Gang

Move comes after Trump administration labeled Haiti’s Viv Ansanm gang a ‘foreign terrorist organisation’.

The administration of President Donald Trump has said it will deport Haitians living in the United States as legal permanent residents if they are deemed to have “supported and collaborated” with a Haitian gang.

The announcement on Monday is the latest move against Haitians living in the US amid the president’s mass deportation drive, and comes as the Trump administration has sought to end two other legal statuses for Haitians.

The update also comes as rights groups are questioning how the Trump administration determines connections to organisations it deems “terrorist organisations”.

In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not reveal how many people were being targeted or any names, saying only that “certain individuals with US lawful permanent resident status have supported and collaborated with Haitian gang leaders connected to Viv Ansanm”.

Following the determination, the Department of Homeland Security can pursue the deportation of the lawful permanent residents, also known as green-card holders, Rubio added.

As the Trump administration has sought to ramp up deportations, the State Department has been invoking broad powers under the Immigration and Nationality Act to attempt to deport people living in the US on various visas, including as permanent legal residents or students.

Under the law, the state secretary can expel anyone whose presence in the US is deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

The administration has sought to deport four people under the law for their pro-Palestine advocacy, which the State Department repeatedly equated, without evidence, to anti-Semitism and support for the “terrorist”-designated group Hamas.

All four people are challenging their deportations and arrests in immigration and federal courts.

In the statement regarding Haitians on Monday, Rubio said the US “will not allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of legal status in our country while they are facilitating the actions of violent organisations or supporting criminal terrorist organisations”.

In May, the State Department labelled the Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif gangs “foreign terrorist organisations”, calling them a “direct threat to US national security interests in our region”.

That followed the February designation of eight Latin American criminal groups as “terrorist organisations”, including the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua.

The administration has used alleged affiliation with the gang to justify swiftly deporting Venezuelans living in the US without documentation under an 18th-century wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.

Critics have said the removal flouted due process, with court documents indicating that some of the affected men were targeted for nothing more than tattoos or clothing said to be associated with the group.

Haitians singled out

The Haitian community living in the US has been prominently targeted by Trump, first during his campaign, when he falsely accused Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, of “eating” pets.

Since taking office, the administration has sought to end several legal statuses for Haitians, including a special humanitarian parole programme under former President Joe Biden, under which more than 200,000 Haitians legally entered the US.

In May, the US Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end the special status.

The Trump administration has also sought to end temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians, a legal status granted to those already living in the US whose home countries are deemed unsafe to return to.

In late June, despite the violent crime crisis gripping Haiti, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem declared that the Caribbean nation no longer met the conditions for TPS.

However, earlier this month, a federal judge blocked the administration from prematurely halting the programme before its currently scheduled end in February 2026.

July 21 (UPI) — Notorious Ecuadorian gang leader Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar has been extradited to the United States, where he is expected to make his first court appearance on Monday.

President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador confirmed late Sunday that Macias, leader of the Los Choneros gang and who is also known as Fito, has arrived in the United States.

“Goodbye forever, Fito,” Noboa said in a statement to social media. “Fito is now in the USA.”

The U.S. government has yet to confirm Macias’ extradition.

Macias was recaptured in late June amid a controversial crackdown on gang violence in the country, conducted by Noboa using recently acquired powers granted to him by the National Assembly to combat internal armed conflict.

Macias was serving a 34-year sentence for a slew of crimes, including murder, when he escaped from Guayaquil’s regional prison in January, as gang violence was erupting in prisons across the nation.

In response to the violence, Noboa declared the country was in the midst of an “internal armed conflict” and launched a nationwide law enforcement effort targeting drug cartels and gangs after declaring them terrorists.

Macias was then sanctioned by the U.S. State Department in February and charged in a seven-count indictment with drug trafficking-related offenses in Brooklyn, N.Y., in April.

If convicted in the United States, he faces up to life in prison.

Noboa described Macias’ extradition as validation of his crackdown that has received international criticism from human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, over concerns that the new powers pose to the rights of Ecuadorians.

“This is thanks to you, Ecuadorians, who said yes to the referendum. I eagerly await the creative theories that will claim otherwise,” he said.

The Colombian leader opened a new embassy in Haiti, while talks have been focused on security and the fight against drug trafficking.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has travelled to Haiti for the second time this year in a significant show of support, as spiralling gang violence continues to plague the Caribbean country.

Petro’s visit, which began Friday, has focused on talks on security, commerce, education, agriculture and the fight against drug trafficking, the Colombian government said.

Petro announced the opening of a Colombian embassy in the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince.

He has also pledged to help Haiti strengthen its security, offering to train Haitian officers. Haitian delegations have visited a state-owned arms manufacturing company in Colombia to learn about its defence capabilities.

The Colombian government shared a brief clip of Petro speaking at the new embassy: “The time has come to truly unite.”

Por fin, tenemos embajada en Haití.

¿Qué fuerzas impedían en la cancillería que hubiera una embajada en el país desde donde salió nuestra independencia?

¿Sería porque nuestra libertad salió fue de los esclavos negros que se liberaron a sí mismos? pic.twitter.com/tpdpmBptCz

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) July 19, 2025

Translation: Finally, we have an embassy in Haiti. What forces in the Foreign Ministry were preventing the establishment of an embassy in the country from which our independence originated? Could it be because our freedom came from the Black slaves who liberated themselves?

Petro landed in Port-au-Prince, where 90 percent of the capital is under gang control. He was accompanied by officials, including Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez.

During his visit, Petro met with Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime and its transitional presidential council, which is under pressure to hold general elections before February 2026.

The officials arrived less than a week after Haitian authorities killed four suspected drug traffickers and confiscated more than 1,000kg (2,300lb) of cocaine off the country’s north coast.

The seizure was unexpectedly large for Haiti’s National Police, which remains understaffed and underfunded as it works with Kenyan police leading a United Nations-backed mission to help quell gang violence.

While most of the violence is centred in Port-au-Prince, gangs have razed and seized control of a growing number of towns in Haiti’s central region.

At least 4,864 people have been killed from October to the end of June across Haiti, with hundreds of others kidnapped, raped and trafficked, according to a recent UN report.

Gang violence has also displaced 1.3 million people in recent years.

Petro previously visited Haiti in late January. Before his visit, Haitian officials invested some $3.8m to more than double the runway at the airport in the city of Jacmel, renovate the town and restore electricity to a population living in the dark for at least three years.

The two countries are additionally strengthening their ties as judges in Haiti continue to interrogate 17 former Colombian soldiers accused in the July 2021 killing of President Jovenel Moise.

Many women and children were reportedly abducted in the deadly attack in northwestern Zamfara State.

At least nine people have been reported killed and many abducted following an attack in Nigeria’s northwest, residents and local officials said, amid increasing violence against farmers by what have been described as “bandit” gangs.

The deadly attack on Friday took place in Zamfara state, the epicentre of attacks by heavily armed men known locally as bandits who have been wreaking havoc across Nigeria’s northwest in recent years, kidnapping thousands, killing hundreds and making it unsafe to travel by road.

Hamisu Faru, a local lawmaker, confirmed the attack to the Reuters news agency, saying the assailants took “no fewer than 100 people, including women and children”.

“As I’m speaking to you right now, they are searching house-to-house, abducting people,” Faru said by phone.

Yahaya Yari Abubakar, political administrator of Talata Mafara district, where the attack was carried out, told the AFP news agency that nine people were killed in total and at least 15 local people were abducted.

Abu Zaki, a resident of the district’s Jangebe village, said the victims included the head of the village’s vigilante self-defence group and his five colleagues, along with three residents.

“Everybody is now afraid of going to the farm for fear of being attacked,” said another resident, Bello Ahmadu, who corroborated the reported death toll.

Jangebe village was the scene in 2021 of the mass abduction of almost 300 female students from a boarding school. The girls were freed days later after authorities made a ransom payment.

Another resident in the area, Mohammed Usman, told Reuters that the attackers laid siege to the town for nearly two hours before taking their captives. Thousands of residents have now fled the village, he said.

Zamfara police did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

Nigeria’s bandits maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, in unrest that has evolved from clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources into a broader conflict fuelled by arms trafficking.

Zamfara’s state government has recruited vigilantes and armed militias to assist the military in fighting the bandits.

Last month, vigilantes, with the aid of Nigeria’s secret police, killed about 100 people when they raided the enclave of a gang kingpin in the state’s Shinkafi district, according to officials.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced last month that temporary protected status for about 5,000 Haitians would end Sept. 2, five months earlier than planned. The Trump administration has cited flawed and contradictory assessments of conditions in Haiti — which, make no mistake, remains unsafe.

Although a U.S. district court halted the action — at least temporarily — and reinstated the original termination date of Feb. 3, the administration is likely to challenge the ruling. The outcome of such a challenge could hinge on whether the courts receive and believe an accurate representation of current events in Haiti.

The administration asserts that “overall, country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety.” Nothing could be further from the truth. But few outsiders are entering and leaving the country lately, so the truth can be hard to ascertain.

In late April and early May, as a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I traveled to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien. For the first time in the several years I have been working in Haiti, violence kept me from reaching the capital, Port-au-Prince, where the airport remains under a Federal Aviation Administration ban since November when gangs shot Spirit, JetBlue and American Airlines passenger jets in flight.

In Cap-Haïtien, I spoke with dozens of people who fled the capital and other towns in recent months. Many shared accounts of killings, injuries from stray bullets and gang rapes by criminal group members.

“We were walking toward school when we saw the bandits shooting at houses, at people, at everything that moved,” a 27-year-old woman, a student from Port-au-Prince, told me. “We started to run back, but that’s when [my sister] Guerline fell face down. She was shot in the back of the head, then I saw [my cousin] Alice shot in the chest.” The student crawled under a car, where she hid for hours. She fled the capital in early January.

This rampant violence is precisely the sort of conditions Congress had in mind when it passed the temporary protected status law in 1990. It recognized a gap in protection for situations in which a person might not be able to establish that they have been targeted for persecution on the basis of their beliefs or identity — the standard for permanent asylum claims — but rather when a person’s life is at real risk because of high levels of generalized violence that make it too dangerous for anyone to be returned to the place.

When an administration grants this designation, it does so for a defined period, which can be extended based on conditions in the recipients’ home country. For instance, protected status for people from Somalia was first designated in 1991 and has been extended repeatedly, most recently through March 17, 2026.

Almost 1.3 million people are internally displaced in Haiti. They flee increasing violence by criminal groups that killed more than 5,600 people in 2024 — 23% more than in 2023. Some analysts say the country has the highest homicide rate in the world. Criminal groups control nearly 90% of the capital and have expanded into other places.

Perversely, the Department of Homeland Security publicly concedes this reality, citing in a Federal Register notification “widespread gang violence” as a reason for terminating temporary protected status. The government argues that a “breakdown in governance” makes Haiti unable to control migration, and so a continued designation to protect people from there would not be in the “national interests” of the United States.

Even judging on that criterion alone, revoking the legal status of Haitians in the U.S. is a bad idea. Sending half a million people into Haiti would be highly destabilizing and counter to U.S. interests — not to mention that their lives would be at risk.

The Trump administration has taken no meaningful action to improve Haiti’s situation. The Kenya-led multinational security support mission, authorized by the U.N. Security Council and initially backed by the United States, has been on the ground for a year. Yet because of severe shortages of personnel, resources and funding, it has failed to provide the support the Haitian police desperately need. In late February, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recommended steps to strengthen the mission, but the Security Council has yet to act.

The humanitarian situation in Haiti continues to deteriorate. An estimated 6 million people need humanitarian assistance. Nearly 5.7 million face acute hunger.

On June 26, just one day before Homeland Security’s attempt to end Haitians’ protected status prematurely, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau described the ongoing crisis in Haiti as “disheartening.” He said that “public order has all but collapsed” as “Haiti descends into chaos.” Two days earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti issued a security alert urging U.S. citizens in the country to “depart as soon as possible.” These are not indications that “country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety,” as Homeland Security claimed on June 27.

The decision to prematurely end temporary protected status is utterly disconnected from reality. The Trump administration itself has warned that Haiti remains dangerous — and if anything has become more so in recent months. The U.S. government should continue to protect Haitians now living in the United States from being thrown into the brutal violence unfolding in their home country.

Nathalye Cotrino is a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The United Nations has appealed to the international community to bolster its support for Haiti after a report revealed that gang violence has claimed 4,864 lives from October to June.

More than 20 percent of those deaths unfolded in the departments of Centre and Artibonite, indicating that intense violence is spilling into the areas surrounding the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In a report released on Friday, the UN explained that the growing presence of gangs like Gran Grif in those areas appears to be part of a broader strategy to control key routes connecting the capital to Haiti’s north and its border with the Dominican Republic.

“This expansion of gang territorial control poses a major risk of spreading violence and increasing transnational trafficking in arms and people,” the report said.

Among its recommendations was for the international community to better police the sale of firearms to Haiti and to continue to offer support for a Kenya-led security mission aimed at strengthening Haiti’s local law enforcement.

In a statement, Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s resident coordinator in Haiti, explained that propping up the country’s beleaguered police force is key to restoring security.

“Human rights abuses outside Port-au-Prince are intensifying in areas of the country where the presence of the State is extremely limited,” she said.

“The international community must strengthen its support to the authorities, who bear the primary responsibility for protecting the Haitian population.”

The report indicates that the violence in the regions surrounding Port-au-Prince took a turn for the worse in October, when a massacre was carried out in the town of Pont Sonde in the Artibonite department.

The Gran Grif gang had set up a checkpoint at a crossroads there, but local vigilante groups were encouraging residents to bypass it, according to the UN.

In an apparent act of retaliation, the gang launched an attack on Pont Sonde. The UN describes gang members as firing “indiscriminately at houses” along the road to the checkpoint, killing at least 100 people and wounding 16. They also set 45 houses and 34 vehicles on fire.

The chaos forced more than 6,270 people to flee Pont Sonde for their safety, contributing to an already dire crisis of internal displacement.

The UN notes that, as of June, more than 92,300 people were displaced from the Artibonite department, and 147,000 from Centre — a 118-percent increase over that department’s statistics from December.

Overall, nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced throughout the country.

The massacre at Pont Sondé prompted a backlash, with security forces briefly surging to the area. But that presence was not sustained, and Gran Grif has begun to reassert its control in recent months.

Meanwhile, the report documents a wave of reprisal killings, as vigilante groups answered the gang’s actions with violence of their own.

Around December 11, for instance, the UN noted that the gangs killed more than 70 people near the town of Petite-Riviere de l’Artibonite, and vigilante groups killed 67 people, many of them assumed to be relatives or romantic partners of local gang members.

Police units are also accused of committing 17 extrajudicial killings in that wave of violence, as they targeted suspected gang collaborators. The UN reports that new massacres have unfolded in the months since.

In the Centre department, a border region where gangs operate trafficking networks, similar acts of retaliation have been reported as the gangs and vigilante groups clash for control of the roads.

One instance the UN chronicles from March involved the police interception of a minibus driving from the city of Gonaives to Port-au-Prince. Officers allegedly found three firearms and 10,488 cartridges inside the bus, a fact which sparked concern and uproar among residents nearby.

“Enraged, members of the local population who witnessed the scene lynched to death, using stones, sticks, and machetes, two individuals: the driver and another man present in the vehicle,” the report said.

Haiti has been grappling with an intense period of gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. Criminal networks have used the resulting power vacuum to expand their presence and power, seizing control of as much as 90 percent of the capital.

A transitional government council, meanwhile, has struggled to re-establish order amid controversies, tensions and leadership turnover. The council, however, has said it plans to hold its first presidential election in nearly a decade in 2026.

Meanwhile, Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, warned that civilians will continue to suffer as the cycle of violence continues.

“Caught in the middle of this unending horror story are the Haitian people, who are at the mercy of horrific violence by gangs and exposed to human rights violations from the security forces and abuses by the so-called ‘self-defence’ groups,” he said.

Abu Shabab is the leader of the Popular Forces, a criminal group in southern Gaza thought to be backed by Israel.

A Hamas-run court in Gaza has ordered Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of a criminal group allegedly backed by Israel, to surrender himself for trial.

The Revolutionary Court of the Military Judiciary Authority in Gaza gave the 35-year-old head of the Popular Forces group, which stands accused of collaborating with Israel to loot humanitarian aid, 10 days to turn himself in.

Abu Shabab faces charges of treason, collaborating with hostile entities, forming an armed gang and armed rebellion, the court said on Wednesday, adding that he would be tried in absentia if he fails to surrender.

The Popular Forces posted a response on a Facebook page that usually carries its announcements, describing the court’s order as a “sitcom that doesn’t frighten us, nor does it frighten any free man who loves his homeland and its dignity”.

The group and its leader were thrust into the limelight last month when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had “activated” powerful local clans in Gaza on the advice of “security officials”.

Israeli and Palestinian media named the group as the Popular Forces, a well-armed Bedouin clan led by Abu Shabab, reportedly consisting of about 100 armed men.

The group later said online that its members were involved in guarding aid shipments sent to distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which Israel contracted to distribute aid in the enclave.

Mass killings of aid seekers near the US-backed GHF distribution centres, which replaced existing distribution networks run by the United Nations and other experienced aid groups, have become a routine occurrence.

The European Council on Foreign Relations think tank has described Abu Shabab as the leader of a “criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks”.

It said he was thought to have been previously imprisoned by Hamas for drug trafficking.

The court urged Palestinians to inform Hamas security officials about the whereabouts of Abu Shabab, who has so far remained beyond their reach in the Rafah area of southern Gaza held by Israeli troops.

It said anyone who knows of Abu Shabab’s location and fails to report him would be considered to have concealed a fugitive from justice.

In the wacky political world of Southeast Los Angeles County — where scandals seem to bloom every year with the regularity of jacarandas — there’s never been a mess as pendejo as the one stirred up this week by Cudahy Vice Mayor Cynthia Gonzalez.

How else would you describe an elected official telling gang leaders, in a video posted to social media, to “f— get your members in order” and take to the streets against Donald Trump’s immigration raids?

Gonzalez’s rant has set off a national storm at the worst possible time. Conservative media is depicting her as a politician — a Latino, of course — issuing a green light to gangs to go after la migra. On social media, the Department of Homeland Security shared her video, which it called “despicable,” and insisted that “this kind of garbage” has fueled “assaults” against its agents.

Gonzalez later asked her Facebook friends to help her find a lawyer, because “the FBI just came to my house.” To my colleague Ruben Vives, the agency didn’t confirm or deny Gonzalez’s assertion.

The first-term council member deserves all the reprimands being heaped on her — most of all because the video that set off this pathetic episode is so cringe.

“I want to know where all the cholos are at in Los Angeles — 18th Street, Florencia, where’s the leadership at?” Gonzalez said at the beginning of her video, which was quickly taken down. “You guys tag everything up claiming ‘hood,’ and now that your hood’s being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain’t a peep out of you!”

Gonzalez went on to claim that 18th Street and Florencia 13 — rivals that are among the largest and most notorious gangs in Southern California — shouldn’t be “trying to claim no block, no nothing, if you’re not showing up right now trying to, like, help out and organize. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you once they’re gone.”

The Cudahy council’s second-in-command seems to have recorded the clip at a party, judging by her black halter top, bright red lipstick, fresh hairstyle and fancy earrings, with club music thumping in the background. She looked and sounded like an older cousin who grew up in the barrio and now lives in Downey, trying to sound hard in front of her bemused cholo relatives.

The Trump administration is looking for any reason to send in even more National Guard troops and Marines to quell what it has characterized as an insurrection. If inviting a gang to help — let alone two gangs as notorious as 18th Street and Florencia — doesn’t sound like what Trump claims he’s trying to quash, I’m not sure what is.

Perhaps worst of all, Gonzalez brought political ignominy once again on Southeast L.A. County, better known as SELA. Its small, supermajority Latino cities have long been synonymous with political corruption and never seem to get a lucky break from their leaders, even as Gonzalez’s generation has vowed not to repeat the sins of the past.

Cudahy Vice Mayor Cynthia Gonzalez

(City of Cudahy)

“In her post, Dr. Gonzalez issued a challenge to the Latino community: join the thousands of Angelenos already peacefully organizing in response to ongoing enforcement actions,” her attorney, Damian J. Martinez, said in a written statement. “Importantly, Dr. Gonzalez in no way encouraged anyone to engage in violence. Any suggestion that she advocated for violence is categorically false and without merit.”

For their part, Cudahy officials said that Gonzalez’s thoughts “reflect her personal views and do not represent the views or official position of the City of Cudahy.”

Raised in Huntington Park and a graduate of Bell High, Gonzalez has spent 22 years as a teacher, principal and administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 2023, after Cudahy — a suburb of about 22,000 residents that’s 98% Latino — became the first city in Southern California to approve a Gaza ceasefire resolution, she told The Times’ De Los section that Latinos “understand what it means to be left behind.”

A few weeks ago, Gonzalez appeared alongside Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and elected leaders from Los Angeles and Ventura counties to decry the immigration raids that were just ramping up.

“I want to speak to Americans, especially those who have allowed our community to be the scapegoat of this administration that made you feel that your American dream hasn’t happened because of us,” Gonzalez said, adding that corporations “are using our brown bodies to avoid the conversation that this administration is a failure and they do not know how to legislate.”

Last week, she announced that she will be running for the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees for a third time, urging Facebook followers to forego donating to her campaign in favor of organizations helping immigrants. “Our priorities must reflect the urgency of the times,” she wrote.

In those settings, Gonzalez comes off as just another wokosa politician. But the feds now see her as a wannabe Big Homie.

Trying to enlist gangs to advocate for immigrants comes off as both laughable and offensive — and describing 18th Street and Florencia as “the Latino community” is like describing the Manson family as “fun-loving hippies.” Gang members have extorted immigrant entrepreneurs and terrorized immigrant communities going back to the days of “Gangs of New York.” Their modus operandi — expanding turf, profit and power via fear and bloodshed — will forever peg Latinos as prone to violence in the minds of too many Americans. Transnational gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 are Trump’s ostensible reason for his deportation tsunami — and now a politician thinks it’s wise to ask cholos to draw closer?

And yet I sympathize — and even agree — with what Gonzalez was really getting at, as imperfect and bumbling as she was. Homeland Security’s claim that she was riling up gangs to “commit violence against our brave ICE law enforcement” doesn’t hold up in the context of history.

For decades, Latino activists have strained to inspire gang members to join el movimiento — not as stormtroopers but as wayward youngsters and veteranos who can leave la vida loca behind if only they become enlightened. El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a manifesto published in 1969 at the height of the Chicano movement, envisioned a world where “there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.” Its sister document, El Plan de Santa Barbara, warned activists that they “must be able to relate to all segments of the Barrio, from the middle-class assimilationists to the vatos locos.”

From Homeboy Industries to colleges that allow prison inmates to earn a degree, people still believe in the power of forgiveness and strive to reincorporate gang members into society as productive people. They’re relatives and friends and community members, the thinking goes, not irredeemable monsters.

Gonzalez’s video comes from that do-gooder vein. A closer listen shows she isn’t lionizing 18th Street or Florencia 13. She’s pushing them to be truly tough by practicing civil — not criminal — disobedience.

“It’s everyone else who’s not about the gang life that’s out there protesting and speaking up,” the vice mayor said, her voice heavy with the Eastside accent. “We’re out there, like, fighting for our turf, protecting our turf, protecting our people, and like, where you at? Bien calladitos, bien calladitos li’l cholitos.”

Good and quiet, little cholitos, which translates as “baby gangsters” but is far more dismissive in Spanish.

Her delivery was terrible, but the message stands, to gang members and really to anyone else who hasn’t yet shown up for immigrants: if not now, when? If not you, who?

It’ll be a miracle if Gonzalez’s political career recovers. But future chroniclers of L.A. should treat her kindly. Calling out cholos for being cholos is easy. Challenging them to make good of themselves at a key moment in history isn’t.

Jose Adolfo Macias, alias ‘Fito’, is due to be extradited to the US on drug trafficking and weapons smuggling charges.

The fugitive leader of Ecuador’s Los Choneros gang has been recaptured after nearly 18 months on the run, according to President Daniel Noboa.

Jose Adolfo Macias, also known as “Fito”, escaped from Guayaquil prison in January 2024, where he was serving a 34-year sentence for drug trafficking and murder.

Following his capture, Macias will now be extradited to the US, where he was indicted by a federal court for charges related to drug trafficking and firearms smuggling, Noboa said on the X social media platform on Wednesday.

Noboa had previously offered $1m for assistance in Macias’s capture and dispatched thousands of police officers and members of the armed forces to find him.

“My recognition to our police and military who participated in this operation. More will fall, we will reclaim the country. No truce,” Noboa said on X.

Para los que se opusieron y dudaron de la necesidad de las leyes de Solidaridad e Inteligencia: gracias a esas leyes, Fito fue capturado hoy y está en manos del Bloque de Seguridad.

Mi reconocimiento a nuestros policías y militares que participaron en esta operación. Caerán más,…

— Daniel Noboa Azin (@DanielNoboaOk) June 25, 2025

Macias reportedly escaped ahead of his transfer to a maximum-security prison, but authorities have yet to explain how he succeeded.

The successful escape “triggered widespread riots, bombings, kidnappings, the assassination of a prominent prosecutor, and an armed attack on a TV network during a live broadcast”, according to the United States government, leading Noboa to declare a 60-day state of emergency across Ecuador.

The Ecuadorian president also designated 22 gangs, including Los Choneros, as “terrorist groups”.

The US Department of the Treasury separately sanctioned both Macias and Los Choneros in February 2024 for drug trafficking and instigating violence across Ecuador.

Ecuador was once one of Latin America’s most peaceful countries, but its proximity to Peru and Colombia – the world’s top producers of cocaine – has made it a prime target for criminal groups exporting drugs abroad.

Competition between rival local gangs, backed by foreign criminal syndicates from Mexico to as far as Albania, has led to an explosion in violence across the country.

The State Department has offered up to $3m for information leading to the arrest of Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano.

The United States Treasury Department has sanctioned the alleged leader of Tren de Aragua (TDA), a Venezuelan gang that the administration of President Donald Trump has used as justification for its immigration crackdown.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano was not only sanctioned but also indicted by the Department of Justice.

According to unsealed court documents, Mosquera Serrano faces charges related to drug trafficking and terrorism. He was also added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, with a $3m reward offered for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

In the statement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Tren de Aragua, under Mosquera Serrano’s leadership, of “terrorizing our communities and facilitating the flow of illicit narcotics into our country”.

It was the latest effort in the Trump administration’s campaign to crack down on criminal activity that it claims is tied to the proliferation of foreign gangs and criminal networks in the US.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua and other Latin American gangs as “foreign terrorist organisations”, a category more commonly used to describe international groups with violent political aims.

But Trump has used the threat of criminal networks based abroad to justify the use of emergency powers during his second term.

For instance, the Trump administration has claimed that Tren de Aragua is coordinating its US activities with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. That allegation was then used to justify the use of a rare wartime law: the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Claiming that the presence of groups like Tren de Aragua constituted a foreign “invasion” on US soil, Trump leveraged the Alien Enemies Act as the legal basis for pursuing the expedited deportations of alleged gang members.

More than 200 people were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where many of them remain to this day.

Those deportations have drawn widespread criticism, along with a slew of legal challenges. Critics have said that the expedited deportations violated the immigrants’ rights to due process. They also pointed out that many of the deported men did not have criminal records.

Lawyers for some of the men have argued that they appear to have been imprisoned based on their tattoos and wardrobe choices. The Department of Homeland Security, however, has disputed that allegation.

At least one top US official has acknowledged that Maduro’s government may not direct Tren de Aragua.

An April memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, obtained by news outlets like NPR and The New York Times, likewise cast doubt on the idea that Venezuela was controlling the gang’s movements in the US.

Rather, the memo said that the Maduro government likely sees Tren de Aragua as a threat.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the memo reads.

Last July, the US and Colombia offered joint multimillion-dollar rewards for information leading to the arrest of Mosquera Serrano and two other men believed to lead Tren de Aragua.

The group was also sanctioned in the same month as a transnational criminal organisation for “engaging in diverse criminal activities, such as human smuggling and trafficking, gender-based violence, money laundering, and illicit drug trafficking”, according to a Treasury Department statement.

Numerous countries in Latin America have struggled with the gang’s rapid growth, which has been linked to political assassinations and widespread human trafficking, though experts say there is little to suggest the gang has infiltrated the US.

AN ALLEGED gang member wanted over the fatal stabbing of a young man in London has been arrested in Spain.

Six mobsters went on the run after the tragic murder of 21-year-old Giovanny Rendon Bedoya in Walworth, south London, on April 21.

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The fugitive was detained at the request of British authorities in the town of Sabadell around 15 miles north-west of the Catalan capital as he entered a restaurant, Spanish police said.

He is said to belong to the dangerous Latin gang known as the Trinitarios.

They have become a major security threat across much of Europe in recent years especially in cities like Madrid and London.

The alleged killer is now facing extradition to the UK and a possible “life sentence” according to Spanish cops.

Met Police pleaded for information around the death of Giovanny earlier this year.

It comes as three of the six people initially arrested have now been bailed pending further inquiries.

In the latest update this month, they said a fourth man has now been charged with murder.

All four men have been named by police as Joseph Jimenez, 21, Angel Gonzales Angulo, 19, Brian Villada-Hernandes, 19, and Zozoro Mohamed Olivier, 20.

Cops previously said a 17-year-old boy was also arrested on suspicion of murder.

Confirming the latest arrest near Barcelona today, Spain’s National Police said in a statement: “National Police officers have arrested a member of the Trinitarios gang in the town of Sabadell in Barcelona who is wanted by the British justice system after allegedly committing a murder in the United Kingdom.

“An international arrest warrant was issued for him after the crime which took place on April 14.

“He could face a life sentence for attacking with five other alleged members of the same gang, another young man from a rival gang who was killed.

“The investigation was launched by the British authorities on 14 April when the fugitive and five other alleged members of the Trinitarios gang violently accosted another young man from a rival gang following a dispute.”

Giovanny was attacked just after 9pm and was left with serious injuries which resulted in the amputation of fingers, the loss of an organ and multiple fractures.

These injuries resulted in his death, police confirmed at the time.

The Trinitarios gang is said to have been founded in 1993 by two Dominicans facing separate murder charges being held in the Rikers Islands New York City jail.

The gang’s notoriety across the globe even caused them to be scrutinised by the Trump administration this year.

Donald Trump described them as “animals” as he carried out his sweeping sanctions on US criminal enterprises.

Nearly two dozen Trinitarios gang members were hit with RICO conspiracy charges in February.

They were accused of six murders and 11 attempted murders, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.

Spiralling violence around Madrid in recent years has been blamed on the fracturing and spread of Dominican gangs which have become Spain’s primary urban security threat.

Officials believe the man arrested today may have been in Spain trying to flee to the Dominican Republic.

The Sun has contacted the Metropolitan Police for further comment.

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DI Alistair Banks’ sick exploitation gang has finally been exposed and the corrupt copper has seemingly met a grisly end in Hollyoaks but fans think he’s not the only one

Hollyoaks fans have all said the same thing after the latest “insane” episode.

During Wednesday’s (May 28) dramatic episode, which is available to watch on Channel 4’s website, corrupt copper DI Alistair Banks (Drew Cain) put the lives of Vicky Grant (Anya Lawrence), Dillon Ray (Nathaniel Dass) and Frankie Osborne (Isabelle Smith) in more jeopardy.

Rex Gallagher (Jonny Labey) told Dodger Savage (Danny Mac) about a private auction site he’s sure DI Banks will be using to sell the teens.

At The Loft, DI Banks started the bidding with Vicky and Rex and Dodger tried to be the highest bidders but to no avail. However, Dillon assured Frankie that he had a plan and tried to create a distraction.

Dodger figured out their location and called for back up and an oblivious DI Banks called his mysterious wife to inform her that they’ll be on the move with their money soon.

Ste Hay (Kieron Richardson) was horrified to find his boyfriend Rex bidding on Dillon and demanded answers and Rex finally told Ste thetruth that he was part of the gang and begged for forgiveness but Ste cut all ties with him, labelling him a predator.

The lights got cut off at The Loft and an armed DI Banks went to search the area. He caught Dodger in the act and passed him onto his cronies to deal with him.

Dillon, Frankie and Vicky found weapons and hid from Banks. Vicky made a distraction as Frankie attempted to unlock the door but DI Banks caught her. All the teens fired their guns and DI Banks collapsed to the floor.

Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, after watching the dramatic episode, one fan penned: “Insane episode omg. #Hollyoaks” Another added: “What an episode!!! #hollyoaks.”

A third persons said: “I have never been so nervous for an episode before omfg!! it was so dark and intense and that ending?? just wow!! amazing episode.”

With DS Banks believed to be dead, fans have been left concerned for hero Dodger. One social media user wrote: “I fear we all got distracted by the everything to realise we don’t know Dodgers fate and now I’m scared they killed Dodger.”

Another added: “Please tell me they didn’t kill Dodger off. #Hollyoaks.” A third wrote: “Im sad now please no Dodger! i need to know what happened to him! #hollyoaks.”

Hollyoaks airs Monday to Wednesday on E4 at 7pm and first look episodes can be streamed Channel 4 from 7am

A PRISON governor has been jailed over an illicit relationship with a drug gang boss who gifted her a £12,000 Mercedes.

Kerri Pegg was seen as a “rising star” in the Prison Service and quickly rose through the ranks to become governor at HMP Kirkham in Lancashire.

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But her career is now in ruins after she embarked on a relationship with inmate Anthony Saunderson, who was known as Jesse Pinkman after the series Breaking Bad.

Pegg, 42, has now been jailed after she was found guilty of two counts of misconduct in a public office.

One relates to the divorcee’s fling with Saunderson and the second by failing to disclose county court judgements about her debts.

She was also convicted of one count of possessing criminal property, the Mercedes car, from Saunderson.

Preston Crown Court heard Pegg released Saunderson on licence in 2019 despite not having the authority to approve the bid.

After he was granted his freedom, the prisoner used cash from selling 34 kilos of amphetamines to buy Pegg the Mercedes coupe.

On April 6, 2020, Saunderson was sent a message on Encrochat saying “car her for ya bird 12 quid or work” and a photo of the vehicle.

The court was told “12 quid” meant £12,000 and “work” meant drugs.

Saunderson asked “what work they want” and he was told “top or weed” – meaning cocaine or cannabis.

Two days later, he arranged for “17 packs” to be dropped off in Manchester to pay for the car.

The Mercedes was registered in Pegg’s name, with a pal messaging Saunderson: “Where u ya seedy man u and Peggy out floating orrel in the new whip?”

Law enforcement agencies cracked the criminal’s Encrochat and discovered he was involved in drug trafficking on a huge scale.

Saunderson, who was also known to his criminal pals as James Gandolfini -the actor who played Tony Soprano in the mafia TV Series – has now been locked up for 35 years.

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The court was told other messages revealed the “ongoing nature” of his relationship with Pegg.

Police searched her home on November 19, 2020, and found a toothbrush and flip flops containing Saunderson’s DNA.

Officers also discovered a haul of designer clothing and found Pegg was subject to a number of county court judgements for unpaid debts.

Prosecutor Barbara-Louise Webster said: “Her downfall was two-fold, the first, despite having a good income, she lived beyond her means.

“She spent all her income and more, incurring debts and she had county court judgements made against her.

“As a consequence, she became vulnerable and open to exploitation.

“The second was that she became emotionally and personally involved with a serving prisoner, Anthony Saunderson and later accepted an expensive car, a Mercedes C class, which was paid for by him out of his proceeds of criminal activity ie trading in drugs.”

Pegg joined the prison service in 2012 as a graduate entrant and worked at prisons in Risley, Liverpool and Styal.

By April 2018, she was a governor at HMP Kirkham, where Saunderson was serving a lengthy jail term.

He had been locked up in 2014 for his part in importing £19m of cocaine in shipments of corned beef from Argentina.

From the start, there were concerns about Pegg being inappropriately close to prisoners.

It was also noted that she spent a lot of time in her office with Saunderson.

In October 2018, he put in a request to be released on temporary licence.

Despite Pegg not having the authority to green light his release, she intervened and approved his application without notifying the official who should have dealt with the case.

Days later she was moved to another jail, later becoming duty governor at HMP Lancaster Farms.

Saunderson meanwhile was revealed as one of nine gangland figures responsible for producing amphetamines on an industrial, multi-million-pound scale.

The gang made and dealt 2.6 tonnes of amphetamines worth £1million – as well as trafficking heroin, cocaine, cannabis, ketamine, MCAT and diazepam.

Tarryn McCaffrey, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “Kerri Pegg’s conduct fell far short of what might be expected from any professional within the Prison Service, let alone one of such a senior grade as prison governor.

“She was clearly involved in an inappropriate relationship with Saunderson after he was released and the evidence points to this going back further, to a time when he was in jail.

“This relationship, and the fact that Pegg failed to disclose her debts to her employers, amount to a gross breach of trust and are therefore extremely damaging to public confidence.”

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