Attorney General Pam Bondi said the alleged top MS-13 gang member who was arrested early Thursday morning in Virginia had likely been in the United States for over a decade.
Bondi made the revelation in an interview on “The Ingraham Angle” after 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was taken into custody by federal agents.
“We believe he was recruited in middle school — in middle school!” the former Florida attorney general said.
“He’s been living here illegally with friends and family, and the Biden administration did absolutely nothing to deport these people. You know, as the president says, we didn’t need new laws, we needed a new president to fix this.”
Alleged top leader of MS-13 was arrested in Virginia on Thursday, March 27, 2025.
Santos was taken into custody on an outstanding warrant and was charged with illegal gun possession upon a search of his home, the Associated Press reported.
Bondi told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that a task force consisting of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshals and others, worked hand-in-hand with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sharing data to catch Santos.
“He was one of the top leaders, and he was living half an hour from where we’re sitting right now, living among us,” she said. “We took one of the worst of the worst off the streets today. Americans are safer because of Donald Trump.”
Inmates remain in a cell at the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT) mega-prison, where hundreds of members of the MS-13 and 18 Street gangs are being held, in Tecoluca, El Salvador on January 27, 2025
WHAT IS MS-13, THE VIOLENT GANG TRUMP VOWED TO TARGET?
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin praised state and local agencies during a press conference alongside FBI Director Kash Patel for working to “eradicate the drug and terrorist networks that exist.”
MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in February, along with Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel.
Santos’ arrest comes as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and send criminal migrants back to their country of origin.
Venezuelan migrants walk following their arrival on a flight after being deported from the United States, in Caracas, Venezuela, March 24, 2025. (REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria)
The White House is embroiled in a legal battle after a federal judge temporarily halted flights of alleged Venezuelan gang member terrorists to El Salvador.
DOJ INSISTS EL SALVADOR DEPORTATION FLIGHTS DID NOT VIOLATE COURT ORDER
Bondi said the Justice Department will try to deport Santos, who she says is one of the top three leaders of MS-13, to the Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega prison in El Salvador.
Prison officials stand guard in a pavilion inside the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT) mega-prison, where hundreds of members of the MS-13 and 18 Street gangs are being held, in Tecoluca, El Salvador on January 27, 2025.
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“Let’s send him home. That’s where he belongs,” she told Ingraham. “You know, he belongs back in that El Salvador prison, and that’s where he should go, but we’re going to — you’re going to see a lot more charges on him.”