On Wednesday, Los Angeles County Prosecutors charged 19 conspiracy people to assassinate a rapper who would have angry a Mexican mafia member, a union in prison of Latinos gangs.
According to a complaint filed before the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles, the Mexican mafia member Manuel “Snuffy” Quintero made an order in 2022 to kill Nelson Abrego, which occurs under the name of Swifty Blue.
In the complaint, the prosecutors described a sprawling plot that took place on Tiktok messages and recorded prison calls, attracting prisoners from the County of Kern, prison prisoners in the city center of Los Angeles and Gangs members in Paramount, in the city of south-eastern Los Angeles that Quintero and Abrego call at home.
Quintero, 49, was arrested on Wednesday and has not yet pleaded. He was not clear in the judicial archives if he has a lawyer. A long -standing member of the Varrio Paramount Gang, Quintero, has served a prison sentence, manufacturing methamphetamine and false imprisonment, according to the judicial archives.
Manuel Quintero, presented in 2014, was identified by law enforcement officials as a member of the Mexican mafia.
(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
The day before the New Year in 2022, an alleged subordinate of Quintero, Giuseppe “intelligent” Leyva, told an informant that he had informed Gang members in Paramount, Compton and Downtown that they had instructions to attack Abrego “on sight”, said the complaint.
Leyva, 34, is now in detention in an unrelated federal affair which is responsible for selling drugs and firearms in Imperial County. He pleaded guilty of methamphetamine trafficking in March and has not yet been convicted. His lawyer in the federal case did not immediately return a request for comments.
After the informant asked if “the beats are crazy” against the rapper, Leyva would have said about Abrego: “F – Him”.
We do not know why Quintere was angry with Abrego, who could not be joined to comment on Wednesday.
In an interview in 2024 with the Times, the rapper refused to discuss any potential problem with the Mexican mafia or “prison policy”.
Abrego previously said that his music resonated with people because “everyone wants to be a gangster”.
“Whether you are a lawyer, a police or a child who goes to school, everyone wants to be tall, bad and hard,” he said in 2024.
Eight months after talking to the informant, said the complaint, Leyva warned another person in a Tiktok message to stay far from the rapper.
“Allow me to give Ua Lil 411 SU will not be guided with the Internet,” he wrote, according to the complaint. “With Swifty, his career is over.”
“I spoke to him tried to guide him but he did not listen,” said Leyva, adding that now the rapper “obtained his blues” in the central prison of men.
In November 2023, Abrego was imprisoned for possession of firearms. Onesimo “Vamps” Gonzalez, held two cells from the rapper, called his mother and told him to ask a partner if “the one who sings” was “always good”, according to the complaint.
Gonzalez’s mother hung up. When her son recalled, she would have said: “He is not good.”
Male central prison in downtown Los Angeles.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Gonzalez and his mother are charged in the plot. Gonzalez was already in detention; Dominga Gonzalez, 66, was arrested on Wednesday at his home in Bellflower, according to a press release from the FBI.
Two days after the mother and the son spoke, another prison prison, Jonathan “Dreamer” Quevedo, called a man imprisoned in Kern county who used a mobile phone phone, according to the complaint.
After mentioning “Swifty Blue”, Queedo would have asked Jacob “Eagle” David if he recalled a “raza rapper” who was “in the shower”.
Prosecutors thought it was a reference to Jaime Brugada Valdez, a rapper known as the Suede de Monysign who was stabbed to death in the showers of the Correctional Training Center in Soledad in 2023.
“The end result should be the same,” said David, who was imprisoned for diversion of cars and flight.
The next day, the said complaint, David asked Quevedo to tell the attackers: “Manage this S – with prejudices … Do you know how it is like a term of court? Well, this S— [is] with prejudices.
Quevedo would have confirmed that he was “already in motion”.
When the detainees were released from their cells at 5:50 am the next morning to take a shower, Adrian “Slick” Bueno, Andrew “Largo” Shinaia and Jude “Crazy” Valle entered the cell of Abrego, said the complaint. While Michael “Weasel” Ortiz was obstructing a nearby camera, Bueno, Shinaia and Valle beat the rapper and the “coupe”, the prosecutors accused.
About five hours later, Quevedo called a woman in prison and asked David to tell the state prison that “the old boy had his rap session,” said complaint.
“They didn’t really get a good show,” said Quevedo. “Expect that they probably occur at 4000 floors” – another area of the prison – “here soon”.
The attempt at Abrego’s life failed and, in March 2024, said the complaint, Leyva told Joshua “Demon” Euan in a Tiktok message that the rapper recorded live delivery outside his family home “while we are talking”.
Euan led home at 1 a.m. and sent a photo of a firearm to Leyva in the holder of a car, according to the complaint. “He is not there,” he wrote in Leyva.
Later, Euan would have told Leyva that he had sent people to the family home of Vandalize Abrego. According to the complaint, he sent photographs of graffiti who said “Swifty Blue 187”, a reference to the California penal code section for murder.
Euan, 37, escaped arrest on Wednesday and remains in freedom, according to the FBI.
