Alleged leader of MS-13 street gang on the East Coast is arrested in
Virginia
[March 28, 2025]
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — The alleged leader of the violent MS-13 street gang
on the East Coast has been arrested in Virginia, U.S. Attorney General
Pam Bondi announced Thursday.
Bondi lauded the the early morning arrest of the 24-year-old man from El
Salvador, who was described as one of MS-13's top three leaders in the
United States, as a major victory in the Trump administration’s effort
to crack down on a gang known for brutal violence and extortion.
Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos was taken into custody in northern
Virginia on an outstanding administrative immigration warrant, according
to court papers, and was charged with illegal gun possession after
agents found several firearms during the search of his home. Bondi said
he was living in the U.S. illegally.
There was no attorney listed for him in the court docket. Telephone
numbers for relatives could not immediately be found in public records.
The administration promoted the arrest as part of its effort to fulfill
campaign promises to quash illegal immigration and eliminate gangs.
MS-13 gang, or Mara Salvatrucha, was one of eight Latin American
criminal organizations declared foreign terrorist organizations by the
Trump administration last month.
“We want to make our streets safer,” Bondi told reporters. “We want to
make our schools safer. We want to make your neighborhoods safer. This
guy was living in a neighborhood right around you, no longer."
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, citing the arrest,
called it “a good day for our country.”
In the past decade, the U.S. Justice Department has intensified its
focus on MS-13, which originated as a neighborhood street gang in Los
Angeles, but grew into a transnational gang based in El Salvador. It has
members in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico and thousands of members
across the U.S. with numerous branches, or “cliques.”
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Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks about a 24 year-old MS-13 gang
leader who was arrested in an operation by the Virginia Homeland
Security Task Force in Dale City, VA., on March 27, 2025, during a
news conference at the Manassas FBI Field Office, Thursday, March
27, 2025, in Manassas, VA. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey)
The 2016 killings of two high school girls, who were hacked and
beaten to death as they walked through their neighborhood on New
York’s Long Island, focused national attention on the gang. Nisa
Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, friends and classmates at
Brentwood High School, were killed with a machete and a baseball bat
by a group of young men and teenage boys who had stalked them from a
car. More killings followed in the coming months.
President Donald Trump has blamed the violence and gang growth on
lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump
promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle,
decimate and eradicate” the gang.
Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials who face a
lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment
grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for
editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not
following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the
Gulf of America.
___
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to
this report.
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