Salvadoran gangs targeted NYC agent

NEW YORK, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Salvadoran MS-13 gang members hatched a brazen plot to assassinate the U.S. immigration official in charge of a New York crackdown, documents indicate.

Affidavits in an arrest warrant issued for reputed gang member Walter (Duke) Torres said he informed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials that orders had come from MS-13 leaders in El Salvador to kill the unidentified ICE agent, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

Torres made the statements to ICE agents while being held at the Rikers Island prison on a warrant from Virginia. He allegedly told agents he had been put in charge of the assassination plot, and that his MS-13 "clique," which is based in Virginia, came to New York in August to slay the agent.

The Daily News said another MS-13 informant alleged that the ICE agent had been targeted because gang leaders were "exceedingly angry" at him for arresting many of its members in recent years.