A senior leader of the brutal MS-13 gang was arrested in Long Island for his alleged role in nearly a dozen murders, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. 

Joel “Momia” Vargas-Escobar was the alleged leader of the “Parkview clique” of MS-13 operating out of the Las Vegas area, federal prosecutors said. 

The Department of Justice seal is seen during a news conference at the DOJ office in Washington, May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Vargas-Escobar was deported to El Salvador in 2018 but illegally reentered the country and had been on the run for nearly four years, the DOJ said. 

An indictment from the District of Nevada charges Vargas-Escobar, and other alleged members of the “Parkview clique,” with committing 11 murders over about a year in Nevada and California. The indictment alleges that MS-13 members kidnapped victims and drove them to remote locations in the mountains and desert where they were tortured and killed.  

Prosecutors say Vargas-Escobar personally ordered at least two of the charged murders. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks before President Donald Trump at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, March 14, 2025. (POOL)

“The American people are safer following the arrest of yet another MS-13 leader thanks to the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and Joint Task Force Vulcan,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “This terrorist entered our country illegally and is accused of orchestrating 11 murders — under President Trump’s leadership, we will not rest until this terrorist organization is completely dismantled and its members are behind bars.”