Tag Archives: mexican mafia

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

2 Texas Mexican Mafia members on state’s ’10 Most Wanted Fugitives’ list captured

AUSTIN, Texas – Two members of the Texas Mexican Mafia, who were on the “Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Fugitives” list, have been arrested.

Arrested were Ruben Alvarado Castro, of San Antonio, and Theodore Villarreal, of Kenedy. Crime Stoppers rewards will be paid in both cases.

Two of Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Fugitives are back in custody after their arrests last week. Ruben Alvarado Castro, of San Antonio, was arrested Feb. 15 in San Antonio, and Theodore Villarreal, of Kenedy, was arrested Feb. 17 in Kenedy. Both fugitives are members of the Texas Mexican Mafia. Crime Stoppers rewards will be paid in both arrests.

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Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime

After unusual trial, Mexican Mafia member sentenced to life in prison

By MATTHEW ORMSETHSTAFF WRITER 
MARCH 2, 2020

For cutting short the life of a fellow Mexican Mafia member in a hail of bullets, a judge ruled Monday that Jose Luis Loza should spend the rest of his own in a federal prison.

Loza, from Whittier, was convicted of murder, racketeering and other crimes after an unusual trial in August, in which Loza himself testified for two days. It was an unprecedented departure, law enforcement officials say, from the Mexican Mafia’s historical refusal to acknowledge in the courtroom such an organization exists, let alone discuss its politics on the witness stand.

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Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime

A Glendale detective, a suspected mobster and the Mexican Mafia

The Escalade was headed down a dreary and industrial stretch of road in Commerce when the first bullet buried itself in the driver’s back. He stomped on the gas. Bullets slammed into the car. Blood leaked from his gut.

The black SUV was ferrying the son of Lev Aslan Dermen, a petroleum mogul and suspected organized crime figure. His son escaped, unscathed.

The shooting drew little notice until a year later, when an extortionist for the Mexican Mafia contacted a Los Angeles Police Department detective from jail with a startling story: The gunman was a gang member, he said, but a Glendale detective had offered him $100,000 to “scare” someone, according to an affidavit that details his statement.

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Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime

Mexican Mafia ‘Secretaries’ Sentenced to Federal Prison

As the gang leader’s eyes and ears on the streets, the couple stored extortion money collected in his name.

A Los Angeles couple were sentenced to federal prison Monday for acting as so-called secretaries for the man’s brother, an imprisoned Mexican Mafia member who relied on the pair to relay orders to the street.

Thomas Gonzales, 60, and Gloria Valerio, 66, both of Elysian Valley, were found guilty in March of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — RICO — after a two-week trial in Los Angeles federal court. Gonzales also was found guilty of making a false statement to a law enforcement officer, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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Blog, Business Law, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

He sold antiques in Florida. Then he helped ‘El Chapo’ launder $100M of dirty gold

BY JAY WEAVER AND NICHOLAS NEHAMAS

jweaver@miamiherald.com

nnehamas@miamiherald.com

January 16, 2018 08:00 AM

Updated 10 hours 10 minutes ago

The Chicago drug dealers working for notorious Mexican gangster El Chapo had a big problem on their hands: What should they do with the millions of dollars in cash they earned from selling cocaine?

They bought gold. Tens of millions of dollars worth from pawnshops — rings, necklaces and watches.

Then they had to find a place to fence it all.

More than a thousand miles away, in an industrial warehouse in South Florida, they found the perfect partner: an obscure gold-trading company called Golden Opportunities. El Chapo’s crew shipped the metal in dozens of FedEx deliveries to the Hallandale Beach company, according to federal court records.

The owners of Golden Opportunities, Jed and Natalie Ladin, may not have known they were working with Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known as El Chapo — but between 2011 and 2014 his brutal Sinaloa cartel laundered nearly $100 million of cocaine cash through Golden Opportunities, court records show.

A drug cartel’s Midas touch

Mexico’s brutal Sinaloa cartel used a small South Florida gold business to launder nearly $100 million in cocaine profits. Here’s how they did it.

The Ladins did more than look the other way: After selling the gold to big refineries that would melt it down for manufacture into coins, bars and high-tech consumer products, Golden Opportunities wired the proceeds to Sinaloa shell companies in Mexico. That made Jed, 69, a former antiques dealer, and his wife, Natalie, 65, part of an international money-laundering operation transforming El Chapo’s cocaine profits into clean cash.

The money-laundering pipeline was revealed in 2014 in the ongoing federal prosecution of 30 members and associates of the Sinaloa cartel in Chicago. Already, more than half of the defendants have pleaded guilty, including the group’s two leaders. A dozen other alleged participants are fugitives. (El Chapo is in a U.S. prison awaiting trial for a different series of crimes.)

The Ladins’ case shows how international organized-crime groups manipulate America’s hush-hush gold industry to launder money and keep their businesses running. Even minor industry players like the Ladins can wind up playing supporting roles in vast criminal operations. While the couple was never charged in the Chicago case, Golden Opportunities shut down after the Ladins pleaded guilty in 2014 in a separate money-laundering prosecution involving gold.

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