Thread: El Paso: Feds unveil inner workings of Azteca gang

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_8410634

Federal case unveils inner workings of Azteca gang
By Daniel Borunda and Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 02/29/2008 05:19:51 PM MST

The federal racketerring case targeting the Barrio Azteca gang reveals the inner workings, struggles and secrets of a large criminal organization whose activities reach out from prison cells to the streets of El Paso and beyond.
The gang -- also known as the BA -- in recent years has had no single leader overseeing El Paso, creating an internal power struggle for leadership of the city that the criminal organization considers its stronghold, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose Luis Acosta said during a recent hearing.

"The Barrio Azteca feels they are the owners of El Paso," Officer Andres Sanchez, an El Paso police gang investigator on the FBI gang task, said in federal court during the detention hearing for two accused gang capos.

Sanchez has given most of the testimony for federal prosecutors during recent detention hearings for the some of the 14 people indicted so far as part of a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) indictment against the Barrio Azteca. The indictments in the case showed that the gang had never stopped the criminal activities that sent dozens of its members to prison on racketeering charges back in 2001.

For now, the arrests seem to have had a positive impact on El Paso street crime, police said.

"It's been kind of quiet" since the indictments, said Sgt. Reginald Moton of the El Paso police Gang Unit. "They (Barrio Azteca members) controlled a lot of the drug activity. We had information they would charge other gangs quotas to sell drugs in a specific area."

Court testimony this month revealed that the prison-spawned gang now has up to 3,000 members in prisons and on the streets of the Southwest and Mexico, according to the latest estimate by law enforcement. The gang was linked to drug shipments to the Midwest and the East Coast.

In Juárez, the gang goes by the name Aztecas and gained notoriety for igniting riots at the Cereso prison where they struggle for power with the Mexicles, the largest prison gang in the state of Chihuahua.

Barrio Azteca assists the Juárez drug cartel in the importation of drugs and with killings in exchange for narcotics at discounted prices, Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Leachman said. They gang also offers members sanctuary in Mexico from U.S. law enforcement.

In one of the strangest twists in this month's court hearings, it was revealed that the gang operates a drug rehabilitation center in Juárez for "la familia," a code name for its members, located a few blocks from the U.S. border.

The rehab center was necessary because the gang, which has dealt heroin on El Paso's streets, had some of its members fall prey to the highly-addictive drug, gang enforcement officers said.

"It's in their best interest for them to have their members clean to work for the organization," Officer Sanchez said.

Tapped telephone calls, seized coded letters and members-turned-informants provided a view into El Paso's criminal underworld.

Gang members seemed concerned about communications problems between the prisons and the streets and about leadership problems in the gang's para-military hierarchy. The power vacuum goes back at least to January 2005, when, Sanchez testified, an informant said David "Chicho" Meraz ended his short tenure as leader of BA operations in El Paso and infighting ensued. It is not clear what happened to Meraz.

Overall, the gang is ruled by a council of five capos, or captains, Sanchez testified recently.

It was also no secret the BA was in the cross-hairs of the FBI. In an 2006 interview, an FBI spokeswoman acknowledged that the bureau was looking to dismantle the organization.

The gang was founded in 1986 by five El Pasoans in state prison. It is often in prison where the recruitment of new members occurs.

For example, El Pasoan Eric "Flaco" Saucedo, a suspected gang soldier named in the current indictment, was a young man serving a prison sentence on an aggravated assault case when he ran into a problem with inmates not from El Paso, gang investigator Sanchez testified.

"He found BA provided assistance to him while being locked-up" and he joined the gang, Sanchez said.

But once released from prison Saucedo found that he hadn't been released of the gang's obligations.

Saucedo moved to Central El Paso where he was approached by accused gang soldier Adam "Serio" Muñoz, who questioned him about his membership in the BA. "It was king of a meet and greet," Sanchez said.

Muñoz was allegedly tasked with collecting "quotas," or shakedown money, from street-level drug dealers. The proceeds are sent up the chain of command to imprisoned members in the form of money orders. Saucedo allegedly told detectives that Muñoz asked him and Arturo "Tury" Enriquez to accompany Muñoz on a 2006 tax collection when a suspected cocaine dealer was fatally shot after lunging at Muñoz.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.

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Woman tied to Azteca gang aided farmworkers
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 02/22/2008 12:00:00 AM MST


A woman suspected of being an associate of the Barrio Azteca gang was a longtime farmworker advocate in El Paso and knew some of the gang members when they were farmworkers, the woman's lawyer suggested Thursday in federal court.
Sandy Valles New, 57, a former paralegal at the federal public defender's office, was denied bond Thursday. She was arrested Feb. 6 as part of a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization indictment targeting Barrio Azteca members.

Andres Sanchez, an El Paso police gang investigator, testified that New was a "bridge," passing information between gang members. Investigators intercepted about 10 letters to New's El Paso post office box and taped phone calls between New and two convicted Barrio Azteca capos, Benjamin "T-Top" Alvarez and Carlos "Shotgun" Perea.

In 2003, Alvarez allegedly called New from the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., Sanchez said.

"Sandy reads a letter to Alvarez. She keeps interrupting to make sure he understands because it's in code," Sanchez said.

In the letters, the capos complained about not receiving enough money, inquired about power struggles on the street and sometimes about the health of New's 17 cats. They also revealed that the gang had a rehabilitation center in Juárez for drug-addicted members.

But New's lawyer, Kathleen Salome Smith, said the communications were innocent and pointed out that her client had been active with farmworker organizations for 15 years.

"She could have known these individuals prior to their involvement with Barrio Azteca," she said.
Carlos Marentes, executive director of the Centro De Los Trabajadores AgrÃ*colas Fronterizos, said New did office work for the center in the early 1990s. Marentes laughed at the suggestion that farmworkers had become gang members.

"Farmworkers being engaged in criminal activity hasn't really been an issue. Most are very peaceful," he said.

Sanchez also said Thursday that New often referred in phone calls to "la familia," a code word for the gang. Smith disputed that interpretation.

"Are you aware she considers farmworkers her family?" Smith asked.

"From what I heard," Sanchez said, "her connotation of 'family' had nothing to do with farmworkers."

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.