SAN JUAN.- At least 21 people have been arrested, mostly in Puerto Ricoaccused of belonging to a powerful gang dedicated to drug trafficking and led by Nelson Torres Delgado, one of the most wanted on the island.
Of the twenty detainees, 17 were in Puerto Rico and 4 in the United States, specifically 2 in the state of Connecticut and another couple in Pennsylvania, explained Lymarie Llovet, spokesperson for the San Juan federal prosecutor’s office.
Another 10 defendants, out of a total of 38 linked to the Torres Delgado gang, were already in prison for other crimes, the federal prosecutor’s office reported in a press release.
All those arrested this Thursday are part of the powerful criminal organization headed by Torres Delgado, better known as “Burro”, who is credited with being the operational leader of the sale of illegal drugs in Caguas, a municipality near San Juan.
Torres Delgado and six other people are still wanted by the federal and local authorities, who carried out an operation in Caguas this Thursday morning, where they arrested most of the defendants, according to a federal indictment document and of which a federal jury indicted them on July 17.
According to the judicial document, the criminal organization led by Torres Delgado has been dedicated, since 2017, to the sale of heroin, “crack”, cocaine, marijuana, Fentanyl and controlled drugs such as Percoet and Xanax in various areas of Caguas.
Torres Delgado has held the power of drug sales in Caguas since the early 2010s and has been a federal fugitive since 2017.
Since then, he has maintained absolute control of his organization with violent attacks and intimidation, provoking wars with rival criminal organizations.
His methods of avoiding arrest, according to the federal indictment, include meeting face-to-face with only some of the most trusted leaders of his criminal organization.
Even, according to the federal authorities, one of the rules imposed on the Torres Delgado gang is that none of its members could murder another person without their permission.
On the other hand, five of the members of the Torres Delgado organization were also charged for the murder of retired teacher Margarita Rodríguez Morales, 73, on May 15, 2022 in Caguas.
The septuagenarian died in the middle of an exchange of fire between members of the Torres Delgado gang and rivals.
The defendants were identified as Jan Borges De Jesús, Michael Rodríguez Flores, José Gautier Medina, Miguel González Sánchez and Brian Sierra Feliciano.
They could face life imprisonment and even possible capital punishment, if authorized by the US Attorney’s Office.
Likewise, as part of the conspiracy, other of the defendants and members of the Torres Delgado gang used abandoned apartments in public housing to prepare the drug that they then distributed to the “points” or places of drug sales.
To do this, some of the gang’s conspirators stole cars or bought stolen vehicles from others to keep their drug trafficking activities active.
The authorities also accused nurse Sheila Luyando Fuentes, who acted as a “facilitator” for Torres Delgado’s organization and provided him with information on enemies who were hospitalized for gunshot wounds and later murdered.
