Jose Audelino Valle Flores, Money Laundering Conspiracy, Massachusetts 2016

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MS-13 Member Sentenced for Money Laundering

A Salvadoran national has been sentenced for his role in a money laundering conspiracy and unlawful reentry into the US. Jose Audelino Valle Flores, a/k/a ‘Mecha’, 33, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper to 33 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.

Valle Flores, who previously resided in Lynn, was found to have been unlawfully in the United States until December 2016, when he was arrested by immigration authorities and deported to El Salvador. However, he was encountered again in the US in August 2018, leading to charges of unlawful reentry.

As a member of the Everett Locos Salvatrucha (ELS) clique of MS-13, Valle Flores was involved in a money laundering conspiracy from approximately 2010 through 2016. Members of MS-13 often pay ‘dues’ to their cliques, which is used to further a variety of criminal activity both within and outside of the US. For example, MS-13 members often send money to El Salvador to further MS-13 gang activity in El Salvador, to purchase weapons, and/or to support MS-13 members who are imprisoned in El Salvador.

Valle Flores conspired with other MS-13 members to send money from the US to El Salvador with the intent of promoting unlawful activity by the MS-13 gang. As an example of these money transfers, for approximately a year around 2014, Valle Flores collected clique dues from ELS members and sent money to MS-13 leaders in El Salvador.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling, Jason Molina, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston, Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, and Colonel Christopher Mason, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, made the announcement.

The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Massachusetts State Police. Valle Flores is the latest in a series of MS-13 members to be charged and sentenced for their involvement in the gang.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney George P. Varghese of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.