MS-13 gang members in Los Angeles hacked to death seven people in the last two years, including a rival gang member who was dismembered and had his heart cut out by six MS-13 soldiers in the Angeles National Forest for defacing the gang’s graffiti, federal authorities alleged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Twenty-two people allegedly affiliated with the gang’s Fulton clique in the San Fernando Valley were indicted by a grand jury on racketeering charges that include nearly 200 criminal acts, committed across several states over nine years, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Four people were killed in the Angeles National Forest by members of the Fulton clique wielding machetes, baseball bats and knives, the indictment alleges. Along with a slaying in the Malibu hills and another in Whitsett Fields Park in North Hollywood — the clique’s “stronghold,” prosecutors said — the six killings were committed by gang members hoping to gain entry into or advance within the clique’s ranks, according to the indictment.
All 22 of the alleged MS-13 affiliates are in custody. Eighteen had been apprehended over the last year on a range of federal and state charges, authorities said. Three were arrested in recent days in the Los Angeles area by a task force composed of FBI agents, LAPD officers and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. Another alleged MS-13 affiliate was arrested over the weekend in Oklahoma.
Some of the suspects were high school students at the time of the slayings, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.