Federal authorities are on the trail of 15 fugitives who allegedly belong to a criminal organization known as “Bin Laden Records”.

The head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Stephen Muldrow, said Monday that those people are part of a grand jury indictment against 49 people that led to an arrest operation on Thursday last week, called “New Kids,” for alleged gang members who have replaced others who were captured in the past.

Of the total number of defendants, eight were previously in custody on other charges, while 26 were arrested on the street.

Muldrow informed that Jonathan Bermúdez Valdés, alias “Valdes”; Raymond Sánchez Santiago, alias “Churrun” and “Peca”; Jonathan de Jesús Bonilla, alias “Abuelito”; Ardwin Fuentes Rojas, alias “Bartolo” and “Barto”; José Rivera Nazario; Ricardo Rivera González, alias “Ricky” and “Kiki”; and Ángel Ocasio Cancel, alias “Garabato”; Michael Paredes Tollinchi, alias “Tonka” and “Tractor” remain at large.

Also wanted are Luis A. Malpica Negrón, alias “Malpi”; Wesley De Jesús Serrano, alias “Boss”; Jomar Vélez Bermúdez, alias “Borra”; Josué Raúl Cantres Ríos, alias “Bolita”; Christian Malpica Sánchez; Luis Cartagena Cabezudo, alias “Nenguito”; and Joel Manuel Vélez Bally.

The indictment consists of eight counts of conspiring since 2019 to possess and distribute heroin, crack, cocaine, marijuana, fentanyl, Percocet, and Xanax, in Bayamon’s Virgilio Davila Residence Hall and nearby areas. The indictment includes charges against 16 of the defendants for illegal possession of weapons and five face allegations for the use of weapons altered to fire automatically.

“The indictment alleges that the organization maintained control of all drug trafficking activities within the area through the use of force, threats, violence and intimidation, including the use of firearms for such purposes and murder,” Muldrow said.

In addition, the defendants are charged with forfeiture of $50 million, for which authorities seized multiple vehicles and other property during the raid.

In a motion filed to request that they not be allowed to be released on bail, the U.S. Attorney’s Office included photographs of controlled substances seized during the course of the investigation.

According to the document, the Public Prosecutor’s Office also has audio and video recordings, as well as material such as drugs, weapons and other evidence, such as “statements from cooperating witnesses”.

It also points out that these testimonies and evidence “shows that members of the conspiracy participated in shootings and murders to protect their financial interests and the members of their organization.”

“Violent gangs in Puerto Rico, such as ‘Bin Laden Records,’ were supplied by foreign criminal cartels and terrorist organizations - For example, fentanyl from Mexican cartels - manufactured with precursor chemicals from China; and cocaine supplied and transported by Colombian, Dominican and Venezuelan cartels,” Muldrow said.

In this regard, during Monday’s press conference, the official linked the operation to a U.S. federal government offensive against local and “transnational” drug trafficking organizations, declaring them to be “terrorists.

He reiterated that two of these organizations are the so-called “Cartel de los Soles” and the “Tren de Aragua”, based in Venezuela, as alleged in indictments pending in federal courts in other jurisdictions.

Maduro has denied the allegations and has denounced that the military deployment, with warships and fighter jets, in the Caribbean Sea is an offensive against his government, which has been rejected by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“There is no doubt that the Cartel of the Suns exists. It is a cartel that, as part of the Venezuelan government, controls everything that is going on with the trafficking of drugs, oil, gold and many things that have been stolen from the people of Venezuela,” Muldrow said. “Nicolás Maduro has been indicted in the Southern District of New York on drug trafficking charges. There is no question. It is established that he is controlling the drug traffic coming out of Venezuela. And if it’s coming off the coast of Puerto Rico, it’s coming from those cartels.”

The prosecutor said that investigators can identify which cartel the drugs seized in Puerto Rico belong to, but indicated that at the moment “we can’t say which particular barracks is associated” with the drug gang hit by last Thursday’s operation in Bayamón.

He did maintain that international cartels use different groups in locations en route from Colombia and Venezuela to arrange the transport of narcotics, while partnering with gangs on the island to protect the shipments when they arrive in Puerto Rico and in turn send them to the United States.