Chapter 16
Like a proud new business owner, Santini stood back and admired the sign he had just hung on the face of the warehouse that read international exports. The three-by-four-foot metal placard was a hand-me-down prop from a previous undercover operation conducted by the California Highway Patrol, which Santini recruited to assist with his new ruse.
Four months had passed since the desk rats at HSI headquarters approved funding for the costly undercover operation. It had taken three months to locate and rent the building, install surveillance equipment, and furnish the garage and office to make it look like an authentic auto-repair business. To outfit the building, Santini started at the recycling heaps of a junkyard called Sunset Scavengers. With items supplied by the helpful salvage man, Santini’s team furnished the warehouse office and stocked the garage with scrapped car hoods, bumpers, seats, rims, mechanic’s tools, repair manuals, and office furniture. For an extra degree of authenticity, the agents strewed fast-food wrappers throughout the garage.
Like theatrical stage designers, they sprayed machine grease and antifreeze stains on a pair of new coveralls that they hung from a hook in the office. They sprinkled cigarette butts in various spots that made it feel like the workspace of a messy, nicotine-hooked grease monkey. For a final touch of cultural authenticity, they bought some Catholic holy candles at a Latino grocery store, bearing decals of the Virgin Mary, which they prominently displayed in the front office.
With everything in place, at Santini’s direction Casper began spreading word within the gang about his “cousin” who managed a garage in Richmond and moonlighted as a stolen-car fence. Casper told the homies his cousin usually paid around five hundred dollars for stolen cars and that he was looking for more supply to move through buyers who shipped them overseas.
A contingent of the gang members were glad to hear about the new sales channel to add to the ones they already had, including A&C Auto Wreckers and ABC Auto Parts in the Bay View/Hunters Point section of the city. They had been fencing stolen cars and parts at these corrupt local businesses for years.
Santini soon received a late-night call from Casper saying that Payaso and Dog had stolen a Honda Civic that they wanted to unload. An hour earlier, Casper said, the pair of thieves departed their Mission residence on 20th Street, intending to steal a good car. They soon returned with the jacked Honda, its steering column slightly mangled from where they tore it apart to get it started. Santini put out the call to the undercover team at the warehouse to get ready for a visit from the homies, and to his state police partners to put a tail on the thieves en route.
Having successfully stolen the Honda, Dog claimed he was too drunk now to drive it all the way to the warehouse in Richmond. Payaso didn’t know how to drive a stick shift, so another homie present named Marlon offered to drive it instead. Casper and Marlon left in the stolen Honda and headed for the warehouse, with Payaso following close behind in Marlon’s own vehicle.
A little after midnight, on the Richmond Parkway near Gertrude Street, a Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputy—clueless about the police sting operation under way—pulled Payaso over in the Acura. A surveillance team of undercover California Highway Patrol officers tailing the gang members hastily placed a call to the Contra Costa County dispatcher, requesting that the officer on the scene allow Payaso to continue on his way unimpeded. To their relief, the officer received the message in time before busting Payaso. He let the homie go on his way, despite the fact he was driving without a license and had an outstanding warrant related to a drug bust in San Francisco.
Moments after Payaso was pulled over by the sheriff’s deputy, Casper and Marlon arrived at the warehouse. Casper phoned the two undercover agents manning the warehouse and they opened the gate to let the homies drive through, directing them to park the stolen car in front of an open shipping container. Payaso arrived in the Acura moments later and the undercover agents led the three homies into the warehouse office.
“Shit, homie, I thought that fucking cop was going to bust my ass for sure!” Payaso said.
“You’re a lucky, dog!” Marlon said. “What the fuck did you tell the cop, homie?”
“I told him I was coming home from work and going to my mother’s house,” Payaso said. “He tells me ‘be careful’ and he just lets me go down the road.”
The two undercover agents laughed along at the homies’ stroke of good luck.
“So, listen, we’ll give you four hundred for the car,” one of the agents said.
“Four hundred?” Payaso said. “That shit worth more than four hundred. Dat bitch worth seven hundred at least!”
“Tell you what, man,” the agent said. “I’ll give you five.”
Payaso stared the agent in the eye.
“Five?” he said.
The agent nodded.
“That’s all I can go, dog,” he said.
Payaso turned to Marlon, who nodded.
“Okay, five,” Payaso said.
“Cool,” the agent said.
He pulled out an envelope of cash from a drawer and counted out the bills. Five hundred. Payaso stuck the money inside his jacket and grinned like a fool. Casper clasped fists with his “cousin,” and the 20th Street homies got up to leave.
“Next time, you guys need to be more careful, homies,” the agent said. “Be better if you make any deliveries earlier at night than this, when the fucking cops are between shifts.”
“Okay,” Casper said. “These homies are cool, man. Next time at ten o’clock, okay homies?”
“Yeah, man,” Payaso said. “Next time, we’ll hit you up at ten. No problem.”
For several weeks, all was well with the sting operation. Santini’s team had purchased an impressive sixteen cars from various 20th Street clique members as well as some other criminal associates who were not in the gang. Then an unfortunate thing occurred for the operation.
Following the success of NBC’s popular show To Catch a Predator, which baited and trapped predators prowling online for underage sex partners, the network spun off a new show called, To Catch a Car Thief. The program showed video-surveillance footage with undercover cops posing as stolen-car fences, meeting with unsuspecting thieves at a warehouse secretly wired for sound and video. Some of the 20th Street homies happened to tune into the show and it got them thinking: The warehouse setup on TV looked a whole lot like the one run by Casper’s cousin in Richmond.
As a matter of fact, Indio, who was Cyco’s brother, had been a little suspicious of Casper and the warehouse deal from the start. He thought he might have recognized an undercover cop there from the California Highway Patrol. When the TV show aired, Casper warned Santini that the chatter among the 20th Street clique was that his shop looked like a setup and to stay away. Just like that, after pleading with HSI management for funds to lease the warehouse, furnishing it to look legit, wiring it for sound and video, the operation fizzled. But not until after they had made buys of more than twenty stolen vehicles and at least eight gangbangers were on the hook for federal charges including the exportation of stolen vehicles.
Casper, on the other hand, now had a problem. He was the one who had set the whole thing up with the homies, introducing them to his cousin. Casper had some serious suspicions among the 20th Street homies to contend with now. A good fast talker, he assured them his cousin could be trusted. If the guys at the warehouse were really cops, then they would all have been busted already, he argued. No arrests stemming from the warehouse operation had occurred. His logic seemed to quell their suspicions.
Still, a hoodlum named Daniel Gonzales who was not in MS-13, but who associated with some of the 20th Street homies, had brought a stolen car to sell to the warehouse. Gonzales was not so easily convinced that Casper wasn’t involved in a setup with the cops. When Gonzales’s brother heard about the situation, he went looking for Casper and found him walking down the sidewalk in the Mission.
“You set up my brother, motherfucker,” he said.
With that, he proceeded to kick Casper’s ass, punching him and throwing him through a storefront window, the broken glass gashing his face. A few days later, Casper showed up for a clandestine meeting with Santini, his face a mess of cuts and bruises.
“What happened to you, man?” Santini said.
Casper told him about the attack by Gonzales, which raised serious alarms. One of his two main informants was beat up as a result of his undercover role. As his handler, it was the agent’s responsibility to ensure Casper’s safety to the greatest extent possible.
“So, what do you think, man?” Santini said. “Can you still work without getting hurt? You want out?”
Casper shook his head and touched the bandage on his jaw.
“No, I’m alright,” he said.
“If you want out, you need to tell me,” Santini said.
Casper shook his head again.
Santini couldn’t help but admire Casper’s guts. He was walking a very tricky tightrope with the gang and somehow seemed to be keeping his cool in extremely dangerous circumstances. He was able to maintain a smooth swagger that took in the other homies, who were constantly sniffing around for rats in their camp as a matter of routine. Casper either had steel balls, or he wasn’t particularly bright, Santini thought. Either way, it was the agent’s job to keep him safe, which was looking increasingly difficult.
In the parking lot of the Scandia Family Fun Center just off Interstate 80 near Sacramento, Santini watched as his HSI colleague wired Casper up for sound. Soon they expected a call from Negro, whom Casper was scheduled to meet at a Holiday Inn parking lot a couple miles away, where they would conduct the controlled purchase of a high-powered rifle.
Under Santini’s direction, Casper had been talking over the phone off and on for a few weeks with Negro in a series of recorded phone calls to set up the deal. He convinced Negro to meet him in Sacramento for the handoff, halfway between San Francisco and Reno. This meant Negro would be crossing state lines to sell the gun, making for an additional federal offense.
At around 6:30 p.m., Casper, wearing a wire, got the call from Negro.
“I’m on the way, homie,” Negro said. “Me and two other homies.”
“Okay, cool,” Casper said. “Where you at?”
“On Route 80, homie. Near Exit 22,” Negro said.
“Okay, just keep on coming down Eighty, dog. You’ll see a big sign for the Holiday Inn. Just take that exit and swing around into the parking lot behind the hotel. What you driving, homie?”
“A red Chevy Blazer,” Negro said. “We should be there in, like, an hour and a half.”
“Cool,” Casper said. “I’m in a green truck, homie. I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock. I got another homie with me, too.”
“Yeah?” Negro said. “Cuantos? Uno?”
“Sí, solamente uno,” Casper said.
“Okay, cool,” Negro said.
At around 7:55 p.m., a surveillance agent positioned at the outer perimeter of the Holiday Inn observed a red Chevy Blazer with Nevada license plates entering the hotel parking lot. Negro contacted Casper on his cell phone. The informant guided Negro to the spot where he was waiting in the truck with an undercover HSI special agent, a native Spanish speaker.
Negro’s red Blazer pulled into the spot right next to the green pickup.
“So, we got your SKS, homie,” Negro said.
“Nice, homie,” Casper said.
Negro scanned the parking lot for anyone watching. He moved to the back of the Blazer and pulled out a rifle wrapped in an extra-large T-shirt and put it in the back of Casper’s truck.
“Let me know if your 20th homies want any Uzis,” Negro said. “I just sold one to some homies in Texas and they tore up some chavalas with that shit, I’m telling you, dog!”
“Simone!” Casper said.
The men shook hands and Negro turned toward the Blazer to head back to Reno.
“Mara Salvatrucha forever!” Negro called over his shoulder.
“Mara siempre!” Casper called back.
Afterward, Santini and the rest of the surveillance team met at a parking lot several miles away for a debriefing with Casper. The agents cleared and packaged the Russian made SKS-7 assault rifle, six hundred forty rounds of ammo, and a thirty-round ammo clip. They also processed a Remington shotgun that Negro supplied as a gesture of good will from the RLS clique to 20th Street.
Subsequent computer checks revealed no hits on the assault rifle but the shotgun came up positive. Records indicated it was stolen in Reno the previous August. A license-plate check on the red Chevy Blazer carrying Negro and his crew showed the vehicle was registered to a native Salvadoran who currently resided in Sparks, Nevada. He had a lightweight criminal history, including two misdemeanor convictions for driving under the influence.
The focus of Santini’s investigation continued to be 20th Street and their closely allied clique in Richmond, the PLS. But it also now most definitely included the RLS clique headed by Negro. The owner of the Blazer and all the individuals Casper met on his earlier gun-shopping trip to Reno with the San Francisco homies were added to Santini’s multiplying target list. All of them were on the hook for criminal conspiracy.