Residents relieved by gang arrests

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A federal grand jury indicted 26 suspected members of an international gang accused in a cross-border drug ring, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey unsealed a federal indictment that charges people believed to be members of the MS-13 gang with federal racketeering for forming a drug trafficking ring that sold cocaine, marijuana and narcotics, and of committing multiple robberies.

Some face charges in four slayings in Greensboro and Charlotte.

"MS-13 is an extremely violent gang ... Today's indictment is merely the latest sign of the gang's reach and it shows the breadth and seriousness of the crimes that MS-13 members are alleged to have committed," Mukasey said at a news conference in Charlotte.

Authorities fanned out across Charlotte Tuesday, arresting suspected gang members at several apartment complexes.

The raid in Charlotte started around 5 a.m. Tuesday when FBI agents and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police met at the Walgreen's on Woodlawn Road.

Then, with flashing lights they sped away to the Southgate Apartments on Conway Avenue, just south of Uptown. There, dozens of other officers, FBI agents and SWAT team members went to two apartments in different buildings of the complex.

Later, around 6 a.m., some residents of the Victoria Park apartments in Mint Hill woke up with the sounds of police surrounding one of the buildings in the complex.

One woman told WCNC that she was asked to leave her apartment by some officers who said they were "looking for a very dangerous man."

A resident at Southgate said it was common knowledge that MS-13 gang members lived there.

"I seen a couple of guys wearing 13 jerseys but they didn't bother anybody," he said. "Maybe that's a good thing they caught them before it escalated too, because they have kids out here playing and it could have been out here shooting out and hit one of the kids."

One of the gang leaders, Manuel de Jesus Ayala, also known as Chacua, called the shots from a prison in El Salvador.

Twenty of the men named in the 55-count indictment were in custody by the afternoon. Several were already in jail on other charges, U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert said. Authorities declined to release the names of the suspects who escaped arrest.

"We recognize that taking out any individual group does not solve the problem," said U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert.

Of the 26 people indicted, 20 were in Charlotte and six were in El Salvador.

Officials say the gang's leader in El Salvador was giving orders to gang members in Charlotte. Officers say that Manuel de Jesus Ayala, also known as Chacua, called the shots from a prison in that country.

"He would order the execution of criminal acts in the city of Charlotte from El Salvador," said council general Jose Luis Tobar Prieto.

Federal authorities say MS-13 is one of the largest gangs in the nation with 10,000 members in the U.S., Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

"MS-13 is exactly the type of dangerous international criminal organization that the department is focused on in our strategy to fight the most violent gangs that operated within our border," said Mukasey.

Agents say the gang has targeted North Carolina because it's getting squeezed in its Los Angeles base.

"It does send a signal that if you’re engaged in criminal activity, you're running the risk of a federal prosecution and a massive criminal sentence. That is a deterrent in itself," said Shappert. 

The federal indictment says that in addition to drugs, extortion and murder, gang members even talked about using grenades to blow up gang rivals. Agents wouldn’t say if those plans went beyond the talking stage.

The indictment claims gang members hold regular meetings much like a government, discussing gang rules, problems and unity. The cliques met frequently in Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham and Columbia, S.C. and elsewhere, and the meetings often brought in gang guests from other states, according to court documents.

Criminal activity, especially directed at rival gangs, increased a member's position in the gang, according to the indictment.

Many of the leaders -- often called "shot callers" or "voices" -- are in prison in El Salvador, the indictment said. But prosecutors claim gang members paid dues at their meetings and often sent cash to those in prison, at times wiring money at the request of a leader.

This was not the first time federal authorities have targeted MS-13. They conducted a similar operation last year in Maryland, Mukasey said.

Shappert said there were about 8,000 gang members in North Carolina, including about 1,000 in Charlotte.

Gang connected to violence in Charlotte

Investigators say some of the gang members arrested on Tuesday are connected to two Charlotte murders.

One victim, 17-year-old Ulysses Mayo, was shot to death in April on Belt Street in south Charlotte. Police say he was outside a home where a child's birthday party was being held.

The second victim, Johnny Maradiago, was killed three years ago.

The gang members are also connected to several club shootings, according to investigators.

The gang was known to routinely meet at the El Vaquero Club, which was the site of an attempted robbery in December 2007.

On Feb. 3, 2008, the gang is suspected in a shooting at the Golden Palacio Club that injured two people.

And on Feb. 16, the MS-13 gang allegedly shot at three rival gang members at the Mi Cabana Club.

(WCNC's Michelle Boudine, Glenn Counts, Richard DeVayne and the Associated Press contributed to this report.)