Ties That Bind: Violent prison gang seeks to increase power with street gangs
Editor’s note: The following is the first in a series exploring the role street gangs, prison gangs and organized crime play in violence, drug trafficking and addiction within Las Vegas and its surrounding communities.
Federal agents and officers from multiple agencies converged on Las Vegas in the summer of 2012 following a months-long investigation into the distribution of heroin and cocaine near public schools and at New Mexico Highlands University. Fourteen homes in Las Vegas were searched, and agents arrested 25 people. More recently, in the fall of 2019, federal agents raided multiple homes and a bank while executing 20 search warrants.
The 2019 raids were part of a nearly five-year FBI investigation into the Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico, a powerful — and often violent — prison gang that the FBI alleges is attempting to gain control of New Mexico’s street gangs in order to increase SNM’s reach and power inside jails and prisons and on the streets. The investigation led agents to Las Vegas, where the FBI alleges SNM has a strong presence.
SNM formed more than 40 years ago, following a deadly prison riot at the penitentiary in Santa Fe. During the past four decades, the gang has been the subject of several federal investigations, including plots to kill federal judges, prosecutors and law enforcement agents, according to multiple affidavits and indictments filed in U.S. District court in 2019 and 2020.
Federal agents also allege SNM members are directly responsible for the murder of four New Mexico law enforcement officers: Mesilla Marshal’s Office Sgt. Thomas Richmond in 1988; Albuquerque Police Department Sgt. Cheryl Tiller in 1998; Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Deputy James McGrane in 2006; and Rio Rancho Police Department Officer Gregg “Nigel” Benner in 2015.
While SNM has been on federal law enforcement’s radar for years, agents launched a new investigation into the gang in 2015, following an alleged plot by SNM members to locate and kill the then cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Corrections Department. Agents allege SNM also planned to kill two other NMCD administrators and their families.
The FBI’s investigation, titled “Operation Atonement,” ultimately thwarted the murder plot, with the help of 45 criminal informants, nine court-authorized wiretaps and more than 500 hours of electronic surveillance.
After hundreds of hours of surveillance and interviews with current and former members, agents learned a lot about how SNM operates, what its internal rules are and how it recruits new members. And while agents knew SNM already had tremendous influence over several of New Mexico’s street gangs, they learned SNM is actively trying to exert even more control over street gangs in order to increase its power.
With an estimated 250 active members, SNM operates in both state and federal prisons, according to affidavits filed in federal court. Members tend to be labeled a “state” or “fed” member, depending on where the member “earned their bones,” or was “made,” terms meaning the member performed a criminal act for the organization.
Agents call SNM an “ultra-violent gang” that engages in a variety of illegal activities, with a key focus on trafficking drugs on the streets and into correctional facilities. Though SNM is a prison-based gang, the FBI alleges that when SNM members or associates are released from prison, they are expected to remain loyal to the gang, and to work to further the gang’s goals outside of prison, often by trafficking drugs.
Multiple federal investigations into SNM have led to dozens of indictments against members. In fact, the FBI says around 150 SNM members and associates have been arrested as a result of Operation Atonement alone.
As members are convicted of crimes and incarcerated, federally or in state prisons, the number of members in prisons has increased, giving SNM more power behind bars. Conversely, that’s resulted in fewer SNM members on the streets.
To offset this lack of power on the streets, agents allege that SNM has been attempting to gain control of New Mexico’s Hispanic street gangs, following a model used by the Mexican Mafia in which it controls California’s Sureños street gang. Agents allege that Sureños members are protected by the Mexican Mafia while in correctional facilities, and that in turn, Sureños work for the Mexican Mafia while on the streets, typically by helping traffic drugs.
On the streets of New Mexico, agents allege gangs often work with SNM out of fear, and that SNM members use intimidation and violence to gain influence over smaller Hispanic street gangs. If gangs resist, agents say SNM will assault or kill those gang members, both on the streets and inside correctional facilities, including county jails.
It’s a cycle that leads many gang members and smaller drug dealers feeling they have no choice but to work with SNM members, placing them under the control of SNM. And when disagreements arise, the result often leads to violence.
That violence has not been contained to prisons, or larger cities like Albuquerque either. Agents allege SNM’s activities have sparked a number of violent acts in Las Vegas in recent years. The next parts of this series will explore SNM’s connection to drug trafficking in Las Vegas, and the connection to shootings and violent murders carried out in the past several years.
