MS-13 gangsters in L.A. killed member who was FBI informant, feds say
Herlyn Barrientos wasn't happy to run into a fellow member of his gang in the produce section of his local grocery store.
A burly man with tattoos inked on his head and face, Barrientos was from MS-13, a group notorious for savage killings. Federal prosecutors alleged the Honduran national, nicknamed 'Doctorazo,' supplied methamphetamine to MS-13 members across Los Angeles, who sold the drug and kicked up a cut to the gang's imprisoned leader.
Charged with drug trafficking in 2023, Barrientos decided to turn on his gang and cooperate with the FBI. A judge signed off on his release from jail, and Barrientos, 47, returned to South Los Angeles.
Federal prosecutors on Friday announced three reputed MS-13 members are charged with killing Barrientos on the orders of gang leaders.
Barrientos' deal was supposed to remain secret, but the FBI now says Barrientos' status as an informant was 'widely' known, calling into question why he was still living in his old neighborhood when he was killed on Feb. 18.
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.
Just before his death, Barrientos called an FBI agent to report seeing a man with a gun, the handler wrote in an affidavit. The agent said he was on the phone with Barrientos as he was shot to death.
'It's a terrible thing what happened to him,' said Michael Crain, an attorney who represented Barrientos in his drug trafficking case. Crain declined to comment further.
The affidavit said evidence made clear Barrientos was killed because he was cooperating.
After his death, another informant working for the FBI called the leader of Barrientos' MS-13 clique, who said people higher up in the gang had given him instructions: 'They told me I had to clean out my garbage, you understand?'
'That work you cannot say no to,' he said, according to the affidavit.
*
Around 7 p.m. on the last day of his life, Barrientos drove to a Superior Grocers on Figueroa and 91st streets, Joseph Carelli, an FBI special agent, wrote in an affidavit.
A black SUV followed Barrientos into the parking lot. Three men stepped out of the SUV and entered the store. In the produce section, they appeared to exchange greetings with Barrientos, Carelli wrote, citing footage from store cameras.
One of the three men, identified by Carelli as Roberto Carlos Aguilar, walked away and started making calls. Aguilar is a Salvadoran national who illegally entered the United States, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles said.
Aguilar and Barrientos talked in the parking lot of the grocery store for about 30 minutes, Carelli wrote. Aguilar got two calls during that time that went to voicemail. One was from Dennis Anaya Urias, a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and reputed member of MS-13's Bagos clique, according to Carelli and the U.S. Attorney's office spokesman.
Barrientos was also from the Bagos clique, a subset of MS-13 that is based in the Mid City neighborhood, Carelli wrote.
T-Mobile records showed Urias' phone traveled from Koreatown to the area of the Superior Grocers around 7:50 p.m., when surveillance footage showed a grey Honda CR-V park across from the store, according to the agent.
Aguilar, meanwhile, walked off and Barrientos called 911. He told the operator he'd seen a man armed with a pistol. The suspect wore black, his face covered by a handkerchief, Barrientos said.
Barrientos then called Carelli, his handler. A man whose face was covered just tried to shoot him, he told the agent, but the gun didn't go off.
As they were talking, Carelli heard gunshots. Barrientos stopped responding. The agent heard the sounds of police and other first responders in the background, he wrote.
A month later, California Highway Patrol officers found a burned CR-V in North Hollywood, Carelli wrote. The agent believed the car was the one shown in surveillance footage driven by Barrientos' killers.
Arrested on May 12, Urias — whose phone records showed he'd traveled from Koreatown to South L.A. just before the shooting — told a jailhouse informant the order to kill Barrientos came 'straight from the top,' Carelli wrote.
Urias said he and another MS-13 member, Grevil Zelaya Santiago, got a call from Aguilar, who said he'd found the 'son of a whore,' according to the agent.
Urias said he and Zelaya drove in the CR-V to South L.A., covered their faces and shot Barrientos to death, Carelli wrote.
Attorneys for Urias and Zelaya didn't immediately return request for comment. It wasn't clear who was representing Aguilar.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in aid of racketeering.
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(Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. in early June.) After the tour of the prison, Garcia allows TIME to interview one inmate in a holding area near the unit's entrance. The man says his name is Hector Hernandez. He appears to be the nightmare that Trump has conjured time and again on the campaign trail. He says he is an MS-13 member, and has tattoos all over his body, from his face and neck to his forearms. The prisoner claims that before he was deported in 2019 and apprehended by Salvadoran authorities, he murdered 50 people in Northern Virginia—more than three times the number of reported murders in Prince William or Fairfax counties for that year. TIME was unable to verify the details provided by the prisoner, including his name, his alleged crimes, or how he came to be there. Inside CECOT, the extreme terminus for Trump's deportation program, the truth, like everything else, is under the control of the authorities. 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Trump administration asks federal court not to dismiss charges against Milwaukee County judge
Protesters gather outside of the Milwaukee FBI office to speak out against the arrest of Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner) Prosecutors for the Trump administration filed a brief Monday requesting that a federal judge not dismiss the government's indictment against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan. Dugan faces criminal charges after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, along with agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI, arrived in the Milwaukee County Courthouse April 18 to arrest 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz for being in the country illegally. Flores-Ruiz was set to appear in Dugan's courtroom that day for a status hearing on misdemeanor charges against him. When Dugan learned that the agents were outside her courtroom, she confronted them and learned they only had an administrative warrant, which was issued by an agency official and not a judge. An administrative warrant doesn't allow agents to enter private spaces in the courthouse such as Dugan's courtroom. Later, while the agents were waiting for Flores-Ruiz in the hallway outside the main courtroom door, Dugan sent him and his attorney out a side door into the hallway. One of the agents rode down the elevator with Flores-Ruiz and he was later arrested on the street. Dugan-DOJ-Filing Dugan was charged with concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, and obstruction, which is a felony. Last month, Dugan's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case against her, arguing she was acting in her official capacity as a judge and therefore immune from prosecution for her actions and that the federal government is impinging on the state of Wisconsin's authority to operate its court system. The case drew national attention, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel both making public statements about Dugan's arrest before she'd even been indicted. Legal experts have questioned the strength of the federal government's case and accused Trump officials of grandstanding to make a political point. In the Monday filing, federal prosecutors argued that dismissing the case would ignore previously established law that allows judges to face criminal charges. 'Such a ruling would give state court judges carte blanche to interfere with valid law enforcement actions by federal agents in public hallways of a courthouse, and perhaps even beyond,' the prosecutors argued. 'Dugan's desired ruling would, in essence, say that judges are 'above the law,' and uniquely entitled to interfere with federal law enforcement.' Dugan is set to appear for trial on July 21. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
