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Filed: Country: Belarus
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POLICE: GANG'S DRUG ROUTE FOILED

Arrests of 27 disrupt Latin Kings' planned cocaine pipeline, authorities say

By STEVE MCVICKER and KEVIN MORAN

2007 Houston Chronicle

They go by names like King Solid, King Shadow and Lord Bomba. And they say they're part of a secret, almost spiritual society — albeit one in which members sometimes have to kill people, including gang brethren.

But on Friday, authorities in Houston portrayed the self-proclaimed Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation as a murderous criminal enterprise. And after the arrest of 27 members of the Latin Kings in Texas in the past several months, authorities think they have disrupted the creation of a major cocaine supply route from Houston to the Midwest.

"It reverberates back to Chicago," said Houston narcotics division Sgt. Glenn Smart.

The dominoes in the case began to fall in November 2003, police say, with the arrest of Victor Manuel Rivera, now 41. When police officers stopped Rivera for speeding on the Northwest Freeway, they learned he was a known member of the Latin Kings, and was wanted on other charges.

Rivera told authorities he was the Texas state representative for the Latin Kings, and that he was spearheading an effort to set up a major cocaine pipeline, Smart said.

Rivera cooperated in a 30-month investigation — known as Operation Corona — that resulted in scores of state and federal charges, including murder-for-hire, against 23 Texas Latin Kings leaders and four others, Smart said.

Rivera agreed to cooperate with investigators because "he wanted out" of the gang life, authorities said.

Roots in Chicago

All of those arrested have pleaded guilty to an array of charges and either have or will be sentenced, prosecutors said. The specific charges against each of the 27 and any sentences imposed so far were not immediately available.

The last dozen or so were arrested on federal indictments in the early part of last summer, Smart said.

State records show those arrested were from a variety of cities across Texas including Houston, Austin, Bryan, Big Spring, Laredo and Mission. Authorities estimate that as many as 4,000 members of the gang reside in Texas.

Houston attorney Felix Cantu, who represents one of the defendants, would say only that, "I don't believe they were doing what they the police say they were doing."

Authorities say the Latin Kings originated in Chicago in the 1940s, and have members in numerous states. Web sites that claim to be generated by the gang also characterize the Latin Kings as champions of the oppressed.

Subject of movie, book

The gang's sociological dimension has also been the subject of a documentary and a book. The film Black and Gold — the Kings's colors — focused on efforts by the gang's New York chapter to put aside violence and, instead, embrace activism to promote social change.

The documentary also shows how authorities viewed the gang's motives as less than sincere.

Similarly, the book about the Latin Kings, Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang, also focuses on the gang's alleged metamorphosis.

"They attract a lot of young people searching for an identity, especially a Latino identity," said David C. Brotherton, one of the book's authors and a professor of criminal justice at The City University of New York.

Brotherton adds that the name — the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation — is symbolic.

"It reverses the social order they have in society," Brotherton said. "They become symbolic aristocrats. And when they get their group identity, they all kind of re-baptize as kings and queens."

For example, according to documents released Friday, among the Operation Corona defendants, Rivera was known as King Chico. Jesus Martinez went by the name King Solid. Gabino Bravo is King Shadow.

Brotherton also downplayed the suggestion of a major nationwide drug network with the Kings.

"It looks good and it sounds good, but it's a kind of media sound bite," he said.

But a federal official involved in the arrests maintained otherwise.

"The Latin Kings in Chicago were looking for a steady supply of narcotics and that was Victor Rivera's job ... to organize Texas and to ultimately supply the Chicago Latin Kings with a steady supply of narcotics coming up through Mexico," said assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Hanes. "We interrupted the Latin Kings as they attempted to expand into Texas."

Wiretaps between Texas and Chicago likely will lead to other developments, investigators said.

"There are certain aspects of this investigation that are not over," Smart said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4467884.html

Here is another earlier link to this story:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4466153.html

"Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave."

"...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process."

US Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (D-TX)

Testimony to the House Immigration Subcommittee, February 24, 1995

Filed: Country: Belarus
Timeline
Posted
another good reason not to live in houston :P

I've come to that conclusion too. The wife and I plan to move to Belarus or Russia before Bush cedes TX back to Mexico. ;)

"Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave."

"...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process."

US Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (D-TX)

Testimony to the House Immigration Subcommittee, February 24, 1995

 

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