Herlyn Barrientos was not happy to meet another member of his gang in the product section of her local grocery store.
A strong man with tattoos inked on his head and face, Barrientos was MS-13, a notorious group for wild murders. Federal prosecutors allegedly allegedly alleged that the Hondurian national, nicknamed “Doctorazo”, provided methamphetamine to MS-13 members in Los Angeles, who sold the medication and launched a cup to the imprisoned gang chief.
Accused of drug trafficking in 2023, Barrientos decided to light his gang and cooperate with the FBI. A judge signed his release from prison and Barrientos, 47, returned to South Los Angeles.
Surveillance images have shown that MS-13 members killed one of their own, Herlyn Barrientos, who had become an informant for the FBI.
(United States District Court)
Friday, federal prosecutors announced that three members of the MS-13 renowned are accused of having killed Barrientos on the orders of gang chiefs.
The Barrientos agreement was supposed to remain secret, but the FBI now says that the status of Barrientos as a informator was “wide” known, questioning why he still lived in his old district when he was killed on February 18.
An FBI spokesperson refused to comment.
Just before his death, Barrientos called an FBI agent to report by seeing a man with a firearm, the manager wrote in an affidavit. The agent said he was on the phone with Barrientos when he was shot.
“It is a terrible thing what happened to him,” said Michael Crain, a lawyer who represented Barrientos in his drug trafficking case. Fear refused to comment more.
The Affidavit said that evidence clearly made Barrientos had been killed because he cooperated.
After his death, another informant working for the FBI called the chief of the MS-13 clique of Barrientos, who said that people above in the gang had given him instructions: “They told me that I had to clean my garbage, you understand?”
“This work you cannot say no,” he said, according to the Affidavit.
Around 7 p.m. on the last day of his life, Barrientos went to superior grocers on Figueroa and 91st streets, wrote Joseph Carelli, an FBI special agent, in an affidavit.
A black SUV followed Barrientos in the parking lot. Three men came out of the SUV and entered the store. In the product section, they seemed to exchange greetings with Barrientos, wrote Carelli, citing images of store cameras.
Roberto Carlos Aguilar was photographed by the FBI attending a commemorative service for another member of the MS-13.
(United States District Court)
One of the three men, identified by Carelli like Roberto Carlos Aguilar, has moved away and began to make calls. Aguilar is a national Salvadoran who entered illegally in the United States, a spokesperson for the American prosecutor’s office in Los Angeles said.
Aguilar and Barrientos spoke in the parking lot of the grocery store for about 30 minutes, Carelli wrote. Aguilar received two calls during this period which went to vocal messaging. One was from Dennis Anaya Urias, a legal permanent resident of the United States and deemed member of MS-13’s Bagos Click, according to Carelli and the Office of the American Prosecutor’s Office.
Barrientos was also the clique of Bagos, a subset of MS-13 based in the city center district, wrote Carelli.
T-Mobile Records has shown that Urias’s phone was traveling from Koreatown to the upper grocery area around 7:50 p.m., when surveillance images showed a gray Honda Cr-V park in front of the store.
Aguilar, meanwhile, left and Barrientos called 911. He told the operator that he had seen a man armed with a pistol. The suspect wore black, his face covered by a handkerchief, said Barrientos.
Roberto Carlos Aguilar of the central click of MS-13
(United States District Court)
Barrientos then called Carelli, his master. A man whose face was covered just tried to shoot him, he told the agent, but the weapon did not trigger.
While they were talking, Carelli heard shots. Barrientos has stopped responding. The agent heard the police sounds and other first stakeholders in the background, he wrote.
A month later, California Highway Patrol officers found a burned CR-V in North Hollywood, Carelli wrote. The agent thought that the car was that shown in the surveillance images motivated by the Barrientos killers.
Arrested on May 12, Urias – whose telephone files showed that he had traveled Koreatown south of Los Angeles just before the shooting – told a prison informant that the order to kill Barrientos came “directly from the summit,” wrote Carelli.
Urias said that he and another member of MS-13, Grevil Zelaya Santiago, received a call from Aguilar, who said he had found the “son of a whore”, according to the agent.
Urias said that he and Zelaya had led CR-V in the south of the, covered their faces and drawn Barrientos, wrote Carelli.
The lawyers of Urias and Zelaya did not immediately return the request for comments. It was not clear who represented Aguilar.
The three defendants pleaded not guilty of murder for the benefit of the racketeering.
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