LOS ANGELES—Dozens of alleged members and associates of a South Los Angeles street gang—including 23 defendants arrested on Aug. 6—are facing federal charges including murder, fentanyl trafficking, and extortion, prosecutors announced.
Federal grand jury indictments unsealed on Aug. 6 in downtown Los Angeles charge a total of 37 members and associates of the South Los Angeles-based Florencia 13 (F13) street gang, some of whom were already in state or federal custody, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Authorities continue to search for eight defendants, including multiple people currently believed to be fugitives in Mexico.
“Through murder, drug trafficking, violent robberies, and other criminal behavior, street gangs bring devastation upon our communities,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement.
“We must stand united against gang violence. Today’s arrests and seizures demonstrate that we will be relentless in combating these criminal organizations,” he said.
Three men convicted of robbery and murder of off-duty Los Angeles Police Officer Fernando Arroyos in 2022 were also members of the F13. In a separate case, Jesse Contreras, 36, Luis Alfredo de la Rosa Rios, 30, and Ernesto Cisneros, 25, were sentenced to 35–50 years in federal prison on July 19.
In the new indictments, prosecutors said during one incident in October 2022, a mob of the gang’s members, allegedly including Jonathan Reyes, 19, also of South Los Angeles, beat one victim to death in the early morning outside a bar in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood. The victim was stomped, kicked, punched, and beaten with a baseball bat.
The indictment further alleges that Jaramillo and co-defendant Oscar Hernandez, 30, of South Los Angeles, on June 19, 2023, murdered a victim identified in court documents as R.A., a gang member who had violated the gang’s rules. The day after R.A. was shot and killed, Jaramillo allegedly told fellow gang members that he wanted Hernandez inducted into a clique of the gang because he proved to be “solid,” according to papers filed in LA federal court.
The following month, Jaramillo and Hugo Armando Pineda, 36, of South Los Angeles, allegedly murdered D.E., another gang member in bad standing, according to prosecutors.
The rest of the updated indictment alleges a series of criminal activities by Jaramillo and others, including the running of “casitas,” or illegal after-hours bars and clubs, involving the collection of extortionate “taxes” and the trafficking of narcotics such as fentanyl and methamphetamine, and the illegal use and possession of firearms, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A second indictment unsealed on Aug. 6 charges eight alleged gang associates—including Saul Ayon Quintero, 50, of Bellflower in Southeast Los Angeles County—with drug-related crimes, including conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin, and illegally using and possessing firearms and ammunition.
Finally, nine additional gang members and associates are charged in eight separate indictments with methamphetamine distribution counts, and another gang member is charged in a separate indictment with possession of an unregistered firearm and being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, prosecutors said.
If convicted, most of the defendants would face a sentence between 10 years and life in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
According to the FBI, the F13 is known for its “barbaric tactics” in committing murders.
“Residents of the community in which Florencia-13 operates deserve to live their lives without fear from violence and extortion, and this joint investigation demonstrates our shared commitment to that goal,” said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, in a U.S. Department of Justice news release Aug. 6.
