Case File / Snayder

Carlos Tiberio Ramírez Valladares, alias Snayder de Pasadena

Name	Carlos Tiberio Ramírez Valladares.
Alias	Snayder
Date of birth	08-09-1976
Place of birth	Ahuachapán, El Salvador
Age	49
Status	Imprisoned in El Salvador
Joined the gang	1992
Clique	Pasadena Locos
Program	Ahuachapán Program
Joined in	El Salvador and then in prison in Texas, United States

Monday, September 15th, 2025

Carlos García

Snayder was one of the first young people to join Mara Salvatrucha-13 following the mass arrival of gang members deported from California in the early 1990s. He participated in the creation of the Ranfla Nacional in the mid-2000s, within the prison system, and since then has held a very important position within the gang's leadership. He has been one of the main negotiators in the talks that his criminal organization has held with various Salvadoran governments since at least 2012 and has even been one of the most prominent leaders in the negotiations with Nayib Bukele's government, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The photograph of his tattooed face became an iconic image illustrating articles about MS-13 in newspapers, magazines, and television news programs around the world.

Territorial influence:	Neighborhoods La Gloria, La Chacra, La Ciudadela, Zacamil, Magaña, Santa María, Girasoles 1 and 2, El Triunfo, Junquillo, Viñas del Cantón. Municipalities of Apaneca, Concepción de Ataco. Texispulco, Las Mesas, El Diamante, San José, El Naranjo, Ahuachapán cantons, among other places.
Fought in Salvadoran civil war:	No
Negotiator with Salvadoran government in 2012?:	Yes. He was transferred from the Zacatecoluca Maximum Security Prison to the Ciudad Barrios Prison to issue orders within the prison system and on the streets of El Salvador. He was responsible for coordinating the commitment not to kill, as well as punishing with death those comrades who did not align themselves with the non-aggression policies.
Sanctioned by U.S. Treasury?:	No
Was on El Salvador’s 100 Most Wanted list?:	No
Private hospital visits from prison under Bukele administration?:	Yes. He is the gang member with the most releases from Zacatecoluca prison between 2019 and 2022, according to Guacamaya Leaks documents, with at least 24 releases.
Date of extradition request:	Unknown
Court handling extradition:	Unknown
Interpol red notice?:	No
Pending indictment:	United States v. Carlos Tiberio Ramirez-Valladares, also known as “Snayder of Pasadena”; CR 22 429, Eastern District Court of New York.

Record in El Salvador:	1997, Disturbance of the peace and minor injuries 1998, Injuries sustained in a fight 1999, Damage 2000, Attempted aggravated homicide 2018, Terrorist organizations 2020, Aggravated homicide, co-perpetration of aggravated homicide, and unlawful associations
Record in United States:	2000, Illegal entry
Accusations in United States:	2022, Unlawful association for organized crime. 2022, Conspiracy to provide and conceal material support for terrorists. 2022, Conspiracy for narco-terrorism.
Status of pending case in U.S.:	On November 9, 2023, after being captured in Chiapas, Mexico, he arrived at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, and was formally arrested by agents from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Marshals Service, according to the . On November 13, 2023, Crook remained in temporary detention in Texas. He had his initial appearance without an attorney in the Southern District of Texas before Judge Yvonne Y. Ho. He was interviewed by the marshals and said that in Mexico he worked as a mechanic-welder with a friend who hired him, where he earned 6,000 pesos per month (less than $300). Contradicting this, he said he spent $500 on rent, medicine, food, and other things. He is being held in pretrial detention, according to page 5 of the Texas case file. On November 15, 2023, he had an identity hearing, already with a court-appointed lawyer, as he claimed he did not have the money to pay for one. U.S. marshals were ordered to transport him to the New York court, according to document 7 of the Southern District of Texas. On December 8, 2023, after 23 days, he arrived at the Eastern District Court of New York. He was read his charges and waived a speedy trial. A follow-up hearing was scheduled for January 11, 2024, before Judge Joan M. Azrack, according to document 21 of the case in the New York court. He was sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he was held in a segregated cell in the Special Confinement Unit.
Tattoos:	Skull, the letters “MS” Forehead, “Mara Salvatrucha” and “LA PVLS” Left temple, the letters “MS” Both cheeks, the letters “MS” Left eye, a teardrop and a “13” Right eye, a teardrop and the letters “MS” Chin, “Emes” Neck, the letters ‘MS’ and the word “Emes” Right arm at wrist level: letters “MS” Right collarbone, a dragon with wings.

More information:

In an interview with the author in 2012, Snayder claimed to have been a firefighter in the Santa Ana department for six years.
In 1992, at the age of 16, he was one of the first gang members to join the Park View Locos clique in the La Zacamil neighborhood of El Salvador, he said in the interview.
The police killed one of his brothers, according to the book “Doble Cara” by Paolo Lüers.
In 1997, he fled El Salvador after death squads nearly killed him, per his own account. He made his way to Houston, Texas, and only spent two or three days on U.S. soil, as he was captured by immigration authorities upon crossing the border and sent to prison for three years.
During his confinement in Texas, he met gang members who convinced him to change cliques and join the Pasadena Locos, a California cell that was also present in Texas, according to his own account.
He claimed that in 2000 he was deported to El Salvador.
Upon his return, he founded the Little Dementes Locos Salvatruchos clique in the Zacamil neighborhood, according to the witness “Noé,” used by the Salvadoran Attorney General's Office to support the Cuscatlán Case.
He married gang member Sonia Guadalupe Reyna Méndez, alias Diabla de Park View Locos, who, according to a Salvadoran police file, held the rank of clique “corredora” in the Bosques del Río neighborhood of Atiquizaya.
He has a brother in the United States, known as Lil Cycho de Park View Locos, who was active in New York and then imprisoned in a federal prison, according to three gang members consulted for this investigation.
On November 20, 2000, he murdered Ovelio Antonio Salazar. On January 9, 2001, the Salvadoran police surrounded the house where he was hiding. Snayder came out with a fragmentation grenade in each hand and threw one of them at the police, injuring them, but he was subdued, according to a warrant issued by the Ahuachapán Sentencing Court. He was sentenced to 30 years.
In 2001, he was sent to the Quezaltepeque prison, according to prison movement records released in the Cuscatlán Case.
In 2002, he was in the Apanteos prison, where he served as a gang “corredor” and was one of the people who formed the Ranfla Nacional, according to the U.S. indictment.
In the middle of that decade, he was transferred to the maximum-security prison in Zacatecoluca.
On March 8, 2012, he was transferred from the Zacatecoluca maximum-security prison to the Ciudad Barrios prison on the orders of the Minister of Security and Justice, David Munguía Payés, along with 14 other MS-13 members, to implement the so-called “Truce” during the presidency of Mauricio Funes, according to investigations by El Faro.
In 2012, as part of the Truce, he was one of his gang's main spokesmen before mediators, non-governmental organizations, the media, and Barrio 18 leaders, according to testimony by gang member with the code name “Kazan,” who collaborated with the PNC.
On July 13, 2012, Snayder participated in a meeting between the then Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, and members of the three gangs at the Mariona prison to read a statement seeking to “restore social peace,” entitled “9 Petitions from the gangs to the Secretary General of the OAS in the presence of mediators and their commitment.”
In 2014, “he was in charge within the [Ciudad Barrios] prison of raising awareness among visitors for the 2014 elections, in terms of which party to vote for; at that time, they had to vote for the FMLN,” reads page 276 of the Cuscatlán Case ruling.
On January 8, 2013, in sector 3 of the Ciudad Barrios prison, members of the Ranfla Nacional surrounded Manuel Eduardo Pineda Santamaría, alias Fénix, whom the gang accused of being homosexual, according to the lengthy indictment in the Cuscatlán case. He was sentenced to death, so Crook began applying a chokehold to his neck, while Trece and others held his feet and hands and punched him in the stomach. Crook then placed a bag over his head to suffocate him. At the point of death, they took him to the second floor, where Snayder and another gang member held him upside down, each grabbing one of his feet, and dropped him from a height of almost four and a half meters. When he fell, other gang members took him to the infirmary, claiming that he had fallen while hanging clothes.
On April 16, 2015, he was transferred back to the Zacatecoluca prison after the truce was considered over, according to several media outlets.
On January 6, 2016, Snayder was one of the masterminds behind the murder of Walter Alexánder Carrillo Alfaro, Shorty, according to an intelligence report from the Transnational Anti-Gang Center AE-140116-001, which led to the creation of a dissident faction called MS-503.
On August 14, 2016, during a search of the Zacatecoluca prison, the investigative police found eight micro SD memory cards in his cell, as well as 18 handwritten messages (wilas) and two written telephone numbers, according to a report prepared by the Subdirectorate of Investigations on August 16 of that year.
One of the wilas reads that the gang intended to buy 500 rifles with money accumulated by the gang: “The homies agreed to collect all the rent for a month, both from cliques and individuals, to collect ‘a million’ and use it to buy long guns, and now that the clown has come, the homie has confirmed that they have already bought 500 long guns.” This can be read in the confidential report by Salvadoran authorities entitled “Threats and Orders Issued by Gang Leaders Aimed at Generating Violence,” dated August 2016.
In 2018, he issued “guidelines to gang members at large, with the aim of attacking the physical integrity of the Sentencing Judge of Ahuachapán, and against two prosecutors identified as Karla Georgina Burgos Pocasangre and Carlos Humberto Represa Álvarez, who work in the Department of Ahuachapán,” according to a daily report prepared by the Police Subdirectorate of Intelligence.
On March 7, 2018, Efraín Cortez, alias Tigre, asserted in an interview with the PNC in Zacatecoluca that Snayder, along with Borromeo Enrique Henríquez Solórzano, alias Diablito, and José Luis Mendoza Figueroa, alias Pavas, were discussing whether to “continue the war with the system or, on the contrary, if they can no longer do so, to go all out for dialogue with the system (sic),” according to the Prison Intelligence Department.
On April 10, 2018, another former gang member known as Muñeco de Joyas Locos Salvatruchas confessed to the PNC that Snayder, along with Diablito; Élmer Canales Rivera, alias Crook; Saúl Antonio Ángel Turcios, alias Trece; and Edson Zachary Eufemia Escobar, alias Speedy, ordered an attack on staff at the Zacatecoluca prison, where they injured a female worker, according to the Police Intelligence Subdirectorate.
On September 3, 2019, when Bukele was already president, a former gang member of the Iberia Locos Salvatruchas clique told Zacatecoluca guards that Snayder, along with Diablito, Crook, and Trece, were the only ones who “have the authority to talk to government officials,” and that “no one from the prison gang or MS house or sectors 1 to 4 (of Zacatecoluca) has the authority,” according to the interview recorded as Note 67994.
On January 7, 2020, Snayder was first recorded leaving for the Santa Teresa Hospital in Zacatecoluca, where he was admitted for one day, according to a daily police report.
On February 6, 2020, Snayder was the gang member who received the highest sentence in the Cuscatlán Case, with 74 years. He was accused of Illegal Associations, Aggravated Homicide, and Co-perpetration of Aggravated Homicide.
In 2020, Snayder was imprisoned in sector 6, on the third floor of the Zacatecoluca maximum security prison. He was on the same floor as Diablito, Trece, and José Luis Mendoza Figueroa, alias Pavas, with whom he used to go out for medical visits, Redacción Regional reported.
In 2022, Snayder was used as a spokesperson for his gang during negotiations with the Bukele administration, according to the Eastern District Court of New York. The indictment states: “He is a key participant in the negotiations between MS-13 and the government of El Salvador.”
From 2019 to 2022, Snayder went to at least 25 alleged medical appointments, being hospitalized in at least six of them, with stays of up to seven days. On at least five occasions, he was accompanied by Diablito, according to a database compiled by the author with more than 2,000 documents leaked by Guacamaya.
On March 26, 2022, in the midst of the massacre that led to the imposition of the State of Emergency, Snayder, along with Trece and Carlos Alberto Martínez, alias Shaggy, were taken to the Bautista private hospital and remained outside for almost three hours, according to an El Faro investigation.