CHARLOTTE -- Six members of a notorious international gang have been convicted on crimes ranging from racketeering to murder to cocaine trafficking after a closely watched and tightly secured trial in Charlotte.
A federal jury convicted the defendants after five hours of deliberation Tuesday. Federal authorities have been watching the case closely since a 2008 sweep led to an indictment charging 26 people accused of participating in the Mara Salvatrucha -- or MS-13 -- gang.
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a statement that the gang brings lawlessness and fear into far too many U.S. communities. Authorities have said the gang has some 10,000 members in the United States, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
"Gangs are poisonous to our communities -- they feed on weakness and force people to live in fear. These convictions prove gang members can't operate in hiding and escape getting caught," said Owen Harris, special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Charlotte.
MS-13 is known to have a presence in the Triangle in general and Durham in particular.
In late 2004 and early 2005, FBI agents arrested some three dozen MS-13 members in North Carolina, almost all of them in the Triangle.
In Durham, illegal Honduran immigrant -- and alleged MS-13 member -- Franklin Manacer-Herrera was found guilty in October 2007 of first-degree murder for killing a 36-year-old woman by stabbing her more than 40 times.
The MS-13 logo was found carved into victim Chandra Brown Mwicigi's thigh.
Manacer-Herrera stabbed Mwicigi to death at the Palm Park Apartments on Broad Street.
Prosecutor Jim Dornfried told jurors at the trial that Mwicigi was killed because she had "disrespected" Manacer-Herrera's gang and that her body had been hauled out of an apartment and dumped on a sidewalk as a warning message to others.
Manacer-Herrera was sentenced to life without parole.
The recent Charlotte trial, which brought tight security and jurors whose identities were kept secret, lasted two weeks. Prosecutors contended that the MS-13 gang planned and committed robbery, extortion, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, murder conspiracy and a variety of drug crimes. The racketeering activities included four murders, authorities said.
"These defendants and their gang clearly had criminal designs to rule this community through fear and violence for their own unjust benefit," said U.S. Attorney Edward Ryan.
Prosecutors also contended that the members communicated with gang leadership in El Salvador.
