A Queens MS-13 gang member was sentenced to more than three decades in federal prison for his role in the murder of a man on a crowded Jackson Heights subway platform in 2019.
Victor Lopez, 27, of Flushing, an El Salvadoran national known on the streets as “Curioso,” pleaded guilty in February 2025 to racketeering and causing the death of Abel Mosso through the use of a firearm in the 90th Street–Elmhurst Avenue 7 train station. Lopez is the fifth defendant convicted of Mosso’s murder to be sentenced, and he has consented to be deported upon completion of his term of imprisonment.
“The defendant is deservedly punished for participating in a targeted killing of a perceived gang rival that was carried out in broad daylight on a subway platform, which also endangered the lives of numerous bystanders going about their business,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella said. “It is a priority of the Administration and our Office to eradicate local and transnational gangs that operate with no regard for human life. The substantial prison sentences imposed on the defendants responsible for this brutal murder makes our communities safer.”
On the afternoon of Feb. 3, 2019, Lopez and fellow MS-13 gang members Ramiro Gutierrez, 33, of Flushing; Tito Martinez-Alvarenga, 26, of Flushing; Emerson Martinez-Lara, 27 of College Point; and Ismael Santos-Novoa, 37, of Flushing went to the Flushing-Main Street subway station to locate and kill Mosso, whom they believed to be a member of the rival 18th Street gang. Lopez, Gutierrez, and Martinez-Alvarenga followed Mosso onto a Manhattan-bound 7 train, while Santos-Novoa and Martines-Lara acted as lookouts for police. On the train, Lopez and Martinez-Alvarenga assaulted Mosso and then dragged him onto the platform at the 90th Street station above Roosevelt Avenue. Lopez pulled out a gun, but Mosso wrestled it away. When a crowd of people gathered around and tried to help Mosso, one of the defendants shouted in Spanish, “Nobody get involved, we’re MS-13, we’re going to kill him.”…