th Street gang targeted in the indictment, the Shatto Park Locos and the Hoover Locos.
Castro allegedly ran the enterprise from the Administrative Maximum facility in Florence, Colo., where he is serving a life term after being convicted on similar gang racketeering charges in 1997.
With the highest level of security in the nation, the Supermax houses Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.
Under constant surveillance, Castro had to use cryptic phone conversations and hidden messages to get his directives to his deputies on the streets, who are described in court papers as "shot callers."
At least two letters seized by the FBI were scrawled in thick pencil marks, which when erased revealed tiny messages written with a fine-point pen.
"We have a couple letters with significant messages to the shot callers on how to direct things," Riordan said.
Castro mostly relayed his messages through his girlfriend, Jesusita Ramirez, 62, who served as an intermediary between him and the street lieutenants, prosecutors said.
Letters from prisoners are supposed to be screened by prison officials. But Castro's hidden messages apparently were able to get out of the prison undetected, officials said.
From the same prison, members of the Aryan Nation gang were able to send orders for killings and other crimes using a complicated system of secret codes, according to testimony at a trial in Orange County earlier this year.
Running Castro's day-to-day operation outside the prison were the shot callers who collected regular "rent" from drug wholesalers and street peddlers, prosecutors allege.
One wholesaler allegedly said that he paid defendant Mervin Nelson Sanchez $1,500 a week to supply dealers in one area.
"Untimely payment of rent to Ruben Castro Organization by a narcotics dealer often resulted in increased rent," according to the indictment, followed by "threatened and actual acts of violence."
Shot callers decided whether the wholesalers and retailers were bringing in enough cash, Riordan said. They told the dealers which wholesalers they had to buy from, and how much per day they had to buy.
When unauthorized dealers moved in, the shot callers gathered weapons to get rid of them, the indictment alleges.
The shot callers didn't have free reign, though, he said; they answered to Castro's girlfriend, Ramirez, who is wanted but still at large.
On one occasion in 2004, according to court documents, she told a shot caller that Castro was angry because drug sales in one neighborhood were down. Castro, she said, believed that the reason was because the shot caller's assistant lived too far from the area, according to court documents.
Much of the estimated half-million dollars a year in proceeds was transferred straight to her, the indictment says, and a small amount went to Castro in prison. Another portion allegedly went to the Mexican Mafia to pay for protection for members of the two 18th Street gang cliques in prison.
Local and federal authorities have been trying for decades to bring down the 18th Street gang, which has about 8,000 members in Los Angeles County alone.
In 2000, federal prosecutors indicted 26 members of the 18th Street clique known as the Columbia Li'l Cycos, which also charged dealers the right to operate.
The group generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits, which it plowed into homes in Burbank and El Monte, a restaurant in South Gate and an auto business in Los Angeles. The case resulted in 26 convictions, Riordan said.
The Los Angeles city attorney's office has obtained three different injunctions against the gang's various cliques. Castro was arrested in 1997 along with other gang leaders in what officials said then was an effort to "cut off the head" of the gang.
But the 18th Street gang has seemed to bounce back each time, often with new recruits.
Based on experience, Riordan said, he expects the latest indictment to put the gang out of action for three years in those neighborhoods. But, he said, other members might eventually fight for control of the area.
In addition to Castro, 10 members and associates of the 18th Street gang were indicted on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges of using threats and violence to control the drug trade.
Both the 18th Street gang and its rival, the Mara Salvatrucha, were born among Central American immigrants in the troubled blocks of apartments west of downtown, and have since grown to tens of thousands of members here, in Central America and, increasingly, across the United States and Mexico.
The U.S. Southern Command, based in Miami, has said the gangs pose one of the biggest threats to security in Central America, and authorities are concerned that the acts of extreme violence seen there — beheadings, tortures, a massacre of 28 people on a bus in Honduras — could begin here.
Though the two gangs mostly are disorganized — with no known leadership — there are signs that they are evolving into something more organized. "In El Salvador, eight different cliques got together and performed a kidnapping extortion recently," the FBI's Robert B. Loosle said.
The indictment is the first time that federal authorities have alleged a conspiracy between two cliques.
Riordan said this type of organization and professionalism generally starts in Los Angeles and spreads.
"We are the cradle," he said.

1 comments:

tathoot on 18 June 2022 at 16:50 said...

see this page read the article this contact form replica gucci handbags check this site out he has a good point

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

van

Pageviews from the past week

van

Drug Enforcement automatically monitors news articles and blog posts tracking breaking news of arrests and drug incidents as they happen worldwide .These inter-active News Reports are followed as they develop. Giving you the chance to comment on breaking stories as they happen. Drug Enforcement alerts you to topics that are frequently linked to and commented upon in the world press. Someone is arrested every 20 seconds for a drug related offense !Readers are solely responsible for the content of the comments they post here. Comments are subject to the Blogspots terms and conditions of use and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or approval of the Drug Enforcement site. Readers whose comments violate the terms of use may have their comments removed or all of their content blocked from viewing by other users without notification.

Popular Posts

Latest Templates

FEEDJIT Live Traffic Map

Friend's Link

Blog Archive

 

Privacy Policy (site specific)

Privacy Policy (site specific)
Privacy Policy :This blog may from time to time collect names and/or details of website visitors. This may include the mailing list, blog comments sections and in various sections of the Connected Internet site.These details will not be passed onto any other third party or other organisation unless we are required to by government or other law enforcement authority.If you contribute content, such as discussion comments, to the site, your contribution may be publicly displayed including personally identifiable information.Subscribers to the mailing list can unsubscribe at any time by writing to info (at) copsandbloggers@googlemail.com. This site links to independently run web sites outside of this domain. We take no responsibility for the privacy practices or content of such web sites.This site uses cookies to save login details and to collect statistical information about the numbers of visitors to the site.We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and would like to know your options in relation to·not having this information used by these companies, click hereThis site is suitable for all ages, but not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years old.This policy will be updated from time to time. If we make significant changes to this policy after that time a notice will be posted on the main pages of the website.

Latest News

Add to Technorati Favorites
Site Specific Privacy Policy run in accordance with http://www.google.com/privacy.html
We can be reached via e-mail at
copsandbloggers@googlemail.com
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes information of your browser, IP address, City/State/Country.
We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our Web page, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail.
The information we collect is used for internal review and is then discarded, used to improve the content of our Web page, used to customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor.
With respect to cookies: We use cookies to store visitors preferences, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors' browser type or other information that the visitor sends.
With respect to Ad Servers: To try and bring you offers that are of interest to you, we have relationships with other companies like Google (www.google.com/adsense) that we allow to place ads on our Web pages. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information. For further information, consult the privacy policy of:
http://www.google.com/privacy.html
copsandbloggers@googlemail.com
If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above email address.