62 Suspected Members of the Latin Kings Arrested on Thursday
According to officials, more than sixty associates of the 'Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation' also known as 'Latin Kings' are charged with a penalty after being busted by the FBI and other government authority offices on Thursday. The gang's East Coast Leadership members were among those who were busted during the operation.
From the FBI's Boston Branch, special agent Joe Bonavolonta had stated that it was the biggest operation of the branch's history.
According to a lawyer in Massachusetts named Andrew Lelling, the Latin Kings is one of the biggest criminal associations in the entire globe.
Legal court documentations include a detailed description of the authorities of the law. The documentation includes their exhaustive efforts for four years to seize the criminal organization. It also included conversations with informants and witnesses. It also contains information regarding searching through multiple social media platforms in looking out for the crimes of the group's members.
The majority of the arrested people had appeared in multiple rap video uploads on YouTube while wearing the colors of their gang which is gold and black. In the videos, they were also showing their gang's signs. They rapped about murder and illegal drugs.
According to officials, one of their videos uploaded on YouTube included a person seated on a table while packing cocaine to be sold to their customers.
According to the documentation submitted to the court, some of the other video shooting locations were the places where some of their members had faced death from fights with rival gangs. Some officials believed that some parts of the lyrics of the songs they upload include their admission to violence with other gangs.
The documentation submitted to the court had included events where informants were threatened by this gang for years. They use coded letters to signal violence towards prisoners and run drug trafficking operations.
More than 500 agents had participated in the bust operation at around four in the morning on Thursday after the government's investigation that took four years.
The operation had capture sixty-two suspected members of the gang. Nine of them were already detained and eight were those who had run away.
Those that were identified were nicknamed, King Fruity, King Nasty, and King Clumsy. These were the names that were included in the documents of the charges pressed against them.
Some of the charges given to them were illegal drug trafficking, abuse of firearms, and the RICO conspiracy.
Lelling had called the operation "Operation Throne Down".
According to Lelling, to capture a gang's leaders, there should be a cooperative resource.
The document submitted to the court stated that the bust operation had included a minimum of 3 confidential resources.
Based on the Department of Justice of the United States, there are eleven active branches of the Latin Kings in Massachusetts.
According to a 40 years old Michael Cecchetelli (a.k.a. King Merlin), the criminal acts of the gang is evident in the eastern region.
King Merlin had led the gang in more than fourteen states.
According to Lelling, King Merlin's orders to his gang were most of the time cause violence such as murder. He even asks for the murder of his co-gang members who went against him.
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