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A woman wanted in connection with several brutal, gang-related murders in Mexico was recently arrested inside the United States. On February 15, the combined efforts of the FBI Safe Streets Gang Task Force, the El Paso Police Gang Unit, County Sheriff's Narcotics Division, and Border Patrol resulted in victory when agents arrested Mexican fugitive Michelle Angelica Pineda, sometimes referred to as La Chely, in a motel in eastern El Paso, Texas. American and Mexican law enforcement officials believe that Pineda, a Mexican national, crossed the U.S. border illegally as part of a drug-trafficking ring perpetrated by the violent street gang...

HOUSTON, TX – The two MS-13 gang members who killed a 15-year-old girl as a sacrifice to the Saint of Death in 2017, have been convicted of murder and each sentenced to 40 years in prison. “This is a tragic case of a runaway girl falling into the clutches of a dangerous and violent gang,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. “We will not stop in our pursuit of violent criminals who band together to terrorize communities and murder innocents.” On Monday, just before jury selection was set to begin in his trial, Diego Hernandez-Rivera, 22, pleaded guilty to...

A Mexican folk religion involving human sacrifice and devoted to "Holy Death" is growing in popularity among drug traffickers and violent criminals, prompting Texas officials and the Catholic Church to warn about honoring the so-called "Saint Death." Authorities are speaking out about the religion devoted to La Santa Muerte, which translates to “Holy Death” and "Saint Death," that has gained popularity steadily since the late 1980s among Mexican-American Catholics. “She’s not a saint. There is nothing good that can come out of praying to her,” Sante Fe Archbiship John Wester said in February. “We have a lot of saints who...

BRAZORIA COUNTY, Texas -- Jubal Alexander was taking after his father working in chemical plants across Texas.The father and son just had dinner together days before his son was murdered and decapitated in Angleton."They cut my son's head off and they took my son's head. Who would do that? I don't understand,” his father told KTRK. “I couldn't even see my son. They won't even let me see him."Alexander was sleeping in his truck under a bridge in Angleton.The 24-year-old was trying to save up money for bills working at a local chemical plant as a pipe fitter.Friends and family...

Tultitlan (Mexico) (AFP) - Two weeks after baptizing her at a Catholic church, baby Adriana's parents put her in a white gown again for a second sacrament: This time, with Mexico's skeletal "Death Saint."As they held the sleepy three-month-old child, a priestess sprinkled holy water infused with rose petals on her in front of 300 people under a 22-meter (72-foot) statue of the Grim Reaper-like "Santa Muerte" in a Mexico City suburb. When Pope Francis arrives in Mexico for a five-day visit on Friday, he will find a country where devotion to Santa Muerte is growing fast despite the Vatican's...

In an extraordinary act of spiritual warfare, several bishops and exorcist priests have performed what is being called a “Magno Exorcismo” (great exorcism) of the entire country of Mexico following a series of events that the bishops see as linked to the presence and influence of Satan. On May 20, the former Archbishop of Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, the Archbishop of San Luis Potosi, Carlos Cabrero, as well as several exorcist priests from various Mexican dioceses held a closed-door exorcism ritual at the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Luis Potosí. The well-known Spanish exorcist Father José Antonio Fortea acted as...

Testimony heated up during the second day of a federal trial for the alleged mastermind behind a kidnapping on the UTPA campus. Miguel Angel Navarro is accused of planning the kidnapping of 27-year-old Ana Elizondo from a parking lot. Kidnapping victim Ana Elizondo was the first witness to take the stand on Wednesday morning. Elizondo relived the horrifying experience after being kidnapped from a parking lot on the University of Texas Pan American campus in Edinburg. She recalled how she saw one of her kidnappers praying ot the Santa Muerte, a cult figure followed by some criminals. Her father Jorge...

BROWNSVILLE - Matamoros residents are worried that more violence may spark after the destruction of Santa Muerte altars throughout the city. The residents said Matamoros' new mayor ordered the demolitions, but there is no official word from authorities to back up those claims. "They've taken down too many altars of the Santísima Muerte," Matamoros resident Daniel Hernandez said. The Catholic Church does not recognize the folk saint. It is commonly revered by those involved in criminal activities. "Taking them down is a bad idea on the mayor's part. Everyone has their own religion," Hernandez said. Still, Hernandez supports the change....

MEXICO CITY - Death just isn't what it used to be. A small religious group that worships the grim reaper and is fighting for government recognition unveiled a softer image of their so-called Death Saint on Sunday: a woman with a porcelain face, brown, shoulder-length hair and long thin fingers. Hundreds of worshippers filed into the Santa Muerte sanctuary in downtown Mexico City to see the statue in a flowing golden dress and veil, clutching a rose. She offers another option to followers who have traditionally prayed to figures of a skeleton dressed in a black cloak and carrying a...

To make these wishes come true, they seek out the area's famous "brujos," as they are called in Spanish. For a fee, these shamans and healers perform rituals and call on spirits from the netherworld to influence their clients' fate. Thanks to this bustling trade in mysticism, Catemaco is Mexico's unofficial capital of all things occult. It also presents a unique challenge for and competition to the Catholic Church. For decades, the church has waged a campaign against "brujeria," or witchcraft, in Veracruz, a state along the Gulf of Mexico. In recent years the church has issued declarations and even...

IN VENEZUELA, thugs are worshipped as saints: but instead of lighting votive candles, followers light cigarettes and place them in the mouths of statues. Karina Perdomo, a lively 22-year-old woman dressed in a tight black shirt, stares blankly at the figure of a saint in the General Cemetery in southern Caracas, puffing on a cigar absent-mindedly. This saint's name is Ismael. He wears a baseball cap and dark glasses, smokes a cigarette and carries a gun. He is the king of the santos malandros or holy thugs, a group of popular saints who were petty criminals in life and were...

<p>A family has built what could be the first public shrine in Mexico City to Jesus Malverde, Mexico's so-called "narco-saint" revered by many of the nation's drug traffickers.</p> <p>Malverde, whose original shrine is located in the city of Culiacan in northern Sinaloa state — considered the cradle of Mexico's top drug clans — is a controversial figure.</p>

Jesus Huerta, 27, of Johnson City, was sentenced Thursday to serve 16 years in federal prison. [SNIP] Huerta and other members of the organization were responsible for the distribution of more than 13,000 kilograms of marijuana across the U.S. for a profit exceeding $7 million, officials said. Huerta and others obtained bulk marijuana from Mexico for distribution in Tennessee and elsewhere. Members of the organization also cultivated at least one marijuana grow operation in the Pisgah National Forest in N.C. During the investigation, DEA agents and Washington County Sheriff's Office investigators discovered that members of the organization were using iconic...

[snip] In 2005, when the government attempted to strip his church's recognition as a religion, Romo led followers in protests before government buildings. At one point in 2009, he even called for a "holy war" among Santa Muerte followers to defend the cult from condemnations by the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Mexico (link in Spanish). [snip] The church leader often traded barbs with a leader of a rival Santa Muerte sanctuary in the north Mexico City suburb of Tultitlan. That spiritual leader, Jonathan Legaria, also known as "the Panther," turned up dead in July 2008. He was killed by a...

A follower in New Orleans built a public shrine in her honor. An actor in Albuquerque credits her with helping him land a role on the TV show "Breaking Bad." She turns up routinely along the U.S.-Mexico border at safe houses, and is sighted on dashboards of cars used to smuggle methamphetamine through the southwest desert. Popular in Mexico, and sometimes linked to the illicit drug trade, the skeleton saint known as La Santa Muerte in recent years has found a robust and diverse following north of the border: immigrant small business owners, artists, gay activists and the poor, among...

HERMOSILLO, MEXICO -- Mexican prosecutors have formally charged eight people in the grisly cult slayings of two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman. The suspects are mainly members of an extended family whose purported leader has said they killed the victims as an offering to "Santa Muerte," or Saint Death, between 2009 and 2012. The idol is usually depicted as a robed skeleton, and her followers include criminals and drug traffickers.

MEXICO CITY — Banners have appeared in northern Mexico signed by the Zetas drug cartel saying the gang was not responsible for killing 49 people whose mutilated bodies were found on a highway in a neighboring state. An employee of the prosecutors' office in northern San Luis Potosi state says the banners were hung from overpasses in the city of Ciudad Valles. The banners were found early Tuesday. The employee was not authorized to speak on the record, and did not give the precise wording of the banners.

SAN JUAN - Hidalgo County Sheriff's deputies are searching for the suspects of a drug stash house. The house was filled with thousands of pounds of marijuana, a shrine devoted to Santa Muerte and an empty box of AK-47 ammunition. Deputies raided the home off the intersection of Linda and Jardin Street, just north of Highway 495 at 9 p.m. Saturday night. Inside, they found every room in the home filled with bundles of marijuana. The bundles weighed about 7,000 pounds and filled the beds of five pick-up trucks. "I'll guarantee you, it'll be several drug trafficking organizations that are...

Conservatives and liberals alike look to far flung shores for the biggest threats to our national security with good reason. No enemy we face is more dedicated to our destruction than Islamic Expansionists and resurgent communism worldwide has again begun to wage war against American world dominance. But these threats, as real as they are, need to gain entrance to our country to truly achieve their ends and it is through the collapsing Mexican state that they will find purchase. As they do, other threats emanating from within the hollow state of Mexico are even now exacting a heavy toll...

Mexican authorities announced the detainment of the leader of the Santa Muerte cult and eight other members on charges kidnapping and extortion in Mexico City. David Romo Guillén, leader of the Traditional Catholic Church that is also known as the Santa Muerte, and the other suspects were arrested between December 18 and 20, but the arrests were not made public until this week. Mexican authorities also allege that Romo and the eight others disguised themselves as members of the Zetas drug gang to kidnap two elderly people for ransom money. All nine members detained were placed under a form of...