Feds Claim “Significant Blow” To Violent Trinitarios Gang “Terrorizing Massachusetts Communities”

By Michael P. Norton

Claiming to have “virtually dismantled” a transnational gang that they said has been “terrorizing communities across Massachusetts for years,” federal prosecutors outlined charges Wednesday against 22 alleged Trinitarios members, including 14 charged in connection with six North Shore homicides.

At a press conference, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley laid out the racketeering conspiracy charges, and said Essex County prosecutors also charged two additional individuals with murder and have charged and convicted Trinitarios members of four additional murders.

“As the court papers make clear, for well over a decade Trinitarios gang members have engaged in brazen acts of murder, assault, and narcotics distribution, instilling fear in the communities across this Commonwealth, particularly in Lynn and in Lawrence,” Foley said at the Moakley Courthouse in Boston. “Today’s law enforcement operation has struck a significant blow against the Trinitarios in Massachusetts, virtually dismantling an organization responsible for years of bloodshed, drug trafficking and lawlessness.”

Enmanuel Paula-Cabral, the group’s “state supreme,” was among those charged. Prosecutors said he had ordered retaliation by Trinitarios against rival gangs, resulting in two double murders that killed four young men from Lynn over four months in 2023.

“Two of the murders were committed over Labor Day weekend at a farewell party for a young man who was heading off to college,” Foley said. “Numerous Trinitarios are alleged to have scouted the party where they believed the rival gang member was present. It is alleged that the Trinitarios fired into the group, killing two young men, including one who was heading off to college, and wounding five others in a drive-by shooting.”

According to prosecutors, investigators identified Trinitarios chapters in Lawrence, Lynn, Boston and Haverhill, and Paula-Cabral is allegedly responsible for a chapter in Manchester, N.H. and Trinitarios located in Maine. Foley said the Trinitarios began in the 1990s at the jail on Rikers Island where some defendants were awaiting murder trials, and said the gang has a presence in county correction facilities in Massachusetts.

“The Massachusetts Trinitarios allegedly recruit new members among communities of legal immigrants and illegal aliens from the Dominican Republic – specifically juveniles in local high schools in Lawrence and Lynn,” the Justice Department said in a press release. “To curry favor with these new recruits, the Trinitarios allegedly appeal to their shared Spanish language and culture, Dominican patriotism and use the appearance of prosperity and brotherhood.”

Eight arrests were made Wednesday morning, Foley said, describing cellphone extractions as “like a goldmine” in the investigation. The probe continues, she said, and “our goal is to eliminate the Trinitarios’ presence in Massachusetts.”