NATIONAL NEWS

Bondi announces charges in MS-13 killing as the Trump administration highlights its gang crackdown

Apr 4, 2025, 8:26 AM

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announces the arrest of gang members involved in four homicides, Fr...

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announces the arrest of gang members involved in four homicides, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Three alleged MS-13 gang members have been federally charged in connection with a killing a decade ago in Florida, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday, seeking to highlight the Trump administration’s push to prosecute violent gangs.

Bondi joined law enforcement officials in Fort Lauderdale to promote the Justice Department’s efforts to go after the gang, which the Republican administration has designated a “foreign terrorist organization” and has seized on as the threat posed by illegal immigration.

“More arrests are coming,” Bondi said. “If you are a gang member living in this country, I’d self-deport right now because we’re coming after you.”

The three alleged gang members are among nine who have been arrested in four killings in South Florida in 2014 and 2015. The three men federally charged last month are accused of participating in the killing of someone who was stabbed about 100 times and then shot, the attorney general said.

Jose Ezequiel Gamez-Maravilla and Wilber Rosendo Navarro-Escobar were arrested in Florida. Hugo Adiel Bermudez-Martinez was arrested in Minnesota. Emails seeking comment were sent to attorneys for the men.

The violent killings in South Florida were carried out using knives or machetes, authorities say. The cases were reopened in 2020 after going cold, and one of the investigations led to a multi-day excavation to recover the body of Joel Canizales-Lara in 2021, after he was reported missing in 2014.

The announcement comes a week after Bondi lauded the arrest of the alleged East Coast leader of the MS-13 gang.

In the past decade, the Justice Department has intensified its focus on MS-13, which originated as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles but grew into a transnational gang based in El Salvador. The gang has members in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico and thousands of members across the U.S. with numerous branches or cliques.

___

Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed.

National News

FILE - Students march at Arizona State University in protest of ASU's chapter of College Republican...

Associated Press

The US government has a new policy for terminating international students’ legal status

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has begun shedding new light on a crackdown on international students, spelling out how it targeted thousands of people and laying out the grounds for terminating their legal status. The new details emerged in lawsuits filed by some of the students who suddenly had their status canceled in recent […]

52 minutes ago

FILE - Army soldiers chat while waiting the arrival of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the US-Mex...

Associated Press

Migrants face a novel criminal charge in new border zone in New Mexico

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Immigrants recently detained in southernmost New Mexico now face a novel criminal charge of breaching a national defense area, after the U.S. Army assumed oversight of a 170-mile (274-kilometer) strip along the southern U.S. border in cooperation with immigration authorities. Federal prosecutors on Monday applied the additional charge for incursions […]

1 hour ago

Associated Press

Man charged with attempted rape of person who died on a New York City subway train

NEW YORK (AP) — A man was charged with attempted rape after surveillance video taken aboard a New York City subway train showed him performing sexual acts on an unresponsive passenger who was later determined to have died. Felix Rojas, 44, was arraigned Tuesday, three weeks after authorities said he abused the male victim inside […]

3 hours ago

FILE - Texas State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, speaks during a news conference at the Texas Capit...

Associated Press

Texas Senate OKs effort to clarify medical exceptions under state’s abortion ban

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate on Tuesday approved tweaking language to the state’s strict abortion ban that both Republicans and Democrats say would clarify medical exceptions and has the support of women who were told they could not end their pregnancies despite life-threatening complications. The unanimous passage of the bill in the GOP-controlled […]

4 hours ago

Associated Press

Prosecutors seek 20-year prison term for founder of failed crypto platform Celsius Network

NEW YORK (AP) — The founder and former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network should face 20 years behind bars for lying and self-dealing that cost customers billions of dollars in losses, prosecutors told a judge Tuesday. Alexander Mashinsky, 59, told thousands of customers that their money was safe and secure, leading […]

4 hours ago

FILE - Opponents of a measure debated by the North Carolina General Assembly that would force local...

Associated Press

North Carolina Republicans already seek to tighten up 2024 immigration enforcement law

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republicans who last fall enacted their long-sought policy ordering local sheriffs to cooperate with federal agents seeking to deport certain jail inmates already want it tightened further as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown builds nationwide. The GOP-controlled state House approved a measure Tuesday that would subject people accused of […]

4 hours ago

Bondi announces charges in MS-13 killing as the Trump administration highlights its gang crackdown