*** Nearly 100 suspected gang members with alleged ties to the Mexican Mafia in Southern California were indicted last July, and among those charged was Peter "Sana" Ojeda who allegedly has been calling the shots for La Eme behind bars.
*** The feds hit 15 suspected Mexican Mafia members with racketeering charges involving drugs, extortion and attempted murder in Del Rio, TX.
*** Mexican drug cartels have "broadened their reach into the US" through violent street gangs according to the FBI's 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment:
Among the American gangs drawing closer to the Mexican crime armies are several Latino mobs such as the Barrio Azteca, which was formed in Texas prisons, and the Mexican Mafia, or "Eme," which is dominated by Californians of Mexican descent. * * * With the closer links, Mexican gangsters are getting American street gangs to carry out more jobs for them beyond the traditional drug selling on street corners, the report said. The cartels now "use street- and prison-gang members in Texas and California to protect smuggling routes, collect debts, transport illicit goods, including drugs and weapons, and execute rival traffickers," it said. They pay the gangs in money and drugs.
*** An appeals court upholds the constitutionality of a civil injunction which prohibits members of the North Side Oakland gang from associating with each other in a designated "safety zone" in Oakland, CA.
*** Norteno member convicted in the murder of an 11-year-old girl and attempted murder of her 15-year-old brother in Monterey County, CA. The siblings were innocent bystanders who were hit when the defendant fired multiple shots at a group whom he believed were rival Surenos.
*** Two dozen suspected members of the Belizean Bloods have been busted on drug trafficking, passport fraud and other charges in Chicago, IL: they "allegedly used fake U.S. passports while shipping cocaine and other narcotics from Belize to the Chicago area and several other cities.
*** Reputed G-Shine Bloods leader indicted with 13 others on racketeering and drug charges for their alleged roles in running open-air drug markets in South Camden, NJ.
*** A suspected Bloods member charged with murder in Elizabeth, NJ.
*** In NYC nineteen suspected members of the Harlem gang The Goodfellas are charged with running guns from Virginia: "the investigation by the NYPD, FBI and Manhattan district attorney's office also yielded a cache of weapons, including a Tec-9, a semiautomatic Chinese SKS military rifle and dozens of other guns."
*** The FBI sets up task force to target street gangs in Southern Maine.
*** MS-13 member faces death penalty after conviction for killing two rival gang members in Cincinnati, OH.
*** MS-13 member gets 24 years in prison for pimping out underage girls in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. Federal prosecutors in the area have brought five gang-related cases of child prostitution in the past year.
