Politics

JUST IN: Pam Bondi Announces Another Victory For Trump’s DOJ: ‘Long-Running Investigation’

Published

5 days ago

April 4, 2025

In what she called another major win for the Trump-era crackdown on violent gangs, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced federal murder charges Friday against three alleged MS-13 gang members tied to a brutal 2015 killing in Florida.

Flanked by federal agents and local law enforcement, Bondi revealed that the arrests were the result of a cold-case probe targeting a string of violent crimes committed by MS-13 affiliates nearly a decade ago.

“These cases are never cold when it comes to law enforcement,” Bondi said in her opening remarks. “Today we’re here to announce the arrest of three more MS-13 gang members who were in this country illegally and they were in Florida… They’ve all been arrested for first-degree murder. We will be reviewing them to see if we will seek the death penalty.”

The suspects—Jose Ezequiel Gamez-Maravilla, Wilber Rosendo Navarro-Escobar, and Hugo Adiel Bermudez-Martinez—are accused of stabbing and shooting 22-year-old Gerson Vilelio Vasquez-Portillo in western Palm Beach County. Investigators believe Vasquez-Portillo may have been affiliated with a rival gang.

The murder was especially gruesome, with the victim reportedly stabbed more than 100 times before being shot in the head.

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“This has been a long-running investigation that started in 2015,” Bondi explained. “The victim in this case was brutally, brutally murdered… These indictments are a warning to all criminals. We don’t care how long ago you committed the crime. We don’t care where you go. We will find you. We will arrest you. And we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

The arrests were part of a multi-agency operation dubbed Operation Sombra De La Bestia, or Operation Shadow of the Beast. Bondi credited the coordinated effort of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers—including the FBI, Border Patrol, and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office—for tracking the suspects across state lines.

“Gamez-Maravilla was located in Lake County, Florida—get ready for this—he was hanging drywall at The Villages when he was arrested,” Bondi said. “Bermudez-Martinez was apprehended in Minnesota… Great police work by all of our federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies working together found this guy in Minnesota. He thought he got away with this crime, and he did not.”

Bondi described the murder as a “gang initiation,” saying the suspects lured the victim into a car before taking him to a remote location and carrying out the attack.

“They are not just a street gang, they are a highly organized terrorist organization,” she warned. “Last week in Virginia… we arrested one of the worst MS-13 gang members. He was one of the top three leaders of MS-13 in our entire country.”

She said that man was living “half an hour away from D.C., in a nice apartment complex with normal neighbors, bicycles in yards. They are living among us because they think they can get away with this, and they cannot.”

“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing guns and especially violence to our country,” she said. “And under Donald Trump’s presidency, that has stopped.”

She closed with a chilling message for other gang members hiding in plain sight: “Look at these three guys. They thought they got away with it for almost a decade, but they did not… If you are a gang member living in this country, I’d self-deport right now—because we’re coming after you.”