A 23-year-old Mexican gang queenpin known for carving out the hearts of her victims and offering them up as sacrifices to a pagan god of death has landed half a century in prison.
Michelle Angelica Pineda, a k a “La Chely,” was tried in the Mexican state of Chihuahua and sentenced to 50 years behind bars Friday, the FBI said in a release.
“Pineda was known for her extreme brutality, such as dismembering bodies, removing hearts, and placing the hearts in front of ‘Santa Muerte’ altars and statues,” the FBI said.
Santa Muerte is a pagan deity representing death.
The cold-hearted killer was only 22 when the FBI and Customs and Border Protection arrested her at a motel in El Paso early last year, according to MENIO.
She had entered the US illegally and operated a massive drug network along the border for the Artistas Asesinos, or Doble A Cartel, according to the FBI.
The Artistas Asesinos both traffic drugs and act as an enforcement arm for the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, according to the US District Attorney’s Office.
Arresting authorities found Pineda holed up with guns, bladed weapons and a cornucopia of drugs, including fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and Xanax. --->READ MORE HERE
Homicide victim's heart removed as ritual offering
Five members of a bloodthirsty Juárez gang crew were sentenced to 50 years in prison for the killing of a man whose body was dismembered and his heart removed as an offering to the Santa Muerte.
The sentence in "La Chely" trial was handed down by a judge in a Juárez courtroom on Friday, Dec. 26, the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office said.
The trial was dubbed "La Chely" case because of the nickname of the crew's reputed leader, Michelle Angelica Pineda Valdez, aka “La Chely" and "La Mich," who was arrested at an El Paso motel by the FBI El Paso Safe Streets Gang Task Force and U.S. Border Patrol in February 2024.
Shortly after her arrest, Pineda, a Mexican citizen who had unlawfully crossed the border, was handed over to the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency at the middle of one of the Downtown El Paso-Juárez international bridges.
Pineda was convicted of homicide and sentenced to 50 years, along with four others — Jorge G.M., Joana Michelle A.G., Jaqueline S.B., and Felix Ivan L.C. The surnames of defendants were not disclosed by Chihuahua authorities in keeping with rules in Mexico regarding the identification of crime suspects.
The group was convicted of the torture, slaying and dismemberment of Jorge Renteria Rodriguez on Dec. 5, 2023, at a house in the Hacienda de Las Torres area in the southeastern edges of Juárez, the attorney general's office said.
The man's body had been cut to pieces before the remains were placed inside plastic bags and dumped in El Mezquital area of the city, prosecutors said. A break in the case occurred when municipal police stopped a person found with blood stains near the site where a mutilated corpse had been dumped.
When the first arrests took place in December 2023, a Chihuahua state prosecutor said the group was suspected of more than 20 homicides, including ripping the hearts out of some victims, whose tortured and mutilated bodies were dumped in public.
The convicted killers were part of a cell of the Artistas Asesinos, a violent street and prison gang in Juárez associated with the Sinaloa drug cartel. --->READ MORE HERE
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