Fugitive MS-13 leader arrested, will face terrorism charges in Long Island courtroom

A fugitive MS-13 leader will be brought back to New York to face terrorism charges after his arrest in Texas this weekend, according to federal prosecutors.

Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, 45, oversaw the rise of the bloodthirsty gang in El Salvador and the United States beginning in 2002, and served in MS-13's inner circle, which ran military-style training camps and ordered murders, assaults, kidnappings, drug trafficking, extortion and other crimes, authorities say.

Lopez-Larios was arrested at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on June 9 after three years on the run. He will appear in federal court on Long Island at a later date.

He is the third of 14 MS-13 leaders to be arrested in a 2020 indictment on terrorism and narcoterrorist conspiracy charges. Federal authorities have charged a total of 27 members of the gang's leadership structure in two separate cases.

“The arrest of Lopez-Larios, who is one of the most senior leaders of MS-13 in the world, is a significant achievement for law enforcement and another crucial step in dismantling this international criminal enterprise ” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. Monday.

“The defendant will soon face accountability in a federal courtroom on Long Island where, acting on his orders, MS-13 caused so much bloodshed and turned communities into war zones.”

MS-13 got its start in Los Angeles among the city's Salvadoran immigrant community, then rose to power after the United States deported thousands of Salvadorans in the early 1990s.

Gang members were linked to dozens of murders on Long Island and Queens in the mid-2010s, often using machetes to cut up their victims, leading to a series of crackdowns that led to the identification of many suspects in those years. last years.

Lopez-Larios is accused of being among the top leaders of MS-13, who dubbed themselves the “Twelve Apostles of the Devil” while incarcerated in an El Salvador prison in 2002. The gang established prison camps military-style training for its members and obtained weapons such as rifles, handguns, grenades, improvised explosive devices and rocket launchers, federal authorities said.

He also helped create the Ranfla Nacional gang, which used acts of public violence to extort benefits from the government of El Salvador, negotiated drug and arms deals with Mexican cartels, to human trafficking and smuggling and directed the gang's activities in the United States, the United States. federal authorities claim.

Lopez could face up to life in prison if convicted.