Prosecutors in Los Angeles have charged suspected MS-13 gang members with using the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains as sites for brutal murders. Between 2017 and 2019, authorities allege the gang killed four people in these remote areas as part of initiation rituals and to instill fear. The indictment, unsealed recently, reveals chilling details of the gang’s operations, including the use of machetes, knives, and baseball bats to kill victims. In one particularly gruesome case, a victim was stabbed 107 times, while another was disemboweled.
The federal racketeering case, which charges 22 members of the MS-13 gang, is the result of a yearlong investigation by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Task Force on Violent Gangs. This task force includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. According to the indictment, the gang’s Fulton clique, a particularly violent subset, operated in the San Fernando Valley and required new members to commit murder to join.
The indictment highlights a March 6, 2017, incident where MS-13 members allegedly abducted a rival gang member, drove him to the Angeles National Forest, and killed him with a machete. The victim’s body was dismembered, and his remains were discarded in a canyon. This case is one of several detailed in the indictment, which accuses the gang of nearly 200 crimes, including racketeering, drug trafficking, and murder…