MS-13 head trades guilty plea for 10-year deal

The leader of MS13 in East Boston, who was one of the dozens of gangbangers rounded up in a 2016 FBI sweep, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, drug, assault and gun charges in a deal with prosecutors that will land him behind bars for a decade.

Santos Portillo Andrade, a 33-year-old Revere man known as “Flaco,” pleaded guilty to the charges as part of a deal with federal prosecutors in Boston that, if accepted by a judge, would put him in jail for 10 years, followed by 4 years of supervised release.

Andrade copped to a RICO conspiracy, admitted responsibility for a 2008 assault on someone he thought was a rival gang member in Malden and conspiracy to possess more than 100 grams of heroin, 500 grams of cocaine and a firearm for the purpose of drug trafficking.

Andrade was one of 61 members of the vicious gang arrested as a result of a three-year investigation, and he is the 15th of those arrested to plead guilty, prosecutors said.

Andrade led the East Boston “clique” of the gang that originated decades ago in Los Angeles among Salvadoran immigrants and has since spread internationally.

The violent transnational gang recruits in high schools and requires new members to show their dedication by attacking, even murdering, rival gang members. The gang’s motto translates to “kill, rape, control.”

U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV deferred accepting Andrade’s plea agreement until his Sept. 26 sentencing.