Early Nuestra Familia, courtesy of KnowGangs

Some of the source documents used by CIR reporters in the course of investigating this project.

Nuestra Familia documents

> Nuestra Familia Constitution [html] | PDF version (Large file, 2.9 mb)

The constitution's articles, describing the gang's structure, ranks, and procedures.The document has undergone numerous revisions over the years. This version was seized from a prison cell several years ago.

Government documents regarding NF informants

Operation Black Widow was the U.S. Justice Department's longest and costliest gang prosecution ever. Modeled on the RICO prosecutions used to bring the Italian Mafia, the investigation aimed to break apart the leadership of the Nuestra Familia.

These documents from the investigation were obtained by CIR and were used in the course of investigating this story.

> Federal Grand Jury Transcript [PDF] Salinas police officer Mike Lazzarini testified before a federal grand jury that, in 1998, police wanted to make arrests when they uncovered a Nuestra Familia murder plot. But, Lazzarini testified, they were asked to wait for more "overt acts" to be committed before making arrests. While officers waited outside a Salinas house, a man was shot and killed and his female companion seriously wounded.

According to a 2004 sealed court affadavit by Monterey County Assistant DA Chuck Olvis, Lazzarini said that the prosecutor who asked Salinas Police to wait for the overt acts was an Assistant US Attorney working on Operation Black Widow for then-US Attorney Robert Mueller (now Director of the FBI).

> FBI Internal Report [PDF] This report describes informant Daniel Hernandez's conversation with Armando Heredia Santa Cruz, who reported he was distributing weapons to young gang members in Salinas. Hernandez expressed no concern, and Salinas police sources say the FBI never informed local authorities that guns were being introduced into the community by Nuestra Familia.

> Salinas Police Report [PDF] Interview by Salinas Police of Nuestra Familia associate Martin Ramirez concerning the murder of Raymond Sanchez. In this interview, FBI informant Hernandez is referred to as both Danny and Achille, his Aztec name used by Nuestra Familia members.

> FBI 302 Internal 302 Report [PDF] While serving as an FBI informant, "source" Daniel Hernandez finally admitted he lied to his FBI handlers about several occasions when he had disappeared for days. At first he told the FBI he left town to play golf, but later, reports from other informants forced him to admit he delivered several pounds of methamphetamine to a cousin, George Tafoya.

> FBI Internal 302 Report [PDF] Just before pulling him off the case, government agents acknowledge that their top informant Hernandez committed unauthorized crimes while working for the FBI, including drug deals and keeping thousands in illegal cash payments from Nuestra Familia members.


House report on the FBI's use of informants

> Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBIs Use of Murderers as Informants, As Operation Black Widow showed, working with top-level gang informants can be a risky business.This House Government Reform Committee November 2003 investigation describes the deadly complications that can occur when FBI agents work with high-level mob informants. The House investigation inspired President George W. Bush to invoke his first use of executive priviledge --to halt the committee's request for documents. Among the report's conclusions: The use of murderers as government informants created problems that were, and continue to be, "extremely harmful to the administration of justice."