Herlyn Barrientos wasn’t happy to run into a fellow member of his gang in the produce section of his local grocery store.
A burly man with tattoos inked on his head and face, Barrientos was from MS-13, a group notorious for savage killings. Federal prosecutors alleged the Honduran national, nicknamed “Doctorazo,” supplied methamphetamine to MS-13 members across Los Angeles, who sold the drug and kicked up a cut to the gang’s imprisoned leader.
Charged with drug trafficking in 2023, Barrientos decided to turn on his gang and cooperate with the FBI. A judge signed off on his release from jail, and Barrientos, 47, returned to South Los Angeles.
Federal prosecutors on Friday announced three reputed MS-13 members are charged with killing Barrientos on the orders of gang leaders.
Barrientos’ deal was supposed to remain secret, but the FBI now says Barrientos’ status as an informant was “widely” known, calling into question why he was still living in his old neighborhood when he was killed on Feb. 18.
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.
Just before his death, Barrientos called an FBI agent to report seeing a man with a gun, the handler wrote in an affidavit. The agent said he was on the phone with Barrientos as he was shot to death.
“It’s a terrible thing what happened to him,” said Michael Crain, an attorney who represented Barrientos in his drug trafficking case. Crain declined to comment further.
The affidavit said evidence made clear Barrientos was killed because he was cooperating.
After his death, another informant working for the FBI called the leader of Barrientos’ MS-13 clique, who said people higher up in the gang had given him instructions: “They told me I had to clean out my garbage, you understand?”
“That work you cannot say no to,” he said, according to the affidavit.
Around 7 p.m. on the last day of his life, Barrientos drove to a Superior Grocers on Figueroa and 91st streets, Joseph Carelli, an FBI special agent, wrote in an affidavit.
A black SUV followed Barrientos into the parking lot. Three men stepped out of the SUV and entered the store. In the produce section, they appeared to exchange greetings with Barrientos, Carelli wrote, citing footage from store cameras.
One of the three men, identified by Carelli as Roberto Carlos Aguilar, walked away and started making calls. Aguilar is a Salvadoran national who illegally entered the United States, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said.
Aguilar and Barrientos talked in the parking lot of the grocery store for about 30 minutes, Carelli wrote. Aguilar got two calls during that time that went to voicemail. One was from Dennis Anaya Urias, a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and reputed member of MS-13’s Bagos clique, according to Carelli and the U.S. attorney’s office spokesman.
Barrientos was also from the Bagos clique, a subset of MS-13 that is based in the Mid-City neighborhood, Carelli wrote.
T-Mobile records showed that Urias’ phone traveled from Koreatown to the area of the Superior Grocers around 7:50 p.m., when surveillance footage showed a gray Honda CR-V park across from the store, according to the agent.
Aguilar, meanwhile, walked off and Barrientos called 911. He told the operator he’d seen a man armed with a pistol. The suspect wore black, his face covered by a handkerchief, Barrientos said.
Barrientos then called Carelli, his handler. A man whose face was covered just tried to shoot him, he told the agent, but the gun didn’t go off.
As they were talking, Carelli heard gunshots. Barrientos stopped responding. The agent heard the sounds of police and other first responders in the background, he wrote.
A month later, California Highway Patrol officers found a burned CR-V in North Hollywood, Carelli wrote. The agent believed the car was the one shown in surveillance footage driven by Barrientos’ killers.
Arrested on May 12, Urias — whose phone records showed he’d traveled from Koreatown to South L.A. just before the shooting — told a jailhouse informant the order to kill Barrientos came “straight from the top,” Carelli wrote.
Urias said he and another MS-13 member, Grevil Zelaya Santiago, got a call from Aguilar, who said he’d found the “son of a whore,” according to the agent.
Urias said he and Zelaya drove in the CR-V to South L.A., covered their faces and shot Barrientos to death, Carelli wrote.
Attorneys for Urias and Zelaya didn’t immediately return request for comment. It wasn’t clear who was representing Aguilar.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in aid of racketeering.
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