Federal and local authorities say they’ve dismantled a Maryland-based group of the violent street gang the Latin Kings that started operations in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in spring 2007.
National gangs like the Latin Kings, MS-13 and the Bloods have been steadily seizing territory in Washington’s Maryland suburbs in recent years. On Thursday, authorities took 19 alleged Latin King members into custody, charging them with racketeering.
“Today we executed the enforcement action on a very violent group of criminals who call themselves the Latin Kings,” said Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “We dismantled a large part of the Latin Kings organization whose members allegedly used violence to secure the sanctity of their private society.”
An indictment unsealed Thursday accused alleged gang members of stabbing a suspected MS-13 gang member in Langley Park’s Marylander Condominiums in December 2007. It said they stabbed two people in Wheaton, one in November 2008, the other in July. They’re also accused of robbing drug dealers and beating a prostitute in a Maryland hotel.
In a separate case filed over the summer, a group of suspected Latin King members were accused of beating and stabbing a 21-year-old man to death in Silver Spring after he catcalled to a group of women who were outside a home belonging to alleged gang members.
The gang, which is centered in Chicago, opened its Maryland branch in spring 2007, the indictment said. Alleged leaders Miguel Cruz, 44, and Erick Roman, 33, reportedly called their group the Royal Tribe of Maryland and were heard communicating about the gang’s activities in Maryland with national leaders in Chicago. On multiple occasions, the group’s leaders traveled to New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia to meet with gang directors, court documents said.
“This case is part of a series of federal racketeering and conspiracy prosecutions in which federal, state and local agencies have joined to target leaders and key members of violent gangs operating in Maryland,” said U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. Other cases, he said, are pending against MS-13, the Black Guerilla Family and two branches of the Bloods.
