CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Eight El Salvadoran nationals illegally present in the United States and members of the violent transnational criminal organization Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, have been sentenced for a Houston-area racketeering conspiracy from 2017 through 2018 that included extortion, drug trafficking, robbery, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and multiple murders of individuals as young as 14. The gang members carried out executions ordered and approved by high-ranking MS-13 leaders in El Salvador—who sometimes monitored the killings by phone—targeting suspected rival gang members, law enforcement cooperators, or anyone working against the gang's interests.
Edgardo Martinez-Rodriguez, also known as Largo, 35, a high-ranking leader who initiated numerous murders, was sentenced today to 50 years in prison, while Wilman Rivas-Guido, also known as Inquieto, 30, received 45 years. Six others previously pleaded guilty and remain in custody: Miguel Angel Aguilar-Ochoa, also known as Darki, 40, who illegally entered the U.S. four times; Wilson Jose Ventura-Mejia, also known as Discreto, 30, and Walter Chicas-Garcia, 28, each received 50-year sentences; Luis Ernesto Carbajal-Peraza, 34, and Carlos Garcia-Gongora, 28, received 45 years; and Marlon Miranda Moran, 26, was ordered to serve 35 years.
During what investigators described as the peak of MS-13 violence in Houston, the gang routinely used intimidation and violence to maintain power, reputation, and territory, utilizing firearms, ligature strangulation, machetes, baseball bats, and their bare hands. After the murders, members sent photos of the victims’ bodies to leadership in El Salvador as proof of the executions and to rise in rank, sometimes further mutilating or dismembering the bodies before sending the pictures.
“These defendants, acting on behalf of a transnational criminal gang, carried out brutal murders, killing victims with machetes, baseball bats, and their bare hands, and then glorifying their violent acts by sending photos of their carnage to MS-13 leaders in El Salvador,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said.
In February 2025, the U.S. State Department designated MS-13—which operates in Texas, Virginia, Maryland, New York, California, El Salvador, and Honduras—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The investigation was conducted by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, alongside law enforcement partners in El Salvador, police in Houston, Galveston, and Prince George’s County, Maryland; sheriff’s offices in Harris and Liberty counties; the Texas Department of Public Safety; the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Texas Office of the Attorney General. The case, prosecuted by trial attorneys César S. Rivera-Giraud, Ben Tonkin, Keri Fuller, and Britni Verdeja, is part of Operation Take Back America and the Homeland Security Task Force's Joint Task Force Vulcan.
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