Several of them testified vigorously that Ellis I was understaffed and overcrowded, and that the unit was riddled with blind spots. The guard said he wasnt tied to anyone. Every inmate was confined to his cell, stripped of recreation and visitation privileges, and fed sandwiches that guards tossed through the bars of the cell. [4][5], The Texas Syndicate was established at Folsom State Prison in California in 1978 in direct response to the other California prison gangs, notably the Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia, which were attempting to prey on native Texas inmates. After that first transaction, Sandoval went back for morea total of three, four, or five times, he told me, though he vividly described six transactions to an investigator hired by his family. Join The Syndicate Speak with representative Astrid in the Syndicate Enclave and, should you desire, join the Syndicate Go up the stairs within the Enclave to speak with Astrid. The gang, like most prison gangs, has members behind bars and members on the outside, and as of the 2000's, had membership that was in the thousands (about 7,000 in 2005). After building tenders disappeared due to a court order, the Syndicate's activities turned to drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, protection, illegal gambling, and contract killing. When Vicente and his friend Armando Garciaalso a pleasant, nonconfrontational fellowbegan to ask Sandoval if he had a light, the guard refused at first, and finally decided, after repeated requests, what the hell. Most new members are initiated in a two-step process. Initiation is one of those controversial topics that has gotten increased negative press in the last few years. And, their numbers total in the thousands on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 1967, the Nuestra Familia prison gang (which is comprised of inmates from the northern rural areas of California) and the Texas Syndicate (made up of inmates from Texas) formed to defend themselves against the Mexican Mafia (EME), the Aryan Brotherhood, and Black prison gangs that existed in the California penal system. In the Kikuyu language, "mungiki" means "united people" or "multitude," and the basic goals of the group include rejection of all things Western and embracing traditional African culture. When one thinks of a motorcycle gang, these are the guys who come to mind. This is a carousel. The Texas Syndicate (or Syndicato Tejano) is a mostly Texas-based prison gang that includes Hispanic and at one time White members (The organization at one time did allow non-Hispanic members to join, but that policy was repealed in the 1980s). Just like in the free world. The Texas Syndicate also operates in state and federal prisons across the United States, with significant activity being reported at FCI Oakdale in Louisiana and San Quentin State Prison in California, as well as some representation in the Florida Department of Corrections. TDCJ intelligence files indicate that by the close of the eighties, the TS, the Mexican Mafia, and other prison gangs had developed active memberships in every major Texas city, as well as in several small towns. After being released from California prisons these inmates returned to Texas, often returning to violence and re-entering the prison system. The assailant was nowhere in sight. The next day, Sandoval recalled, I walked into work feeling good. [1] Gang members smuggle multikilogram-quantities of powdered cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, and multiton-quantities of marijuana from Mexico into the U.S. for distribution inside and outside prison. The steaks would have come from the kitchen; the laundry basket that held them would have been wheeled past a guard. Sandoval described Ellis I warden Jerry Peterson as a good man but a figurehead. The Barrio Azteca gang is known to engage in a wide range of criminal activity including contract killing, murder, torture, drug trafficking and human trafficking among other offenses. On the way home Sandoval asked his cousin to drive the scenic route. Officials knew this meant that every day from three-thirty until after chow time, activities in the narrow corridor went unmonitored. The packages, he admitted, most likely contained drugs. The enterprise (hereinafter the Texas Syndicate, TS, or the enterprise) engages in, and its activities affected, interstate and foreign commerce. A long, metal objecta homemade knife, or shankprotruded from his jugular. Everybody knew about this scum. Yet Apple Jack went unpunished: He tithed a share of his profits to the Texas Syndicate and gave the supervisors something to crow about by setting up a guard now and then. Prison officials could boast that their residents stood less chance of being killed than did the average Texas city dweller. When Luis Sandoval went to work for the Texas prison system, he did the wrong favors for the wrong people. In Del Rio, a federal judge sentenced 29 Uvalde/Hondo-area Texas Syndicate (TS) members over the past two weeks to federal prison, including four defendants to life imprisonment, for various racketeering and drug trafficking offenses committed in Uvalde, San Antonio and the surrounding areas announced United States Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr., and Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs . Look, man, I think Im being watched, Sandoval told Garcia the next day. If several TS members commit a crime, it is not uncommon for one member to demonstrate his loyalty by taking responsibility for the crime in order to shield other TS brothers from the attention of law enforcement. Uneasy truces between gangs have developed. In the tenements across the street from the Texas A&I University stadium lived a fifteen-year-old girl named Veronica, whom he married on June 22, 1985, after learning that TDCJ had accepted his application for employment as a correctional officer, or CO. When he sent the letter off to his mother, he knew it wouldnt be long before law enforcement officials discovered his whereabouts. Garcia, of course, could snitch to the Ellis I authorities. The investigators didnt tell me much, nor was I particularly inquisitive, he said. The B-wing, a loud and grossly overcrowded area, was considered the hellhole, in the words of Cade Crippin, the CO who worked the B-wing with Sandoval the afternoon of the murder. Tri-City Bombers, Latin Kings and Surenos are more active on a street gang level. The gang mostly deals drugs, with Oxycontin, heroin, and crack being the big ticket money-makers. The Farmer.For this one farmer the worries are over, lie down and rest your head, Your time has been and struggles enough, put the tractor in the shed. To pay for his legal expenses, his mother sold the family home. Ranking structure : Paramilitary/Buisness Territory : Houston . Sandoval came to enjoy these moments. Prison gangs typically have rules on how to gain admission to the gang. Detention hearings are expected to occur over the next two weeks in U.S. Magistrate Court in Austin for all defendants except May. Click Expand to view. A Right-wing Cabal Took Over Odessas Municipal Government. Drugs come from the free world. And perhaps he was vaguely aware that the request, if honored, would be only the first of manythat later he would be asked for cigarettes, chewing gum, packs of sunflower seeds, and more. The purpose of the enterprise include the following: a) Enriching the members and associates of the enterprise through, among other things, distribution of narcotics, extortion and robbery; b) Preserving and protecting the power, territory and profits of the enterprise through the use of intimidation, violence, threats of violence, assaults and murder; c) Promoting and enhancing the enterprise and its members and associates activities; d) Maintaining a powerful organization that can protect members and provide financial opportunities through criminal activity; e) Keeping victims in fear of the enterprise and in fear of its members and associates through threats of violence and violence. A member who has fallen out of favor might also be referred to in the feminine form. After their verdict was announced on Wednesday, May 29, the jurors milled around outside the courtroom and vented their disgust with the states case to the media. Until Judge Justices decree, TDCJs inmate population was essentially governed by brutal trusties known as building tenders, whose methodswhich included beating and sodomizing inmates into terrified submissionwent largely unchecked by prison officials. The following day, Chaplain Alexander Taylor, who witnessed Sandovals efforts, wrote the CO III a letter of commendation. Other members have been instructed to attack strangers or cops, and of course, many of the women who get into this gang do so by offering themselves to multiple members. In addition, you will have to deregister from any wars or invasions. The defendants, allegedly, conspired to distribute methamphetamine/heroin in Austin, San Marcos, Luling, Gonzales, New Braunfels, Hutto, Kenedy, Seguin, Bastrop and Tuscaloosa, AL, since January 2018. As the free world would have it, there are good inmates and bad inmates. You better get the hell out of here, Sandoval.. On the outside, the operation is run very much like a business, while inside the prison is where activities are ruthless and violent, particularly within the realm of initiation. RELATED:Why 'El Chapo's' beauty queen wife says she is 'afraid for his life'. The soldiers and prospectos (prospects) are often used to carry out violent TS business. I knew he didnt have nothing to do with it. Tango Blast cliques along the Rio Grande Valley and in Corpus Christi are the region's major players, along with Texas Syndicate and Texas Mexican Mafia. The only witnesses who said that Sandoval had anything to do with the murder of inmate Joe Arredondo were two convicted felons: Carlos Rosas, a Texas Syndicate member who confessed to actually stabbing Arredondo but was offered a favorable deal in exchange for his testimony; and Ruben Ortiz, a convicted murderer and Texas Syndicate sex slave who was paroled after he agreed to testify. The impulse is to accommodate the inmate, since prisonsspiritual wastelands of concrete and metalcry out for random acts of human kindness. Sandoval figured the odds were about even. As to everything he had told his investigatorsnone of that was true either, he said. It took more than three years for the Arredondo murder case to come to trial, during which time a number of things happened to Sandoval. By the time 21-year-old Luis Sandoval, a new boot at Huntsvilles Ellis I Unit in the summer of 1985, was approached by an inmate with an unlit cigarette, his ears were still ringing from a more desperate request he had heard during his first week on the job. The TS will not hesitate to kill anyone who interferes with the business of the gang or who commits a violation of Texas Syndicate rules. The TS rules provide that the TS is to come before family. His assistant wardens run the building. Indeed, Peterson said to me that his units drug problem isnt rampant, but he also acknowledged that much has escaped his attention over the years. Members of the Texas Syndicate regularly hold meetings (sometimes referred to as barbeques or juntas) where members discuss and vote on important decisions. That statistic does not come close to reflecting the actual number of TDCJ employees suspected of involvement in corrupt activities. Arredondo took the two hundred dollars, went home, and blew the money. New recruits who hoped to join the Knights Templar have been forced to eat a child's heart in order to prove their loyalty to the cause. There is then a period of time during which those clothes cannot be washed. Upon their release from prison, gang members returned to Texas, renamed themselves the Texas Syndicate (TS), committed crimes, and wound up in TDCJ, where they developed an extensive network of drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, and contract murder behind Texas prison walls. If you work at any time for the TDCJ, said assistant prosecutor Burt Neal Tuck Tucker during the first day of testimony, you know how powerful the Texas Syndicate can be.. Sandoval took the advice three years after Garcia gave it. It was not the most hospitable climate for trust, which was something Sandoval felt inclined to consider when Armando Garcia and Vicente held out a letter and asked Sandoval to mail it for them. Furthermore, that degree of control has carried to communities in which TS members reside. They didnt believe Sandoval. Armando, I cant jeopardize my life, man., Garcia took the story to the Texas Syndicate. But now that seemed the least of Luis Sandovals worries. Then, the new recruit is expected to participate in the kill. What sustains the gangs is money, which inmates use to bribe prison employees. Tejanos were being preyed upon by California prison gangs in some of the most notorious California . Paranoia overcame him. The two inmates snitched for Sandoval and herded him away from troublemakers, admonishing him, Boss, stay away from those guys.. Sandoval lied: No, sir. Contradicting this claim, Internal Affairs investigator Dale Schaper took the stand and read his report of the night Sandoval was arrested. Gang initiation is determined either by a formula system, whereas if the member completes all the requirements (which sometimes include killing another person) and the other basic requirements (such as race, ethnicity etc), they are automatically initiated. He had long since survived the new boots six months of hell. The Texas Syndicate (Spanish: Sindicato Tejano) is a mostly Texas-based street and prison gang consisting of predominantly Mexican American membership. Joe Arredondo was one of those inmates, an arrogant squirt barely over five feet tall who frequently provoked guards but never got in trouble for it. The Mac Baller Brims are a relatively small group operating in New York City, but they have made a mark on that area through brutality both inside and outside of the prison system. Texas Syndicate members frequently refer to each other as carnal (brother) and maintain a distinct identity by establishing and enforcing specific TS rules, holding meetings, utilizing TS gang signs (horns), and by maintaining a close relationship with fellow gang members and their associates throughout the state. Prisoners join gangs, thereby becoming strong, and prey upon the weak. There are a few different methods of initiation in this gang. Members of the Texas Syndicate maintain regular communication with members who have been imprisoned. A deal was struck between the gang and Garcia: Garcia would acquire the drugs, give half to the Texas Syndicate, and sell the other half himself. Theres no way to shut them down, Sandoval said. Joshua Fechter is a reporter covering City Hall and San Antonio politics for the Express-News. He was a drug dealer, with connections dating back to his days peddling heroin in El Paso. Although obtaining TS-related tattoos was once a common practice, some TS members now avoid obtaining tattoos in order to shield their association with the TS from law enforcement. The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The group was started in the 1970's in California's prison system, in response to the need for more protection for Mexican-Americans (primarily from Texas) who were in the Cali prison system. Sometimes, members who have a problem or muleta that they need to work off in order to achieve better status with the TS are called upon to perform the ordered task. TS members will also assist a fellow member in this pending criminal case. Inmates fashioned shanks out of road signs, door hinges, food trays, typewriter platen rods, and field equipment. Our experienced management team drives success using innovative analytical techniques, coupled with technical rigor and ingenuity to deliver superior returns to investors . Within the prison system, there is a widely agreed upon initiation requirement, and it is that a new recruit must kill someone. Scroll through the slideshow for 10 things you need to know about the Barrio Azteca gang. By the fall of 1986, several months after the gang lockdown policy had been instituted, Joe Arredondos cockiness began to catch up with him. But the report was not a signed confession. App. Sandoval weighed his choices. Federal, state and local authorities have arrested 17 members and associates of the Texas Syndicate in connection with a methamphetamine/heroin trafficking operation in central Texas announced U.S. Attorney John F. Bash, FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs, San Antonio Division, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, and Gonzales . 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