Sending hidden messages in letters from his cell at Colorado's "Supermax" prison, a kingpin of the 18th Street gang controlled an elaborate drug operation on the streets west of downtown Los Angeles, federal prosecutors charged Tuesday.
The indictment of 18 members of the gang capped a four-year investigation by a task force of Los Angeles Police Department detectives and FBI agents that used wiretaps, undercover surveillance and inside sources.
They say its members directed the drug trade in some of the city's most crime-troubled neighborhoods, including the Westlake district, Pico-Union and part of Koreatown.
Authorities said they were surprised by the sophisticated hierarchy that they discovered when infiltrating the gang. They described it as being more akin to the Cosa Nostra than a traditional Latino street gang.
"This is very businesslike," Assistant U.S. Atty. Bruce Riordan said. "The discipline evolved over the years."
At the top of the chain of command: Ruben "Nite Owl" Castro, 46, a leader of the Mexican Mafia prison gang who authorities said controlled the two cliques of the 18th Street gang targeted in the indictment, the Shatto Park Locos and the Hoover Locos.
Castro allegedly ran the enterprise from the Administrative Maximum facility in Florence, Colo., where he is serving a life term after being convicted on similar gang racketeering charges in 1997.
With the highest level of security in the nation, the Supermax houses Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.
Under constant surveillance, Castro had to use cryptic phone conversations and hidden messages to get his directives to his deputies on the streets, who are described in court papers as "shot callers."
At least two letters seized by the FBI were scrawled in thick pencil marks, which when erased revealed tiny messages written with a fine-point pen.
"We have a couple letters with significant messages to the shot callers on how to direct things," Riordan said.
Castro mostly relayed his messages through his girlfriend, Jesusita Ramirez, 62, who served as an intermediary between him and the street lieutenants, prosecutors said.
Letters from prisoners are supposed to be screened by prison officials. But Castro's hidden messages apparently were able to get out of the prison undetected, officials said.
