The trial of two national MS-13 leaders set to start in October in Brooklyn Federal Court marks the latest chapter in a years-long effort by federal authorities in New York City and Long Island to dismantle the notorious El Salvadorian gang.
The sprawling case covers four brutal murders and several other violent crimes in New Yok City and Long Island. The defendants include Edenilson Velasquez Larin, 36, and Hugo Diaz Amaya, 37, two men who prosecutors say sit at “La Mesa,” or “The Table” — the group of senior gang leaders responsible for overseeing MS-13’s overall operations in the U.S.
“Velasquez Larin and Diaz Amaya were two of the few members of La Mesa outside of prison and were among the top leaders responsible for the gang’s operations on the East Coast of the United States,” federal prosecutors wrote in an April letter seeking an anonymous and partially sequestered jury. They will be tried alongside a number of their subordinates, as well.
MS-13 members join local chapters of the gang, known as “cliques,” spread out across Queens, Long Island and other parts of the country.
Velasquez Larin, known as “Tiny,” led the Fulton Locos Salvatruchas clique, while Diaz Amaya, or “Splinter,” was a leader in the Park View Locos Salvatruchas clique.
Three other men are also listed as defendants, but Brooklyn Federal Court Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall is expected to only allow four of the five men to go to trial at the same time, and it’s not yet known who will face a separate proceeding.
Views of Brooklyn Federal Courthouse
Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News Views of the federal courthouse in Brooklyn on April 14, 2022.
The two-month trial comes after DeArcy Hall sentenced another MS-13 member, Juan Amaya-Ramirez, to 45 years for beating and choking a 17-year-old boy to death after using his girlfriend to lure the teen to his death in a Queens park in 2018.
It also comes after the July sentencing of Alexi Saenz, a high-ranking MS-13 member on Long Island, who got 68 years for his role in eight murders, including ordering the brutal 2016 slayings of two teenage girls as revenge for a high school brawl.
Velasquez Larin personally committed one of the murders covered by the trial, and gave the order in three others, prosecutors allege. Diaz Amaya gave the green light in one of the four slayings, the feds say.
The details of each killing are horrific.
On May 23, 2016, Velasquez Larin, one of his co-defendants, Jose Espinoza Sanchez, 26, or “Cable,” and two members of the Hempstead Locos Salvatruchas clique killed 18-year-old Kenny Reyes in Nassau County because they thought he was part of the rival 18th-Street Gang, prosecutors allege.
They lured Reyes to a wooded area, telling him they’d be smoking pot together, but instead hacked at him with machetes, and buried his body in a hole, the feds said. Velasquez Larin and Espinoza Sanchez bragged about the killing for years, and rose through the ranks of MS-13 because of their bloody work, according to the feds.
Reyes’ father reported him missing two days later, after the teen didn’t show up for work.
A second victim, Victor Alvarenga, ran afoul of Velasquez Larin and Espinoza Sanchez in 2018, when he started hanging out in Flushing and bragged that he was a “homeboy,” or a full-fledged member, of another clique, the Hollywood Locos Salvatruchas, according to court filings by prosecutors.
At some point, Alvarenga disrespected Espinoza Sanchez, so the angered gangbanger and Velasquez Larin started researching their new antagonist, the feds allege
They found out from MS-13 leaders in El Salvador that Alvarenga cooperated with cops there and was already “green lit” for death, the feds allege.
So they told their subordinates in the Fulton clique to befriend and spy on Alvarenga, the feds said. Alvarenga got into a dispute with two members of yet another clique, Indios Locos Salvatruchas — so the Fulton and Indios crews teamed up to put an end to him, the feds said.
On Nov. 3, 2018, Espinoza Sanchez and four MS-13 members stalked Alvarenga for hours until he left a bar, then walked with him for a few blocks outside his home before shooting him in the head, the feds say.
A spat between gang members led to another murder, in 2020, when Oscar Hernandez Baires, a Fulton member, started beefing with Eric Monge, then a member of the Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchas clique, the feds allege.
Monge punched the Fulton member in the head, who complained to Espinoza Sanchez, who then in turn complained to Velasquez Larin — who ordered Monge’s murder, the feds said.
Velasquez Larin provided the guns, and early Sept. 6, 2020, Hernandez Baires joined MS-13 member Jose Guevara Aguilar, 26, in a mission to kill Monge near his Queens home. Baires has pleaded guilty in the killing, while Guevara Aguilar is one of the men facing trial in October.
They waited for Monge’s wife to take his young children inside, then opened fire on Monge as he sat in the front passenger seat, the feds allege. Monge’s wife stepped back out just as they started shooting.
Two more Fulton members, including Jose Arevalo Iraheta, who’s also on trial, waited in a getaway car, the feds allege.
And in February 2022, Velasquez Larin and his fellow “La Mesa” bigwig Diaz Amaya ordered the murder of 20-year-old Oswaldo Gutierrez Medrano, a member of the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas clique, the feds allege.
Several MS-13 members lured him to a spot in Nassau County by telling him he’d be beaten up as part of a gang initiation ritual, but midway through the beating they started chopping him with machetes and knives, the feds said.
The group dismembered him and buried him in the woods, and his distraught aunt and cousin filed a missing persons report after they didn’t hear from him for more than a day, the feds allege.
All five defendants face mandatory life sentences if convicted of murder in aid of racketeering.
