Two MS-13 members accused in New York of murdering a minor and an adult

New York.- The United States Department of Justice announced this Tuesday the indictment of two alleged members of the MS-13 gang in Long Island, an area of New York state plagued by gang violence, for the murder of a minor and an adult.

The accusations seek to bring justice for the 2016 murders of 15-year-old Miguel García Morán in Brentwood (Long Island), and of a man who allegedly also belonged to that gang, Carlos Lemus Interiano, in 2023 in Fort Washington (Maryland).

The defendants, Edwin Chavez Garay, 25, and Jairo Diaz Gamez, 27, appeared in a Long Island court today after a grand jury included them in a broad indictment against other MS-13 members for racketeering crimes.

Authorities said that Chavez and Diaz are members of a subgroup of MS-13, the gang originating from El Salvador, called Vegas Locos Salvatruchas, and committed the murders as part of a battle between rival gangs as they rose through the ranks.

The subjects lured the teenager Garcia, who was Ecuadorian, to a wooded area in Brentwood and “participated” in a deadly beating inflicted with metal bars, “mistakenly” believing he belonged to a rival gang, a statement details.

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The young man studied at the same school as teenagers Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, who were also murdered by MS-13 members, and whose case led President Donald Trump to come to Long Island to declare war on gangs during his first term.

Years after the young man’s murder, the defendants, who had risen through the ranks of the Vegas gang, brought Lemus from New York to Maryland, who had “lost the backing” of the gang, and took him to a wooded area where they shot him to death, the note details.

Subsequently, they also participated in a plot to kill another former gang member, Carlos Lopez Lopez, in Blue Point (New York), believing he was an informant, a murder for which three other men were charged in the broader indictment.