Southeast Queens gang leader Junior Zelaya Canales pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court on Monday for his role in three murders and multiple shootings during a reign of terror that spanned New York, Texas, and El Salvador.
Junior Zelaya Canales, 28, of Jamaica, pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges in connection with his participation in the 2016 murder of 15-year-old Joshua Guzman in Hempstead, Long Island.
In 2016, Zelaya Canales was the regional leader of the Shatto Park Locos Locos Sureños (SPLS) sect of the 18th Street gang when he ordered that Guzman be killed because he was perceived to be disrespectful towards 18th Street gang members.
On the night of Sept. 11, Zelaya Canales dispatched two lower-level members to Long Island to lure Guzman out and murder him as part of a demonstration of their allegiance to the gang. At 1:03 a.m. the Hempstead Police Department received a ShotSpotter notification of gunfire near the intersection of Linden Avenue and Laurel Avenue in Hempstead and raced to the scene with officers from the Nassau Police Department and found the body of Guzman near a curb with a gunshot wound in the back of his head. He was pronounced dead at the crime scene.
On July 9, 2017, Zelaya Canales led a shootout in Woodside with at least two other members of the 18th Street gang in a turf war with rival gang members. NYPD officers responded to the area after numerous 911 calls were made concerning multiple gunshots, and witnesses reported seeing three to four men running from the scene. After a canvas of the area, investigators recovered nine 9mm shell casings, among other evidence.
NYPD detectives subsequently went to Zelaya Canales’s Jamaica apartment to execute two arrest warrants unrelated to the Woodside shootout and recovered a 9mm Ruger with a defaced serial number and ammo for a number of other firearms. A ballistics examination determined that the Ruger was used in the attempted murder of the rival gang members.
“Today’s guilty plea marks the end of a sweeping investigation into the violent and disturbing affairs of the 18th Street gang that removed some of the most influential, powerful and ruthless gang members from city streets across the country,” said Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Zelaya Canales is the ninth and final defendant to plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy, including three other 18th Street gang members from Jamaica, Yanki Misael Cruz Mateo, 25, Yoni Alexander Sierra, 26, and Eric Chavez, 25, who committed multiple acts of violence to promote and enhance the prestige and reputation of the gang, and to maintain and increase their own membership and status in the gang.
Cruz Mateo, known on the street as “Yankee Mateo,” “Doggy,” and “Wino,” was the gunman in the 2018 murder of Oscar Antonio Blanco Hernandez, who was believed to be a member of the rival MS-13 gang. Following an elaborate set-up, the victim was transported to Queens from his New Jersey home to a quiet residential street in Jamaica Hills. Cruz Mateo and two co-defendants told Blanco Hernandez to get out of the vehicle and start walking. A few minutes later, Cruz Mateo drew a .380 caliber semiautomatic handgun and shot him in the back of his head, killing him instantly.
“Together with our law enforcement partners around the nation and the world, my office will not rest until the scourge of gang violence and senseless loss of life is put to an end,” Peace said. “While these guilty pleas cannot undo the grave harm this gang has caused, we hope that it will bring a measure of closure to the victims and their families.”
At sentencing, Zelaya Canales faces up to life imprisonment.
