Nearly two dozen reputed members of the bloodthirsty MS-13 street gang — with nicknames including “Pinky’’ and “Cadaver” — have been hit with new murder and drug raps stemming from a Long Island turf war.
The gangbangers are accused of pulling off four Queens murders — including the 2018 vicious slaying of a 17-year-old boy who was stabbed and strangled before his killers posed for photos with his mangled body, according to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn on Wednesday.
Another victim was dragged out of a subway train in Jackson Heights and shot dead on the platform in 2019, with one MS-13 gang member allegedly yelling, “We’re MS-13! We’re going to kill him!” said the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York.
In 2021, other gang members allegedly tried to kill a member of the rival Latin Kings by slashing him in the head and back with machetes in a dispute over territory.
“The murders and other crimes of violence allegedly committed by these defendants were brutal, cold-blooded and utterly senseless,” Brooklyn US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
“This office and our law enforcement partners are working tirelessly to dismantle the MS-13 at all of its levels, and we will not relent until this transnational criminal organization, it’s leaders, members and associates are held accountable for the extreme violence. … They have perpetrated in our communities.”
Prosecutors said some of the reputed gangsters were picked up as far off as Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Colorado this week, while at least seven others were rounded up in the Big Apple on Wednesday morning and are awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn.
Among the defendants is Edenilson Velasquez “Paco” Larin, a national MS-13 leader who runs the Fulton Locos Salvatruchas clique, whose turf includes the Nassau County hamlet of Elmont, the feds said.
Larin and fellow Fulton leader Jose Espinoza Sanchez allegedly ordered several killings to kick the rival 18th Street gang off of its turf in Elmont, according to the indictment.
The 48-count indictment also charges the gangsters with selling cocaine and marijuana as well as money-laundering to raise cash for MS-13.
