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Salinas' missing kingpin
Top gang member disappears but still calling the shots
Monterey
County Herald | November 12, 2006 Sunday
Copyright 2006 Monterey County Herald. All Rights Reserved. Posted with
permission.
By
JULIA REYNOLDS Herald Salinas Bureau
Recent federal and local law enforcement efforts to break up a Nuestra Familia gang regiment in Salinas have been stymied, leaving investigators with an unanswered question: Where's Bubba?
Robert "Bubba" Hanrahan, 34, was arrested on drug and gang charges in 2004 and has remained the focus of an intense investigation by the FBI, Salinas police and state parole officers ever since.
Early this year, Hanrahan vanished and failed to appear at a court hearing.
Authorities speculate the admitted Nuestra Familia member may be living in the Mexican border region, and say he is still a "shot-caller" for drug and gang activity in Salinas, over which the NF continues to hold a grip.
Other rumors have placed him in Las Vegas because Hanrahan is known to love boxing.
"If anyone has leads, I would encourage them to provide information," Assistant District Attorney Ann Hill said Friday.
Early this year, while he was facing serious charges in Monterey County court, the FBI and local law enforcement tried to build a larger, racketeering-type conspiracy case against Hanrahan and his associates. In January, authorities raided three Salinas residences and served search warrants on a long list of alleged NF associates.
The raids netted little fodder for what U.S. attorneys hoped would be a major conspiracy case under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
According to a search warrant affidavit, investigators learned that several Salinas women were registered owners of vehicles used in Hanrahan's drug operations, including a 2004 gray Jaguar. Authorities believed the women were helping the NF keep its grip on methamphetamine sales in Salinas' Chinatown.
According to Salinas police investigator Kendall Gray, who filed the affidavit, the NF has begun to use more women in its operations -- signing up mothers, girlfriends and acquaintances to register cars, rent apartments and deliver messages, drug and cash.
Shortly after the raids, Hanrahan was nowhere to be found. Yet gang investigators say he continues to influence criminal activity in Salinas, even while on the lam.
"He's still a shot-caller," said Monterey County Sheriff's Sgt. Doug Dahmen.
It was not the first time Hanrahan managed to evade a major federal prosecution.
In 2000, he was in charge of a small crew of NF associates who handled drug sales in Chinatown and other parts of the city. They charged "rent" from other drug dealers who operated in NF territory.
In June of 2000, after they were suspected of shooting into a residence, Hanrahan and several gang associates were arrested during a night SWAT raid.
The gun used in the attack was found on the premises, but detectives couldn't prove who did the shooting. Hanrahan went back to prison on a parole violation, and the prison term netted him a promotion within the gang, according to FBI documents obtained by The Herald.
In April of 2001, the documents said, Hanrahan was paroled, carrying orders from Nuestra Familia leaders in Pelican Bay State Prison that placed him in charge of the Salinas regiment.
But he was quickly stripped of his NF membership by a high-ranking gang commander on the streets named Daniel Hernandez, who ignored the orders from Pelican Bay. While Hanrahan was on the outs, U.S. attorneys and local prosecutors put together Operation Black Widow, the largest-ever gang prosecution.
Hanrahan was eventually allowed back in the gang's graces, after the news surfaced that Hernandez was a paid FBI informant. By then, Operation Black Widow had drawn to a close.
In the summer of 2004, sheriff's narcotics investigators hoped to build a case against Hanrahan, his girlfriend Leticia Salcido, and a veteran Salinas East Market gang member known as "Spike."
Salinas police detective Kendall Gray said prosecutors later told him that a woman known as "Locona" had moved out so Hanrahan and Leticia could use the house as a base for their drug business.
On Aug. 27, narcotics officers raided the residence.
Salcido, 29, and Hanrahan were asleep on the floor. In the room were more than two pounds of crystal meth, three-quarters of a pound of cocaine, pagers, cell phones, ledger sheets, two digital scales, empty plastic baggies, a stolen .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Russian rifle.
Inside a safe were Nuestra Familia documents listing the names of NF soldiers in various regions of California. Detectives found pages of instructions for gang members to abide by when in prison, and a "quiz" for up-and-coming Norteños with questions such as "Who is the Number 1 enemy behind the walls?" Answer: "K-9s" -- prison slang for police or correctional officers. Another reads "Define a full 60." Answer: "Cease all activities and prepare to do battle."
A white Mercedes Benz, often driven by Salcido, and a red Lincoln Navigator with a pound of marijuana stashed inside were parked in the driveway. Detectives said a wide-angle surveillance camera was mounted outside the house. A pair of men's pants found next to Bubba had $4,645 in cash in the pocket.
Locona, also known as Guadalupe Sanchez, and a young man, Javan Redongo, had the misfortune of pulling into the driveway while the raid was going on.
The two were caught with what prosecutors said were "rent" payments for the NF, collected from Chinatown drug dealers. Redongo was found with $955 in tightly wrapped bundles of cash, much of it in dollar bills, according to Hill. Investigators told Hill the money came from drug dealers on Soledad Street.
Hanrahan was arrested on various drug and gang charges but posted bail so quickly that officials couldn't request a denial of bail based on the assumption that the money likely came from drug profits.
Salcido also bailed out, but the trial kept getting postponed as federal agents tried to build a larger conspiracy case.
In September 2005, a year after her arrest and with no trial date in sight, Salcido was arrested for shoplifting at Macy's in Northridge Mall.
Hill says Salcido walked into a dressing room with several T-shirts, put them on under her blouse and left the store. She was charged with petty theft with a prior theft conviction and committing a felony while on bail.
By December, Hanrahan was seen around town in a new vehicle of choice: a 2004 Jaguar, registered to a female friend.
In the same month, Gray met with a confidential informant who said Hanrahan was selling drugs out of several Salinas apartments, even as he awaited trial on charges that could land him 32 years in prison.
In early January of this year, undercover agents observed what they believed were drug deals in and around several apartments
Then state parole agent Ben Jimenez received an anonymous call stating that Bubba, Gabriel Caracheo and others were "moving dope." Caracheo was with Hanrahan during the SWAT raid back in 2000, and was on parole at the time of the call.
The tipster said the men were keeping drugs at a safe house and that were "buying cars with cash and putting them under girls' names."
In his affidavit, Gray said the information matched what officers had learned from their confidential informant and DMV records.
Police and federal agents were ready to move on proving what Gray called "a conspiracy among Norteño gang members and their associates to distribute methamphetamine in Salinas and Monterey County for the benefit of Norteño street gangs."
By late January of this year, Salinas police, in collaboration with the FBI and state parole officers, requested warrants for a night raid on three apartments believed to be the base of Hanrahan's operations.
Early Jan. 26, police raided apartments on Hayes Street and Amador Circle as well as Caracheo's residence on Alvin Drive.
But the raids were mostly fruitless. Federal prosecutors failed to file charges against any of a long list of suspected gang members and associates named in the search affidavit.
Two months later, on March 14, Hanrahan failed to appear at a court hearing for his August 2004 bust. An arrest warrant was issued.
Salcido pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for sale and the shoplifting charges. Hill said prosecutors allowed Salcido's sentencing to be postponed so she could have a baby in June, before going to prison.
Gang detectives claim Hanrahan is somehow keeping a hand in Salinas street crime.
Hill said the man known as Spike is still at large.
Of Hanrahan, Hill only said, "He's dangerous."
Robert "Bubba" Hanrahan
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