Mexican Mafia leader offered protection to El Chapo, prosecutors say

In 1989, Ronaldo Ayala was sentenced to death for murdering three men in a San Diego auto repair shop.

Instead of facing the gas chamber at San Quentin, the reputed Mexican Mafia member turned death row into a base of power, law enforcement authorities and gang defectors say, collecting extortion payments, trafficking drugs and orchestrating acts of violence through a vast network of underlings from San Diego to Seattle.

Ayala, 74, now faces racketeering charges brought by federal prosecutors in Sacramento, who allege the National City native conspired with members of the Sinaloa cartel to distribute methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl throughout the western United States.

Ayala, who was transferred last year from San Quentin to Centinela state prison as Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down death row, has yet to enter a plea. It wasn’t clear Friday whether he was represented by a lawyer.

Ronaldo Ayala was held on San Quentin’s death row for three decades.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

In a bare-bones indictment made public Friday, prosecutors allege Ayala oversaw a partnership between the Mexican Mafia and the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking group, and offered protection to its former leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

It wasn’t clear from the indictment whether Guzman accepted — or would even need — the alleged offer. The former kingpin is serving a life term at ADX Florence, a maximum security federal penitentiary in Colorado where he has no contact with other inmates.

San Diego has produced many Mexican Mafia members, but none as powerful as Ayala, a witness told FBI agents in 2023.

The witness — Ayala’s alleged liaison to gang members in the San Diego area — pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

According to a transcript of the witness’ interview with the FBI, Ayala carved up the San Diego area with two other alleged Mexican Mafia members, his brother Hector and Richard Buchanan.

Buchanan controlled the east side of San Diego and much of its South Bay. Ayala’s brother got North County and Chula Vista. Ronaldo Ayala had Spring Valley, Paradise Hills, National City and “everything else,” she said.

“At the end of the day,” she told the agents, “this is Ronnie’s city.”

According to the witness, Ayala also collected a regular payment called “the light bill” from the San Diego County jail system, which he split with his brother and Buchanan. Every module in the jail system was required to contribute $50 a month through CashApp, the woman told the agents.

Ayala’s underlings ran different rackets, she said. Some bought methamphetamine in Tijuana and shipped it to San Bernardino or Texas. Others ran casitas — illegal gambling parlors — or “trap houses” where people could buy and use drugs, according to the witness.

San Diego County prosecutors charged seven people in 2022 with operating a trap house in the Encanto neighborhood for Ayala. His representative in San Ysidro, Juan “Sleepy” Castro, oversaw loan-sharking and human smuggling operations in addition to selling drugs, prosecutors wrote in court papers. Castro was sentenced in 2023 to 10 years in prison for trafficking methamphetamine.

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán after his capture in Mexico in 2014.

(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)

Because he was held on death row with high-profile gang members from across California, Ayala’s reach went beyond San Diego, the witness told the FBI.

According to the indictment made public this week, Ayala collected “taxes” from Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco and even Seattle, where prosecutors say gang members working under Ayala committed an arson attack on a musician who claimed in a music video to have “mafia” ties.

Two reputed members of Seattle’s United Lokotes gang, Samuel “Payaso” Morales and Alexis “Menace” Rodriguez, are also accused of extorting the unnamed musician whose property was burned.

Helping Ayala collect “taxes” on sales of drugs from the Sinaloa cartel partnership was Angel “Snappy” Esparza, who was sent to death row for murdering three people in Riverside County, the indictment charges.

Ronald “Temper” Sepulveda, whom Ayala referred to as “our main supporter,” oversaw the reputed Mexican Mafia member’s affairs in Riverside County, including the extortion of musicians, prosecutors allege.

Allen “Frankie Chino” Fong, a San José gang member serving a 17-year prison term for assault, is charged with collecting “taxes” for Ayala while held at the state prison in Solano.