MS-13 Members Indicted for Racketeering and Murder Charges

Three more members face conspiracy charges.

​A federal grand jury indicted three alleged MS-13 gang members on Wednesday for conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. The indictment comes in addition to the 24 alleged MS-13 members already facing conspiracy charges after the three-year investigation known as Operation Devil Horns, the subject of our cover story last week.

The three are accused of the June 21, 2010, murder of Alexander Castanon. News reports stated that Castanon, who was a cook at Baby Blues Barbecue on Mission Street, was shot in the head as he got off off the 14- Muni bus at Mission and San Jose in Daly City.

The defendants are Davie Jimmy Mejia-Sensente, also known as "Crazy," Carlos Mejia-Quintanilla or "Sleepy," and Luis Amilar-Zanas, or "Trucha." All three were already in custody when the indictment was handed down.


Mejia-Quintanilla was arrested by Daly City police in September 2010, at which point he talked with immigration authorities, admitting he arrived illegally from El Salvador. The indictment says he is in San Mateo County Jail awaiting trial on other charges. Amilar-Zanas is in custody in New York on charges of illegal reentry after deportation. Mejia-Sensente is also in custody, awaiting charges on being an illegal immigrant in possession of ammunition.

For the charges in today's indictment, all three are facing potential life in prison or the death penalty. So far prosecutors have not sought the death penalty for any of the 24 alleged MS-13 members in Northern California in the previous indictment, even those charged with murder.

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