The arrests were made during an early morning operation, with FBI agents executing warrants throughout Southern California as part of a two-year investigation. Nineteen of the suspects were already in custody, while two remain fugitives. The operation is linked to a federal indictment that charges 40 people with a variety of felonies, including racketeering conspiracy, drug trafficking, and illegal weapons possession.

    The Mexican Mafia, known as “La Eme,” is a powerful prison-based gang that, according to federal authorities, exerts significant control over numerous street gangs in Southern California. “Gang members who commit heinous acts like murder, extortion, kidnapping, and drug trafficking are a menace to our communities,” said Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney, in a statement. “These arrests showcase the continued collaboration between federal and local law enforcement to take down violent criminals and disrupt organized crime in both our prisons and streets.”

    Among those indicted in the operation are several high-ranking members of the Mexican Mafia, including Luis Cardenas, 48, also known as “Gangster,” “Pops,” and “Tio,” who is currently serving a life sentence at Ironwood State Prison. Other individuals charged include Jose Antonio Ochoa Madrigal, 41, incarcerated in an Orange County jail, and associates Jaime Alvarado, 42, Karina Cesena, 32, and Mario Flores, 40.

    According to the 66-count indictment, Cardenas was responsible for overseeing the Mexican Mafia’s criminal activities in Orange County and its affiliated jail facilities from June 2024 to April 2026. Authorities claim that Cardenas, operating from prison, used encrypted messaging apps on contraband phones to coordinate criminal operations, including kidnappings and assaults on people who had fallen out of favor with him.

    The indictment also includes allegations related to the 2025 murder of a victim at the Akua Inn, a motel controlled by the Mexican Mafia in Anaheim. According to officials, two men, Matthew Kundrat, 29, and Manuel Ramos, 45, murdered the victim in an effort to gain membership in the Mexican Mafia and increase their rank within the organization. If convicted, the two men could face a life sentence in prison and possibly the death penalty, as per federal law.

    In addition to their involvement in violent crimes, the Mexican Mafia is accused of operating illegal drug trade networks in the region, distributing fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine through gambling houses and other gang-controlled businesses. Alvarado and Cesena are accused of overseeing operations that involved violent retaliation against “slap houses” that failed to pay the required extortion fees, known as “taxes.”

    The operation led to the seizure of nearly nine pounds of fentanyl, over 120 pounds of methamphetamine, two pounds of heroin, more than six pounds of cocaine, 25 firearms, and over $30,000 in cash.

    Fifteen of the arrested individuals were expected to be arraigned in Santa Ana, with 10 others set to appear in Los Angeles. Twelve more individuals are currently in state custody and will make their initial court appearances in the coming weeks. The investigation continues as authorities work to dismantle the Mexican Mafia’s influence over Southern California’s criminal enterprises.

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According to a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accused Mexican Mafia member Manuel “Snuffy” Quintero issued an order in 2022 to kill Nelson Abrego, who performs under the name Swifty Blue.

In the complaint, prosecutors described a sprawling conspiracy that played out over TikTok messages and recorded jail calls, drawing in prisoners from Kern County, jail inmates in downtown Los Angeles and gang members in Paramount, the southeast Los Angeles County city that both Quintero and Abrego call home.

Quintero, 49, was arrested Wednesday and has yet to enter a plea. It wasn’t clear from court records whether he has a lawyer. A longtime member of the Paramount Varrio gang, Quintero has served prison time for assault, manufacturing methamphetamine and false imprisonment, court records show.

On New Year’s Eve in 2022, an alleged subordinate of Quintero, Giuseppe “Clever” Leyva, told an informant he’d notified gang members in Paramount, Compton and downtown L.A. that they had instructions to attack Abrego “on sight,” the complaint says.

Leyva, 34, is now in custody on an unrelated federal case that charges him with selling drugs and guns in Imperial County. He pleaded guilty to trafficking methamphetamine in March and has yet to be sentenced. His attorney in the federal case didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

After the informant asked if “Snuffs is mad” at the rapper, Leyva allegedly said of Abrego: “F— him.”

It’s unclear why Quintero was angry with Abrego, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In a 2024 interview with The Times, the rapper declined to discuss any potential issues with the Mexican Mafia or “jailhouse politics.”

Abrego previously said his music resonates with people because “everybody wants to be a gangster.”

“Whether you’re a lawyer, a police or a kid going to school, everybody wants to be big, bad and tough,” he said in 2024.

Eight months after he spoke to the informant, the complaint says, Leyva warned another person in a TikTok message to stay away from the rapper.

“Let me give u a lil 411 s u won’t get mis guided with the internet,” he wrote, according to the complaint. “With Swifty his career is done.”

“I talked to him tried to guide him but he didn’t listen,” Leyva allegedly continued, adding that now the rapper was “getting his blues” in Men’s Central Jail.

In November 2023, Abrego was jailed on a gun possession charge. Onesimo “Vamps” Gonzalez, held two cells down from the rapper, called his mother and told her to ask an associate if “the one who sings” was “still good,” according to the complaint.

Gonzalez’s mother hung up. When her son called back, she allegedly said, “He’s no good.”

Both Gonzalez and his mother are charged in the conspiracy. Gonzalez was already in custody; Dominga Gonzalez, 66, was arrested Wednesday at her Bellflower home, according to a statement from the FBI.

Two days after mother and son spoke, another jail inmate, Jonathan “Dreamer” Quevedo, called a man imprisoned in Kern County who was using a contraband cell phone, according to the complaint.

After mentioning “Swifty Blue,” Quevedo allegedly asked Jacob “Eagle” David if he recalled a “raza rapper” who was “in the shower.”

Prosecutors believed this was a reference to Jaime Brugada Valdez, a rapper known as MoneySign Suede who was stabbed to death in the showers at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad in 2023.

“The end result should be the same,” allegedly replied David, who was imprisoned for carjacking and robbery.

The next day, the complaint says, David instructed Quevedo to tell the attackers: “Handle that s— with prejudice… You know how that’s like a court term? Well, this s— [is] with prejudice.”

Quevedo allegedly confirmed it was “already in motion.”

When inmates were let out of their cells at 5:50 the next morning to take a shower, Adrian “Slick” Bueno, Andrew “Largo” Shinaia and Jude “Crazy” Valle entered Abrego’s cell, the complaint says. While Michael “Weasel” Ortiz obstructed a nearby camera, Bueno, Shinaia and Valle beat the rapper and “sliced” him, prosecutors charged.

About five hours later, Quevedo called a woman from jail and asked her to tell David in state prison that “old boy got his rap session,” according to the complaint.

“They didn’t really get a good show,” Quevedo allegedly said. “Expect them to be performing in probably the 4000 floor” — another area of the jail — “here soon.”

The attempt on Abrego’s life was unsuccessful, and by March 2024, the complaint says, Leyva told Joshua “Demon” Euan in a TikTok message the rapper was recording a live stream outside his family home “as we speak.”

Euan drove to the house at 1 a.m. and sent Leyva a photograph of a gun in the cup-holder of a car, according to the complaint. “He ain’t here,” he wrote to Leyva.

Later, Euan allegedly told Leyva he sent people to vandalize Abrego’s family home. According to the complaint, he sent photographs of graffiti that read, “Swifty Blue 187,” a reference to the California penal code section for murder.

Euan, 37, eluded arrest Wednesday and remains at large, according to the FBI.

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Instead of facing the gas chamber at San Quentin, the reputed Mexican Mafia member turned death row into a base of power, law enforcement authorities and gang defectors say, collecting extortion payments, trafficking drugs and orchestrating acts of violence through a vast network of underlings from San Diego to Seattle.

Ayala, 74, now faces racketeering charges brought by federal prosecutors in Sacramento, who allege the National City native conspired with members of the Sinaloa cartel to distribute methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl throughout the western United States.

Ayala, who was transferred last year from San Quentin to Centinela state prison as Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down death row, has yet to enter a plea. It wasn’t clear Friday whether he was represented by a lawyer.

In a bare-bones indictment made public Friday, prosecutors allege Ayala oversaw a partnership between the Mexican Mafia and the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking group, and offered protection to its former leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

It wasn’t clear from the indictment whether Guzman accepted — or would even need — the alleged offer. The former kingpin is serving a life term at ADX Florence, a maximum security federal penitentiary in Colorado where he has no contact with other inmates.

San Diego has produced many Mexican Mafia members, but none as powerful as Ayala, a witness told FBI agents in 2023.

The witness — Ayala’s alleged liaison to gang members in the San Diego area — pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

According to a transcript of the witness’ interview with the FBI, Ayala carved up the San Diego area with two other alleged Mexican Mafia members, his brother Hector and Richard Buchanan.

Buchanan controlled the east side of San Diego and much of its South Bay. Ayala’s brother got North County and Chula Vista. Ronaldo Ayala had Spring Valley, Paradise Hills, National City and “everything else,” she said.

“At the end of the day,” she told the agents, “this is Ronnie’s city.”

According to the witness, Ayala also collected a regular payment called “the light bill” from the San Diego County jail system, which he split with his brother and Buchanan. Every module in the jail system was required to contribute $50 a month through CashApp, the woman told the agents.

Ayala’s underlings ran different rackets, she said. Some bought methamphetamine in Tijuana and shipped it to San Bernardino or Texas. Others ran casitas — illegal gambling parlors — or “trap houses” where people could buy and use drugs, according to the witness.

San Diego County prosecutors charged seven people in 2022 with operating a trap house in the Encanto neighborhood for Ayala. His representative in San Ysidro, Juan “Sleepy” Castro, oversaw loan-sharking and human smuggling operations in addition to selling drugs, prosecutors wrote in court papers. Castro was sentenced in 2023 to 10 years in prison for trafficking methamphetamine.

Because he was held on death row with high-profile gang members from across California, Ayala’s reach went beyond San Diego, the witness told the FBI.

According to the indictment made public this week, Ayala collected “taxes” from Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco and even Seattle, where prosecutors say gang members working under Ayala committed an arson attack on a musician who claimed in a music video to have “mafia” ties.

Two reputed members of Seattle’s United Lokotes gang, Samuel “Payaso” Morales and Alexis “Menace” Rodriguez, are also accused of extorting the unnamed musician whose property was burned.

Helping Ayala collect “taxes” on sales of drugs from the Sinaloa cartel partnership was Angel “Snappy” Esparza, who was sent to death row for murdering three people in Riverside County, the indictment charges.

Ronald “Temper” Sepulveda, whom Ayala referred to as “our main supporter,” oversaw the reputed Mexican Mafia member’s affairs in Riverside County, including the extortion of musicians, prosecutors allege.

Allen “Frankie Chino” Fong, a San José gang member serving a 17-year prison term for assault, is charged with collecting “taxes” for Ayala while held at the state prison in Solano.

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Villalba joined the gang in the 1980s while being held at Folsom for drug possession. But he fell out of the Mexican Mafia’s graces in the mid-2000s after he assaulted a fellow member, my colleague Matthew Ormseth reports.

Authorities recently arrested a suspected gunman in Villalba’s death — Andrew Reyna, who worked under the Mexican Mafia but was not a full-fledged member, according to a law enforcement official. Reyna has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

Villalba’s story gives a glimpse into the inner workings of the Mexican Mafia. Here are a few key points from Matthew’s extensive reporting, but the entire story is really worth reading.

Villalba wasn’t just any member of the Mexican Mafia

After being released from prison in the late 1980s, Villalba took part in a plan by the Mexican Mafia to bring street gangs under their control through “taxes.”

At meetings in parks and community centers, the street gangs were told they had to pay the Mexican Mafia, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.

Anyone who refused to pay up would get the “green light,” which meant they’d be shot on the streets and stabbed behind bars, Matthew reports.

In 1994, Villalba was among 22 Mexican Mafia members and associates charged in a landmark racketeering case. Villalba went on the run after the indictment, but authorities caught up to him at a motel in Buena Park in 1995. He pleaded guilty a year later.

Federal prosecutors also accused Villalba of being among those who voted to murder three Mexican Mafia members who had fallen out of favor with the gang.

One of them was Charles “Charlie Brown” Manriquez, who was an informal advisor to “American Me,” a 1992 film that depicted the Mexican Mafia’s rise to power. The movie angered the gang, especially when it came to a scene showing a founding member being sodomized. Manriquez was gunned down in the Ramona Gardens housing project in 1992.

A fight behind bars put a target on Villalba

While serving his sentence in the racketeering case, Villalba assaulted James “Rube” Soto, a respected and aging member of the Mexican Mafia, Matthew reports.

The gang did not give Villalba permission to carry out the assault, and inmates associated with the Mexican Mafia attacked Villalba in retribution. A prisoner sucker punched Villalba while he exercised, and two other inmates beat, kicked and throttled him with a ligature, according to prison video.

By 2021, Villalba was out of prison and living in a tent near the 91 Freeway in northern Long Beach. His muscular physique had grown thin, and he suffered from cirrhosis and open sores on his hips, according to a coroner’s report.

On the night of Jan. 10, 2021, two men crept through the homeless camp carrying guns in gloved hands and asking for Villalba, prosecutors allege in a complaint. He was later found dead.

Ramon “Mundo” Mendoza, a former Mexican Mafia member, said Villalba made the mistake of returning to a neighborhood within the organization’s reach.

“Sooner or later, someone’s going to report back: ‘Hey, guess who I saw?’” Mendoza told my colleague Matthew in 2021. “The guy is an open target.”

More stories from inside the Mexican Mafia

If you’d like to learn more about the Mexican Mafia, my colleague Matthew recently wrote about the “Mexican Mafia Tapes.”

The three-part series looks at how the Mexican Mafia and a drug cartel called La Familia in Mexico wanted to broker an unprecedented alliance. La Familia would provide an unending supply of methamphetamine if the Mexican Mafia protected the cartel’s leaders in U.S. prisons.

But what neither side knew was the man who took charge of the negotiations was an informant for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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