Operation Black Widow, where murders, assaults and drug trafficking were committed under the watch of two informants working for the government, fuels the debate. Hernandez cut a plea deal. In April 2010, federal and local law enforcement agencies concluded what was considered the most significant effort to dismantle the Central Coast leadership structure of Nuestra Familia. U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello said the mass arrests sent a direct message to the gangs followers: Stop the violence. In a letter to the court, Frias said that a fellow gang member "pushed the matter (with Hernandez) and finally got the 'green light' for the murder .. . We're going to take care of it. Teen girls arrested after allegedly riding scooters into San Francisco pedestrians, Internet personality Yo Pesci receives seven year sentence after flashing firearms on social media, Gang member gave 14-year-old permission to open fire on woman with AR-15 after fender-bender, DA alleges, Pollutants were released into San Jose rivers from construction firm, lawsuit claims. He was convicted of. The Nuestra Familia was not recognized as a prison gang by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation until 1979. Jorge Salazar and Danny Pereda of San Francisco were also charged. Both investigations were led by the FBI and crippled the gangs operations after the arrests of dozens of Nuestra Familia members and associates from Monterey County. Huerta is known among gang members as the wife of Joseph "Pinky" Hernandez, one the Nuestra Familia"s top leaders serving a life sentence in a Colorado "supermax" prison. Hernandez replies, "Yeah" and adds: "Why are you gonna beat up somebody when they're just gonna come back and shoot you up, right? In the weeks leading up to Lizard's arrest, Kayln . The California Department of Corrections says Nuestra Familia controls street gangs from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. [8] Renewed organization "Start whacking these fools," one gang member exhorted in one such discussion. Eventually, three new generals came to power at Pelican Bay, yet two were demoted, . Each is charged in this indictment. Really? It would be tough for Zilversmit to make a case that his client had no predisposition to commit the crimes he is accused of committing something the defense would have to prove in order win an acquittal, he said. If the lawyer's claims prove true in court, it wouldn't be the first time the government went too far. [20] Cervantes' rise marked the first time in decades that the Norteos had a single leader at the helm of their criminal organization. Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). Of 44 arrest warrants obtained, 37 warrants ended with arrests Thursday. It is clear they have hard and fast rules, and those who run afoul are met with intimidation and violence that spills into our communities," said DEA Special . But police and the FBI, wanting to build their case, did not arrest the gang members for conspiracy to commit murder. For months, gang investigators from the California Department of Justice, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Salinas Police Department, the Monterey County Gang Task Force and the FBI worked to prepare arrest warrants for more than 40 high-ranking members of the gang in Salinas and nearby counties. The charges pending against these defendants are as follows: 21 U.S.C. The indictment also describes the NFs organizational structure and, in particular, the gangs governing body: a seven-member General Council, made up of three Generals and a four-member Inner Council, which makes significant decisions and oversees the activities of the NF and its subservient gangs. San Francisco, CA 94102, San Francisco: (415) 436-7200 This is a carousel. Operation Black Widow Federal law enforcement agencies, long unable to infiltrate the group, began to step up their investigations in the late 1990s. Further, the indictment describes the appointment by these leaders of NF members to positions of power over hierarchical and paramilitary structures called regiments, imposed on its gang members operating on the streets in California. Staff writer Nate Gartrell contributed to this report. KTVU FOX 2 SAN JOSE, Calif. (KTVU and wires) - Seventeen alleged Nuestra Familia gang members were in custody and six others were being sought Friday on charges ranging from attempted murder to. Agents only need to know that there is a conspiracy, Coulson said. Following that, the television news show " 60 Minutes " asked if a prison exists that can actually isolate the hardened criminal leaders. Everyone in the Salinas Nuestra Familia crew was arrested in the murder, except Hernandez, who continued to inform on the gang. She remains at large. The operation, which will continue to play out in state and federal courts, aims to disband the Salinas-area regiment of a gang that for three decades has dominated criminal activity in farm towns across Northern California. [23] After months of investigation, at least 37 alleged gang members were arrested during the raids conducted. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown and a host of officials announced the results of the action Thursday. In this weeks first upload of John Boxer Mendoza's book, Nuestra Familia: a broken paradigm, he describes how " Operation Black Widow "broke, who all the tar. The problem is that to break gangs and organized crime, inside information is needed, but such groups and especially street gangs are extremely difficult for undercover police to infiltrate. IRS delays tax deadline for Bay Area, but California hasn't followed: What should you do? A decade ago, the FBI"s Operation Black Widow targeted the gang"s top leaders in Pelican Bay State Prison, as well as its out-of-prison regiment commanders for Salinas and other agricultural. In the aftermath of Operation Black Widow, the five highest-ranking leaders of Nuestra Familia, James "Tibbs" Morado, Joseph "Pinky" Hernandez, Gerald "Cuete" Rubalcaba, Cornelio Tristan, and Tex Marin Hernandez, were transferred to the United States Penitentiary, Florence ADX, the federal supermax prisonin Colorado. Editorial | What will future hold for a 'reimagined' Seacliff State Beach? This is not done yet.. The defendants charged in the alleged racketeering conspiracy include the following: 18 U.S.C. The gangs targeted in this case are responsible for much of the illicit drug distribution and violent crime that has plagued areas throughout CA pic.twitter.com/cyLZ3Uls5c, FBI SanFrancisco (@FBISanFrancisco) September 16, 2021, We take aim at the head of the snake, Hinds said. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The indictment outlines that the Nuestra Familia used hierarchical and paramilitary structures to control thousands of California gang members and counties across Northern California even while most of the top leadership was incarcerated.. Police heard shots and screaming and swarmed the alley, where they arrested Salcido and other gang members. The FBI said gang commanders sent orders from six prisons in the state: Pelican Bay State Prison, High Desert State Prison, California State Prison-Sacramento, California State Prison-Solano, Pleasant Valley State Prison and Salinas Valley State Prison. In all, 21 people were indicted in the FBI's three-year investigation into Nuestra Familia, code-named Operation Black Widow. "Brown Bob," had spent most of his life inside California's state prisons, rising to become one of the highest ranking members of Nuestra Familia, the notoriously vicious Northern California Latino prison gang. But Coulson said in an interview that agents should step in quickly if they learn a murder plot has been advanced. Government agents knew that working with such violent criminals was risky. At the time of Operation Black Widow, law enforcement officials had estimated that Nuestra Familia was responsible for at least 600 murders in the previous 30 years. "Informants cannot be monitored 24 hours a day," says Coulson, the former FBI commander. [14] Thirteen of the defendants pleaded guilty; the other cases are still ongoing. Hernandez, who grew up in Pittsburg in Contra Costa County, has a long and violent criminal history, committing armed assaults, admitting conspiring to murder a former gang member in San Jose in 1999 and to talking with fellow gang members about killing two Santa Clara County prosecutors. The gang has been around since 1965, according to federal prosecutors, started inside Soledad prison to protect Hispanic inmates. She focused special attention to the seven members of what she described as the Nuestra Familia General Council, which she said ran a massive network across 28 California counties spanning Humboldt to Kern, with major activity centers in San Jose, Salinas and the Central Valley. "It was decided to allow it to go on until sufficient overt acts were completed that prosecutors felt that convictions could be obtained," Lazzarini testified. FBI informant Daniel Hernandez at a Nuestra Familia gang meeting in Rohnert Park. He is duplicitous by nature. The Monterey County District Attorneys office has since charged her with felony resisting arrest and she remains in the jail in Salinas. An indictment merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Then, in May, his Salinas street crew entered a bar and shot and killed an enemy they believed was moving in on their heroin-dealing turf. Upon being paroled after serving more than six years for assault, he would become a paid informant and would not be prosecuted for racketeering in the current federal case in San Francisco, according to his agreement with the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office. Local authorities hope the arrests will cripple the gangs grip on younger gang members in the area and make existing gang-violence intervention efforts, such as Ceasefire, more effective. Members of the organization are considered to have taken a "blood oath" to join the gang, and are considered lifelong participants. Others arrested include Castroville residents Dakota Vernon Casperson and Sheena Nicole Casperson. When he left prison, he became Nuestra Familia's "street liaison commander" in charge of all the gang's operations outside prison, according to court documents. Nuestra Familia's new leadership General: David "DC" Cervantes Top Commanders: Daniel "Stork" Perez, of Salinas; Anthony "Chuco" Guillen, of San Jose; George "Puppet" Franco, of San Jose Demoted: Jose "Huerito" Gonzalez; James "Conejo" Perez Copyright 2008 Monterey County Herald Copyright 2013 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. But trying to supervise violent criminals is akin to "dancing with the devil.". "They almost become complicit in it," he said. A San Jose native, he graduated from UCLA with a BA degree in history and from the University of Maryland with a MA degree in journalism. On Nov. 30, 2001, FBI agents overseeing Hernandez wrote in one of their final reports: "Source (Hernandez) participated in unauthorized criminal activity while under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to trial testimony, Salcido slipped on gloves and a ski mask, entered the apartment complex and fatally shot Geronimo Garza, 41, who was not named in revenge discussions taped by the FBI, and wounded Maria Lopez, now 43. "I find it to be a horse of a different color from using a low-level informant. TTY: (415) 436-7221, Oakland: (510) 637-3680 The man known as Hanrahans mentor in the East Las Casitas gang, Larry Paqui Amaro, has already been convicted of conspiracy charges in the case and is scheduled to be sentenced in April. They saw today what happens, Schwarzenegger said. Chief Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz said Huerta has a previous felony assault conviction, giving her one strike under Californias Three Strikes law. FBI records show that by late July, the bureau stopped working with Hernandez, and he was arrested on a parole violation. Instead, they received 10-year sentences in a plea deal negotiated by the gang's leaders after . That strategy was challenged by former Deputy Assistant FBI Director Daniel O. Coulson, who led bureau anti-terrorism and organized crime teams from 1966 to 1997, and who defends the use of criminal informants as "worth the risk" to make difficult cases. When Operation Knockout was launched last fall, officials acknowledged there were no resources in place to help communities such as Salinas deal with the almost certain spates of violence that tend to follow mass arrests. According to court documents, high-ranking Nuestra Familia members Salvador Castro, Jr. and Raymond Lopez used contraband cell phones from inside Fresno County's Pleasant Valley State Prison to . "The arrests made yesterday, most significantly the arrests of the Nuestra Familia leadership, will severely cripple the ability of this criminal enterprise to continue to facilitate crimes in communities throughout the state and help break a decades-old cycle of violence," said FBI San Francisco Special Agent in Charge Fair. FBI transcripts and court testimony revealed at least five revenge murders were discussed during several taped meetings. [21] Women are not allowed to become full-fledged members of Nuestra Familia, but are sometimes used for communication and drug-running purposes as they are considered less likely to be noticed by law enforcement agents. Ramirez told police upon his arrest as a co-conspirator in the murder that Hernandez, who had not yet been revealed as an informant, gave the go- ahead for the killing. Communicating with paroled gang members out in the streets, Nuestra Familia leaders have been able to order crimes and collect a percentage of the take from robberies and sales of methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana by the state's thousands of Norteos -- Northern California gang members. And the right choice is looking away.". And, in the end, is the expected payoff -- indictments of brutal gangsters and busting their criminal enterprise -- worth the risk of paying dangerous informants who may continue to commit serious crime while under government supervision? It is clear they have hard and fast rules, and those who run afoul are met with intimidation and violence that spills into our communities, said DEA Special Agent in Charge Wade R. Shannon. A locked padlock The defendants, among whom several high-ranking members of both groups could be found, were responsible for 600+ murders. The gangsters saw the vehicle as they approached and, according to the informant, postponed the attack. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. The indictment, unsealed Thursday, surprised local law enforcement officials who eight years ago began pursuing several of the defendants as part of a task force named Operation Northern Exposure. That forces police to turn to informants, who by their very nature are untrustworthy. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? In scale and ambition, the operation dwarfs the two largest cases against the Nuestra Familia: Operation Black Widow ended in 2005, and Operation Valley Star led to a massive trial. . If he is going to betray one group the gang what's going to stop him from betraying the second the government?". tape telephone conversations with gang members and set up organizational meetings in Rohnert Park, Salinas, San Francisco, Milpitas, Tracy and Sacramento that the FBI would secretly videotape. For more than 10 years, one of California's most brutal criminal organizations has been operating from behind the walls of the state's highest- security prison. And John Boxer Mendoza wasn't some minor player, he was right up there under the top generals in the gang, working for them and implementing Nuestra Family policy. On that day, police undercover vehicles followed the gang members through the streets while a California Highway Patrol helicopter tracked them from the air. If I fall, avenge me. Her attorney Jeremy Dzubay said its up to District Attorney Dean Flippo to decide whether her local case must be tried before Huerta is taken into federal custody. 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