International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 79

International Journal on Criminology
under no obligation to share their deals with the Mexican Mafia. To maintain its
authority in the street the Eme started circulating a regularly updated list of recalcitrant
individuals, called the Green Light. 265
Appearance on this list for non-payment of the tax amounts to a death sentence.
The Eme has given all Hispanic gangs, without distinction, a green light; to carry out the
sentence as soon as it recognizes any of the individuals concerned, despite the truce in
force between the Hispanic gangs, imposed by this same Mexican Mafia.
It controls many Sureños gangs nonetheless. For example, the Azusa 13, based in
Azusa, Los Angeles County, whose leader had been sentenced to death. Led by members
of the Mexican Mafia 266 out on parole in the city, the Azusa 13 embarked on a sequence
of violent actions between 1999 and 2004, including many homicides. It was mainly
responsible for collecting the “taxes” from drug dealers operating in the area. According
to the Police, the real boss giving the orders was Jack “Jocko” Padilla, a leader of the
Mexican Mafia, imprisoned in a high security cell in California. 267 Another example is
that of the Puente 13 gang of Los Angeles County. Rafael Munoz Gonzales, alias “Cisco,”
was arrested for trafficking methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana and oxycodone 268 in
Los Angeles, Seattle and in the states of Alaska, Arizona and North Carolina. Cisco is
best known for being a renowned member of the Mexican Mafia. Released from prison
in 2007, he immediately took control of the Puente 13 gang, 269 which nevertheless has
only some twenty members. These two examples illustrate the exclusive hold which
prison gangs have over street gangs, exercising direct control over them.
As the operating machinery of prison gangs is to be found in a closed and
secured environment, it necessarily recruits and forms its personnel within the prison,
from among prisoners. Upon their release, these new leaders take their gangs in hand
using the same means and connections as the prison gangs themselves. The reverse also
occurs when members of a gang naturally re-establish the gang structure within the
prison compound.
When US authorities decided to fight this threat, they split the leaders up and
sent them to different prisons... resulting in their rapid metastatic domination of most
of the country's institutions! In this way the prison gangs have extended their influence
over the majority of American gangs and even those of other countries.
265
This practice of drawing up Most Wanted Lists like the FBI, seems common. Nuestra Familia
regularly publishes the names of the ten individuals it most wants to eliminate. Killing one of them
contributes to rapid promotion.
266
Gabriel Downer Aguilar and Robert Thumper Ramirez.
267
Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2008.
268
Oxycodone or oxycodon: semi-synthetic opiate manufactured for nearly a century from thebaine,
a component of opium. It was designed to relieve the pain of trauma in war. It is found in commercial
products such as Supeudol, Oxy-IR and OxyContin in which the proportion of the active substance is
even greater. Its misuse has been observed since the 1990s in the United States and Canada, where it is
a major public health problem. Oxycodone dependence is extremely strong, comparable to heroin.
269
Associated Press, March 14, 2008.
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