Authorities arrest 10 alleged members of Plainfield street gang MS-13

July 7, 2011

Ryan Hutchins

Plainfield - It started as a simple slap across the face — a seemingly minor altercation that took place at the start of a holiday weekend.

With that single smack, authorities said, the man who dared disrespect Franklin "Frankbo" Mejia was marked for death. By later in the day Saturday, the 20-year-old Mejia — an alleged member of Plainfield’s local MS-13 set — had developed a plot to kill the man, law enforcement officials said.

When police got wind of the plan, however, they arrested the alleged gang member in hopes of preventing a murder.

But that didn’t stop anything. By Sunday, Mejia’s 18-year-old brother, Kelvin Mejia, had taken up the mantle, gathering weapons and a crew of fellow MS-13 members and preparing his own attack on the slapper — this one scheduled for Independence Day, Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said.

Like his brother, Kelvin Mejia failed to exact his revenge as local, county and federal law enforcement officials began a series of raids that ended this morning, Romankow said.

In total, authorities arrested 10 alleged members of MS-13 who had been operating in the Queen City. Kelvin Mejia, however, remains at large — charged, like most of the others, with first-degree conspiracy to commit murder as well as weapons and drug offenses.

Not all of those arrested were linked to the murder plot, authorities said. However, all have been charged under New Jersey’s recently enacted gang criminality law, alleging they worked together to commit crimes on behalf of their set.

The operation to capture the men — and two juveniles who prosecutors hope to try as adults — involved the county’s swat team, Plainfield police, the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The arrests are being labeled a major blow to the "upper echelon" of Plainfield’s local Mara Salvatrucha set, a small but deadly piece of an international organization with roots in El Salvador. In Plainfield, a city of 50,000, MS-13 has grown in recent years to become one of the community’s largest and most deadly — standing out in a place where there are some 20 gangs, police have said.

Many of those arrested are not from the United States, and some entered the country illegally, said Peter Fox, assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s homeland security operations at the Newark field office.

Fox, who joined Romankow at a news conference today in Elizabeth, said MS-13 members in Plainfield and elsewhere have taken violence "to a completely different level."

"Hopefully we send a message to this gang and this community that we’re going to keep their streets safe," Fox said.

Authorities painted a picture of a gang so vicious its members not only sought to crush other Latin American street crews in Plainfield, but targeted their own members and their families for failing to pay a $200 per month "tribute" — funds that have traveled to an MS-13 leader locked up in a Salvadorian prison, Romankow said.

"These people eat themselves," he said.

MS-13 sets have sprung up around New Jersey, like they have across the county and the world. Those charged or convicted in Newark’s school yard slayings have ties to MS-13, and prosecutor’s have said those killings were gang motivated.

To gain power in Plainfield, MS-13 members labeled the once robust Latin Kings set there as "the oppressors," then used force to claim portions of the city as their own, Sgt. Larry Brown, the city police department’s gang intelligence officer, has said.

Since doing so, the gang has grown in membership and power, becoming a feared presence, authorities have said. In recent months, alleged members of Plainfield’s MS-13 set were charged in at least three homicides, Romankow said. Several other members are suspects in at least two other homicides, he said.

One suspect, Walter "Cholo" Yovany Gomez, remains at large. He is charged in the May 15 slaying of Julio Matute-Amaya.

MS-13 is not connected to the two Plainfield gang sets that had declared a public truce in May, seemingly ending a bitter rivalry that law enforcement officials had blamed for much of the violence that had rocked the city over the last year. Those gangs are also not connected to the shooting death of a grocery store owner and injury of another man on Saturday.

THE SUSPECTS

These are the alleged MS-13 members charged this week. All are facing a count under New Jersey’s new gang criminality law, which alleges they worked together to commit crimes on behalf of the gang, authorities said.

• Jose Garcia, also known as Chucky or El Diavolico, is 19 years old. He is charged first-degree conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree conspiracy to possess a weapon for an unlawful purpose, fourth-degree conspiracy to distribute weapons, fourth-degree aggravated assault (pointing a firearm) and second-degree aggravated assault – attempt to cause bodily injury. His bail is $1 million.

• Franklin “Frankboâ€