International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 77

International Journal on Criminology
“It's not easy, said the Director of Pelican Bay, Joseph McGrath, 257 to admit the
intense level of communication between these notorious leaders and the outside—
it's how they keep their criminal activities going.” Difficult to accept, perhaps, yet the
highest level of security technology was for a time being totally defeated by little pieces
of paper... are we sure this isn't still the case? 258
While the medium seems unsophisticated, these communications are highly
effective. Sometimes the prisoner would write the message with his own urine on the
back of an innocent document sent in the mail. The recipient could read the secret
message by heating the paper—a well-known procedure. Inmates also use what they
call “ghost writing” where a sharp object is used to write on the inside of a carefully
unfolded envelope, made of kraft paper a little thicker than normal. If well done,
the relief should not be detectable outside. The envelope is glued up again and used
normally, and the recipient reveals the text by gently rubbing a pencil over it. The
text code used by Nuestra Familia in Pelican Bay consisted of a dialect derived from
Huazanguillo, the ancient Nahuatl Aztec language.
The investigation into the activities of Nuestra Familia leaders at Pelican
Bay, named Operation Black Widow, lasted from 1997 to 2001, cost $5 million and
mobilized (in the greatest secrecy), the FBI, the Department of Justice and several
Northern California police departments. In total, twelve men and one woman were
charged, and their networks, sophisticated and effective, were dismantled. Six of the
leadership's members were in prison. The operation uncovered at least fifteen murders
around Santa Rosa, 259 and gave some insight into the Nuestra Familia structure in
Sonoma, and its layered associations with members out on parole and in subservient
street gangs.
The Mexican Mafia controls most of the drug traffic in the Hispanic
neighborhoods of East Los Angeles from within the prison system, but also through
its links with the 18th Street gang. The “Merit” of this solid domination dates back
to the 1970s and a guy named Joe Pegleg Morgan. At sixteen, he began his life as a
gang member by receiving a sentence of forty years in prison for murder. Despite this
serious handicap to his early career Morgan managed to succeed, through control of
drug traffic in prison and the methodical use of violence, in acquiring such power over
street crime that he became, in the second half of his life, one of the most charismatic
leaders the Eme ever had... while he was still in prison 260 .
257
Santa Rosa Press Democrat, April 22, 2001
258
While it was noted that a leader of the Bloods, incarcerated in a prison in New Jersey, had ordered
the execution of a witness by means of an SMS, assassinations generally require explicit authentication
of the order-giver. Probers say Bloods Gang leader Ruling From Behind Bars, nj.com, November 19,
2008.
259
In California, north of San Francisco.
260
Pegleg was detained in Corcoran State Prison (California); he died of liver cancer in November
1993.
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