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In some areas, half of the violent crimes are linked to gangs, according to the attorney general's office. RADFORD -- Gangs are a growing issue in Virginia that can only be tackled with awareness and information. That was the sentiment imparted Wednesday during an all-day gang training session held at Radford University. The training, first in a series of anti-gang sessions sponsored by the office of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, were open to law enforcement and the public. Some 50 law enforcement employees sat in McGuffey Hall to learn how gangs operate and about their presence in various parts of...

A member of the gang MS-13 from Springfield was found guilty of sex trafficking underage girls Thursday. A federal jury found Rances Ulices Amaya, 23, guilty of three counts of sex trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of a child. Because of minimum sentencing guidelines, Amaya should receive at least 10 years in prison for each count. He could receive as much as life in prison when he is sentenced on June 1.

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's biggest gang trial in many years ended today when a jury convicted six men of racketeering and conspiracy as members of MS-13, a crime organization that waged war against rivals and defectors in San Francisco's Mission District and was found responsible for at least three 2008 murders. A seventh defendant, Walter Cruz-Zavala, was acquitted. The six men face up to life in prison when sentenced Nov. 30. Jurors deliberated for a week after a federal court trial that lasted more than four months. Prosecutors portrayed the young men as leaders or soldiers of a heavily...

Seven members and associates of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang are charged with three murders as part of a squad that allegedly killed, robbed and dealt drugs on the streets of Houston, officials said Thursday. The defendants are tied to the gang, which is known as MS-13 and has roots in Central America, federal authorities said as they announced the unsealing of a federal indictment. "Gang activities reach out from far beyond the neighborhoods in which they are ongoing and into the communities in which we live," said Jose Angel Moreno, the top federal prosecutor for a region that stretches...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A Salvadoran national and MS-13 gang leader was convicted today of prostituting a 12-year-old female with clients throughout northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Jose Ciro Juarez-Santamaria, 24, indicted on May 12, 2011, was convicted today of conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation of a minor for prostitution. He faces a mandatory minimum term of 15 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 28, 2011. "Forcing girls into prostitution for the purpose of turning...

In Billy Hoover's office today: U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens. My favorite Hugo Llorens quote: "One can't violate the Constitution in order to create another Constitution, because if one doesn't respect the Constitution, then we all live under the law of the jungle." Hugo Llorens, June 2009, in reference to President Manuel Zelaya's planned referendum on a proposed constitutional assembly. I guess we'll see if what Llorens thinks is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. Maybe he's there to give Billy Hoover a lesson on our Constitution. He could sure as hell use it.

Sitting on a bus in Honduras in 2002, Denis Alvarez Alvarado says he overheard two men in front of him discussing how he was going to die. Unaware that he was there, the men said that members of a gang called MS3 — who had kidnapped Alvarez a few days earlier, beaten him and eventually released him — intended to silence him so that he would not tell police about the abduction.I left Honduras because I was afraid that MS3 members would kill me," Alvarez, now 32, says in court documents drawn up in his legal fight against the U.S....

Julio Chavez is charged with emptying his revolver into Maurice Parker on May 18, 2007, in Flushing. Chavez then hopped into a SUV, flashed gang signs and yelled in Spanish, former MS-13 gang member Jose Molina said in Brooklyn Federal Court. " 'Yeah, homie, that's how you're supposed to do it,'" Chavez said, according to Molina. "'You see the blood coming out of his head?'" Molina said Chavez then uttered, "The beast has eaten!" Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Kazemi asked the witness to translate the meaning of Chavez's rant. "That he had just given a soul to the devil," Molina...

Last week, Alexander Rivas, 18, was arrested by Alexandria police, following an investigation that began in November, when the father of a 14-year-old runaway told police his daughter was living with Rivas. Court documents state that the girl was found in the gang member’s apartment and she was being used as a prostitute. According to prosecutors, Rivas ran a prostitution ring, operating in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, using underage runaways. The affidavit states that the business catered to “construction workers and illegal immigrants.” On a typical Friday or Saturday night, the operation would see about 100 customers...

Two members of a notorious Central American gang face life in federal prison in a murder-for-hire scheme cooked up over bad blood in Honduras that ended in gunfire in West Columbia, a prosecutor said Friday. Josue Benitez, 22, and Martin Teran, 36, were convicted Thursday after a three-week trial of a hit on Jorge Ramos, U.S. prosecutor Jay Richardson said. Ramos was gunned down while he worked on his car Nov. 2, 2008, in Hendrix Mobile Home Park on Leaphart Road. The MS-13 gang members drove from Houston to South Carolina to carry out the contract killing, Richardson said. Jurors...

A man wanted for rape in Fairfax County, who had been released from custody in Loudoun County a month before the assault because of an apparent gap in immigration databases, was captured Sunday in Houston, Fairfax police said Monday. Salvador Portillo-Saravia is being held in the Houston jail pending extradition to Fairfax. His case highlighted flaws in the much-touted Secure Communities program that is supposed to keep dangerous illegal immigrants off the street. Authorities said Portillo-Saravia, 29, was a member of the street gang MS-13 who had been picked up by gang officers in Prince William County in 2003 and...

Last week, Mexican authorities seized over 23 tons of ethyl phenylacetate, which is used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. The drug component was discovered at the Pacific port of Manzanillo, in a shipment from China. In April 2010, Mexican officials seized 80 tons of phenylacetic acid and its derivatives shipped from Shanghai, China. Imports of ethyl phenylacetate require authorization from the country’s health ministry, so the shipments are intentionally mis-labeled before leaving China. Last year, an anonymous U.S. official told Reuters that between October and November 2010, Mexican authorities seized 818 tons of chemicals used in making crystal meth. Due...

29-year-old Salvador Portillo-Saravia is a fugitive from justice, wanted for raping the 8-year-old daughter of an acquaintance on December 26th of last year. Portillo-Saravia is a native of El Salvador and a known member of MS-13 who just days before the alleged rape of the child was in a Loudoun County jail on public intoxication charges. Police claim that when they released him they didn’t know he was an illegal alien. Authorities believe that while Portillo-Saravia and a friend were visiting a woman, reportedly the friend’s girlfriend, the fugitive sneaked into the child’s bedroom and sexually assaulted her. The woman...

A 2-year-old boy watched his mother get shot to death by MS-13 gang members in a wooded section of Central Islip last year before one of them turned the gun on the crying toddler, killing him, according to federal court papers. The mother, Vanessa Argueta, 19, had taken her young son, Diego Torres, with her on what she thought was a dinner date last February because she didn't have a baby-sitter, the court papers said. Among those who took part in the execution-style killings, according to the federal documents, was the mother's former boyfriend. The account of the killings is...

Salvador Portillo-Saravia, a member of the MS-13 street gang, was charged with raping an 8-year-old girl at her Fairfax County home last month. But he never should have been in Fairfax in the first place. Federal officials deported Portillo-Saravia, of Sterling, to El Salvador in 2003, and he sneaked back in illegally. Now, officials are wondering why a much-touted federal program didn't catch him before the rape. Four weeks before the crime, Portillo-Saravia was in the Loudoun County jail for public intoxication. That's when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program, called Secure Communities, should have identified him as an...

CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police are investigating a murder plot that sounds more like something out of a made-for-TV movie. The participants are a 26-year-old gang member and two girls who are both 13-years-old and students at Northridge Middle School.Investigators say Jorge Feria-Leon is a known member of "Sur 13," a violent Latino street gang. Feria-Leon is being investigated for trying to get one teen to kill the other. The situation sprang from a party at their apartment last week. Police say that underage teen girls were present and they were drinking alcohol. Feria-Leon got arrested and supposedly he blamed a...

U.S. marshals are on the hunt for an illegal immigrant wanted for raping an 8-year-old girl, and they are asking the public to help track him down. Salvador Portillo-Saravia, 29, had been deported from the United States six years ago, but illegally re-entered the country and recently sexually assaulted the young daughter of an acquaintance. Fairfax County has issued warrants for felony charges of rape and sodomy of a victim under 13 years old. "Portillo-Saravia is a vicious and violent individual," said Marshals Deputy Lenny Reynolds. "Anyone capable of such a horrid and senseless act cannot be allowed to participate...

Mexico has belatedly discovered that its criminal syndicates have become so powerful that they directly threaten the state. In fact, Mexico hovers on the brink of becoming a narco-state. Its criminal syndicates control the Mexican side of the Texas/Mexico border and the smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants into Texas. Their influence and reach have crossed the Rio Grande River in ways that many politicians and media prefer to not acknowledge. Caught in this crossfire are ranchers trying to protect their property and their way of life. Here are some of the problems they face daily. The criminal organizations To...

"Salvadoran Immigrant Ingmar Guandique Found Guilty of Murdering D.C. Intern Chandra Levy [12:45 p.m. ET]" That was the breaking news headline that was blasted to my inbox from ABCNews.com regarding today's murder conviction of the suspect in the 2001 murder of the former congressional intern for then-Rep. Gary Condit (D). In the Associated Press story by Matthew Barakat at the ABCNews.com website, there is no mention of the fact that Guandique is an illegal immigrant nor of the fact that he is involved in the ruthless gang Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13. This despite the fact that numerous...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1009/100917washingtondc2.htm September 17, 2010 4 indicted in Washington, D.C. for MS-13 gang activities WASHINGTON - Three alleged members and associates of the MS-13 gang have been indicted for various violent crimes stemming from a home invasion last year in the District of Columbia in which several persons were held at gunpoint. A fourth alleged member has been indicted for subsequent efforts to threaten potential witnesses in the case. The indictment was returned Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny...