Certainly one of California’s most harmful feminine gangsters has been snared in a daring FBI raid, the Bureau mentioned on Thursday.
Keiko Gonzalez, often known as “Mothers,” “La Senora” and “The Queen,” was taken into custody throughout a sequence of pre-dawn arrests throughout Los Angeles this week.
The 59-year-old is accused of working the infamous 18th Avenue Gang on behalf of her Mexican Mafia husband, who rots in a state jail.
Photos taken by the Put up on Thursday confirmed the alleged medication boss smile and showing to clap as she was paraded earlier than the media.
However the grin was quickly wiped off her face as she was submitted to a sequence of intimate searches in entrance of Los Angeles Hearth Division Basis.
“The Queen” was amongst 12 members and associates from 18th Avenue mopped up this week as a part of the blockbuster “Operation Useless Horse.”
The gang, six of whom stay at massive, was believed to dominate MacArthur Park and gasoline the open-air drug market from tents woven into the homeless inhabitants.
First Assistant United States Legal professional Invoice Essayli mentioned: “For much too lengthy, 18th Avenue and different criminals have been allowed to show one of many metropolis’s most stunning public areas right into a crime-infested pit.
“That ends at present. We’re dedicated to eliminating violent organized crime and open-air drug markets from Los Angeles.” He added it was “one of the violent gangs within the western hemisphere.”
“The Queen” was accused of ordering a gang hit in 2022 when a drug supplier for the operation refused to pay supposed taxes to them. Two of her associates are mentioned to have shot her within the head.
She allegedly ran the group’s legal operations – gathering lease, taxes and doling out brutal self-discipline – on behalf of her husband Jorge Gonzales and three different Mexican Mafia leaders in jail.
Prosecutors declare Gonzales was contacting her and different members of the gang utilizing a secret cellphone he had stashed in his jail block.
The 70-year-old, identified amongst gangsters as “White Horse,” has been languishing in a California state jail since 1980 for a homicide he dedicated when he was 23.
He additionally slashed a fellow inmate to loss of life in Folsom State Jail three years later. Gonzales was moved to Pelican Bay State Jail in 1990, the place he sat in solitary confinement for 25 years.
He now rots in Excessive Desert State Jail in Susanville.
The raids this week noticed federal brokers launch a sequence of pre-dawn ambushes on suspected members of 18th Avenue Gang throughout Los Angeles.
The Put up joined because the FBI burst into an residence block within the east of town early on Thursday after a years-long investigation into the “supergang.”
Others arrested this week included Edward Escalante, 49, aka “Toro,” Edward Alvarenga, 27, aka “Tito,” George Carillo, 60, aka “Chuco,” Carlos Beltran, 48, Felipe De Los Angeles, 51, aka “Indio,” and Edwin Martinez, 32, aka “Dreamer.”
Through the investigation the feds seized greater than 175lbs of meth and fentanyl, $80,000 in money and 6 firearms.
Assistant U.S. Legal professional Jena McCabe mentioned: “The aim is to cease the violence and likewise cease the trafficking of harmful medication like fentanyl.”
