Deadly gang next door: MS-13 brings violence, drugs to your NJ suburb

Andrew Ford | Asbury Park Press

“Reaper” explained how to kill by shooting or choking a victim. He detailed how deep to dig a hole to dispose of a body.

He called a New Jersey suburb home.

Living a couple blocks from the Long Branch train station, Miguel Angel Corea Diaz – also known as “Reaper” – was accused of trafficking heroin and ordering a murder in his role as the MS-13 “regional director for the east coast,” according to a New York court document.

Diaz, 36, was in the United States illegally, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He's from El Salvador, where the gang's leadership is based. He's accused of acting like a corporate manager, orchestrating conference calls with MS-13 members in 10 countries on 6 continents. His case underscores the gang’s reach around the world and across New Jersey.

MS-13 is here.

MS-13 is a threat across New Jersey Federal law enforcement authorities told the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey that MS-13 is active across the state.

They live and operate in diverse communities from Long Branch to Fairview, from Lakewood to the Trenton area. There is no typical profile of an MS-13 member. It could be a teen or someone in their 30s, a neighborhood kid or handyman. The once-telltale tattoos are being shunned by new members to help them blend in with the community.

MS-13's mysterious agenda draws concern from the federal law enforcement authorities tasked with combatting the gang.

FBI special agent Daniel Brunner in Newark called the gang a “clear and present danger here in the United States.” He urged New Jersey residents to contact police about crime in their communities to help law enforcement identify and stop MS-13 violence.

Recent federal criminal charges link MS-13 crimes along the east coast: an accused kingpin dealing drugs in Long Branch; a planned murder in Elizabeth; and a murder on Long Island, New York, where gruesome MS-13 killings spark nationwide outrage, including the 2016 baseball bat and machete slaughter of two teenage girls.

Violence like the killing of the teenagers prompted President Donald Trump to say in a May trip to Long Island that MS-13 “transformed once peaceful neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields.”

Trump defends MS-13 'animal' comment President Donald Trump is defending his description of MS-13 gang members as “animals.” Trump says he was met with “rebuke” from Democrats when he described the gang members as animals last week. (May 23)

Federal law enforcement authorities told the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey that MS-13 has a significant presence across the Garden State, describing their fight against a criminal group not motivated by money, but rather by the glory of the gang. Still, the violence that caused alarm in Long Island hasn’t, so far, become widespread in New Jersey.

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The Network interviewed federal law enforcement authorities and reviewed court records to find:

Killing in New Jersey – Authorities have charged New Jersey MS-13 members with committing murders and accused MS-13 members of operating in New Jersey in connection with fellow gang members around the world.

MS-13 statewide – Federal authorities said they’ve gotten reports of MS-13 activity across the state, in Hudson, Bergen, Passaic, Monmouth and Ocean counties, and in towns like Union City, West New York, Guttenberg, Elizabeth, Plainfield, Atlantic City and around the capital, Trenton.

Innocent victims – MS-13 violence is usually focused on extending their influence and targeting rival gang members. But their crimes also destabilize immigrant communities and soak up law enforcement resources.

Elusive numbers – Authorities estimate the MS-13 population in the U.S. around 10,000, according to a report prepared for Congress in August. Federal authorities in New Jersey were unable to give a count for MS-13 members this state.

“Normally they victimize their own people,” said Edwin Torres, a veteran New Jersey gang investigator who works for the state. “But there’s never a guarantee they’ll only victimize their own people.”

Torres described his first meeting with a member in a juvenile detention facility in 1997. He was a skinny and quiet 17-year-old from Hudson County with MS-13 tattooed on his forehead. He was cold, calculating and scared the other gang-affiliated kids, Torres recalled.

Torres asked him about getting a job.

“I’m not going to live long enough to worry about a job,” Torres recalled him saying.

OPINION: Donald Trump is right. MS-13 members are 'animals.'

MS-13 members are not always so easy to spot.

“I've seen 35-year-olds who are new members and I've seen 14-year-olds who are veteran members,” FBI Special Agent Brunner said.

In fact, the average beach-bound tourist or New York City commuter may have passed by the Long Branch home of the accused east coast kingpin. It's about a mile from the chic restaurants and oceanfront condos of Pier Village.

Who is ‘Reaper’?

In addition to his alleged MS-13 management role, Diaz is accused of trafficking drugs, according to the New York court document.

He was a “drug supplier” in Long Branch, according to DEA Special Agent and spokesperson Erin Mulvey. Diaz dealt in kilos of heroin, pounds of marijuana and hundreds of grams of cocaine, according to Mulvey. She said he broke down drug shipments into smaller packages for street-level sales.

MS-13 is a "clear and present danger," according to FBI agent FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner detailed the threat posed by MS-13 in New Jersey.

Diaz and 16 other MS-13 members were criminally charged in January and Diaz’s arrest was announced in April. He has pleaded not guilty to charges including three counts of operating as a major trafficker and five counts of conspiracy, according to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.

Diaz was previously deported from the United States in November 2012, but illegally returned, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Khaalid Walls.

The government will seek to deport Diaz again after the proceedings for the New York criminal charges against him. If he's convicted of one of the drug trafficking charges he could be exposed to a sentence of 25 years to life in prison, according to the district attorney's office.

His trial date has not yet been set. Diaz ‘s private attorney could not be reached for comment.

From jail, Diaz told a reporter his conditions in jail are restrictive. His brother said Diaz has been locked down 23 hours each day.

“They put me like a monster,” Diaz said in a phone call.

What is MS-13?

Though MS-13’s leadership is based in El Salvador, the group was founded in the United States.

MS-13 originated in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, where many Central Americans traveled after fleeing civil war, according to Brunner.

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Some of those immigrants came to the U.S. to work, others ended up in prison. While in California prisons, some of the El Salvadorans joined together to protect themselves as “Mara Salvatrucha” or MS-13. The name roughly translates to "look out for us Salvadorians," according to Torres.

President Ronald Reagan deported many prisoners, according to Brunner, and MS-13 thrived back in El Salvador. Their leaders returned to the U.S. illegally in the 1990s, recruiting more members with violence and intimidation.

Today, however, MS-13's goals remain unclear.

"It's difficult to nail down, to say what their ambitions are,” Brunner said. “I wouldn't easily say that they have ambitions as far as: we want to control X, Y, and Z. They don't have a target, to my knowledge. They have a mission, in my opinion, of controlling their neighborhoods wherever they live."

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MS-13 members strive to control their community through fear and violence, particularly in El Salvadoran and Honduran communities, where people are familiar with MS-13 from their home countries. The leaders in El Salvador give instructions in how to extort people, who to murder and where to traffic drugs.

Brunner described MS-13 as a “significant threat to the community in New Jersey, in the United States.”

"They are a threat because they're killing people,” he said. “They're a threat because they're extorting people. They're a threat because they're trafficking drugs. They are a criminal group. And that's why we investigate them."

The fight against MS-13

Stop the robberies and killings.

That’s been a law enforcement focus in the fight against MS-13, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Donnelly, based in Newark.

Feds often fight other gangs by making drug buys and booking members on drug dealing charges.

But MS-13’s taste for violence calls for intervening quickly, according to Donnelly.

Law enforcement gains intelligence through speaking to people on the street, surveillance in areas where the gang is active or electronic surveillance like monitoring emails and phone calls. Then they spring into action to stop planned robberies or murders.

MS-13 fights for the "glory of the gang" MS-13 isn't motivated by money, as many gangs are. They fight for pride, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Donnelly.

In court, federal prosecutors have pursued cases under “RICO,” or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, in which they seek to prove the existence of a criminal organization, then charge many people operating as part of that organization, according to Donnelly.

“So whereas there might be acts that otherwise couldn't be charged federally, we're able to take those acts and charge them under the RICO statute so that a jury, when they sit and look at the case, they understand the full nature of what it is that MS-13 is trying to do in any particular area,” Donnelly said.

Part of the community

Diaz, who authorities say also used the name Reaper, is a good father who once took his three children on vacation to Walt Disney World, according to Diaz’s brother, Rodni Corea, 43, of Long Branch.

Corea told a reporter through a translator that Diaz met his wife in Little Silver at her quinceañera – the traditional coming-of-age celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday. He said Diaz is a fan of the Real Madrid soccer team and loves music like romantic Dominican soft pop and the dulcet Mexican singer Alejandro Fernandez.

Corea said he worked with Diaz, doing landscaping, interior painting and carpentry. They last spent time together at a 2017 Fourth of July barbecue at Corea’s home.

Corea said through the translator that he had no knowledge of Diaz associating with MS-13 and doesn’t believe what the government claims about his brother.

“I know my brother, he never killed somebody,” Corea told a reporter directly in English. “That’s 100 percent, 1,000 percent.”

There isn’t a definite profile for a MS-13 member, FBI agent Brunner stressed.

Historically, members would wear blue like the flag of El Salvador and Los Angeles Dodgers apparel, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Donnelly, but members are now moving away from clothing that would make them obvious to police.

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Older members might have telltale tattoos of “MS-13,” which have been used against them in court, according to Donnelly. But newer members are subtler. They might have three dots tattooed in a triangle on their hands, signifying the three places MS-13 members are expected to end up: jail, the hospital or the cemetery.

“If they need to do so,” Donnelly said, “they’re expected to either die on behalf of the gang, to engage in physical altercations on behalf of the gang that are going to lend them to being sent to the hospital with stab wounds or gunshot wounds, and they're expected to go to jail if they need to."

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USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey is made up of news organizations APP.com, NorthJersey.com, CourierPostOnline.com, DailyRecord.com, TheDailyJournal.com and MyCentralJersey.com.

Andrew Ford: @AndrewFordNews; aford3@gannettnj.com; 732-643-4281