Intro my name is Manuel Madrono
AKA Cricket I was a member of the Arizona Mexican Mafia and this is how crime works for the most part if you look at the
victims of the Mexican Mafia they're going to be other members of the Mexican Mafia
looking back I mean it's it's ridiculous no matter what you're always going to find
some kind of villain amongst yourself you know it's just the hypocrisy of
being a part of this organization Joining the Gang when I was 17 I was transferred to adult Court
I had been in a lot of trouble already as a juvenile so they transfer me to adult Court in
1995 going to prison originally I they gave me 6 and a half years my original crime I was
charged with an armed robbery um it was a carjacking you know I just wanted to be part
of the cool crowd and that's what it was the the members of the Mexican Mafia were somebody
that we had all heard of throughout our time you know as juveniles as kids we looked up to
these guys so when I got there my crime was dangerous enough to where I ended up on a higher
level yard and so I just jumped head on into you know obligating myself to the organization and
like any any other youngster they used me to do multiple things I mean stabbings uh moving
drugs I was in a gang as a kid I was from a neighborhood in the west side of Phoenix you
heard about these Mexican mafia members that ran stuff you heard about the the homicides
they committed in prison everything sounded So Glamorous the way they put it and that movie
American Me had come out and that really had a huge influence uh on us after the movie came out
everybody was running around with their shirts buttoned all the way to the top to become a member
it's not necessarily a myth uh that you have to kill somebody however there's a lot of favoritism
there's a lot of nepotism uh so there's a lot of people that get accepted and get made without
the actual homicide having been done but it's it's a you know expectation that they will kill
for the organization when the time comes at the time I think the count was 150 members total
we like to think about it as you know we're the elite of the prisoner system originally When
I Was Made I had not killed anybody yet my high ranking member took a liking to me and and so he
pushed my my well there was a couple of them but they pushed my name through and I was voted on
and I became a member within a few months I did Kill uh another meman bad standing and that
solidified it I think it took me a while to get to that point and I think there's a way to
stop it before it goes that far I regret it all The Rules the patch itself in Arizona the tattoo that
they wear it's a sun with the double M that comes down into double swords at the bottom it
has a saber-tooth skull above the two M's in the middle and then a black rose in between the double
M's only people that have killed a member in bad standing or a member in the old Mexican Mafia
can even put that black rose in the middle of the patch there is no model per se everybody speaks
about this cause that we have it's a recruitment tool they talk about cultural aspects of it the
Aztec the Mayans you know try to put that kind of spin on it and just make you be prideful in your
race I used to tell younger people about the cause that we were fighting for and if they were to ask
me to Define it I wouldn't be able to you know in the end it's just about drugs and money and you
know power you know that's that's all it is the main rules I mean they have the no snitching
no homosexuality at one time no drugs you were not allowed to partake in any kind of drugs that
changed later uh a lot of these rules are broken multiple times I mean if you see a a member in bad
standing or a member of the old at any time if the doors were to Pop um you have to uh try to kill
them when you're in this SHO je program a lot of the times uh the guards will make a mistake and
open the doors on accident and so you always have to be ready for that you know you're up all day
waiting for that basically you're always supposed to be ready for War and the money situation
everything has to go up uh as it comes in the rule is that you spread it amongst the the brothers
those that are uh within your ranking system um as a normal caral without rank you're just
considered a brother then there'll be the ranking system you have a captain a lieutenant
a sergeant you know you have a lieutenant that has three sergeants then the three sergeants each
have five or six cardal under them the money will go up through that pyramid that's where a lot of
the problems obviously come in because people feel that money is always being held back and so that
rule will be broken quite often the biggest rule is to always maintain contact one of the reasons
a lot of members have been killed is because when they get out of prison they kind of just forget
about everything they stop contact uh they just move on with their lives a lot of the times the
problem is they don't change their lives so they continue with crime and they'll get locked back
up go in there and try to give excuses as to why they couldn't write or you know whatever their
little you know whatever the excuses are and for for the most part it never works and and so a
lot of members have been killed behind that rule alone it started in California in the early 50s
uh 57 I believe but the Arizona faction started The Expansion in the early 70s by three juveniles actually
that came into the system and they started La Familia and then shortly thereafter took on
the name Mex Mafia Arizona had some influence from California but was also autonomous and
now they are um basically it's not together necessarily but friendly and on working
terms the administration was originally the ones that named them old and new but they
were all the same thing at one point these are members that just split into two factions it
was just a internal struggle if you will the organizations themselves kind of used it as a
way I guess just to keep it straight as well they would say you know in Spanish we from
the NOA the new um they're from the via the old I'd never got rank I wasn't a sergeant
lieutenant none of that stuff um I was just The Hierarchy a a member the five captains were the main ones
that uh everyone knew and those five captains sat at the uh called the Messa the table
we have the Messa system or table system where everything is voted on through them so
you had to be a captain with a black rose to sit at the table the five captains set all
the rules the regulations they changed the rules all the politicking would go through
them we're still all supposed to be brothers and we're all supposed to be um equal even you
know that that's it's a name only that is the way it's supposed to be obviously the captains
have a lot more power but again it's more of a popularity contest if you're a brother you
basically uh are expected to know what it is you're supposed to be doing whether that's
establishing stores on The Yards getting rid of people that shouldn't be on the yard bringing
in dope uh or or collecting dope on the yards The Rivalries in Arizona the the our main rival uh as I was
coming in as a youngster uh was with the old Mexican Mafia the administration tried their best
to keep them protected uh they have a thing where they it was called protective segregation in
the later years of the '90s we started having uh problems with a group that started call themselves
The Border Brothers that became a real big thing and California at this point was was behind the
Border Brothers as well so we were actually in a war for quite a few years against Mexican
Nationals or Border Brothers and California uh people that were born in California
the Mexican Mafia wanted to be the only organization that had a patch as far as the you
know on the Hispanic side the Mexican side the Border Brothers uh started wearing a patch they
started being hit throughout the system and there started being riots it was probably about a
3 or 4 year time frame where it was going on in Arizona they also have an Arian Brotherhood
that was factioned off of the California Aran Brotherhood it was actually a California member
that came into our system the Arizona guys kind of hom grew it after that we did align
with them only because of obviously the the the offense to the black gangs it was just
a loose Allegiance I mean or alignment more just friends if there was something that uh
the whites did wrong we could go to them and they would take care of it themselves and vice
versa you know obviously if they bring in drugs they don't have to give a portion to the Mexican
Mafia and vice versa we everything stays within your own race when it comes to that the blacks
had multiple gangs they had the ma Mau [ __ ] gang they had the Muslims all of them were kind
of against each other and the Arian Brotherhood was against all of them I was part of a riot on
the saturada yard in Tucson and I got stabbed in my neck and I spoke to my mom and my mom was
born in Mexico and um when I told her what was happening she was like what are you you guys are
just ridiculous like what are you talking about it's they saying people and I would tell her
no you know it's different Ma you don't know you know you don't understand and and she would
just be you know she would cuss me out in Spanish just you know guys are stupid kind of and you know
now that I can look back and I can see there's no big bad wolf out there that we were fighting
against for the most part our victims were ourselves there's not a lot of members on the
street uh that we don't usually make it that On the Street that long because as soon there's a whole task
force that's established for the prison gang it was called the violent Street gang task force
it was I believe two detectives from the Phoenix PD they had members from the FBI from every
organization you could think of and so those were the ones that were uh basically on us all the
time it was tough they would they would follow me everywhere I'd walk in restaurants and they'd be
sitting and they eating they would go to houses of you know family of loved ones and they would tell
them you know hey your son is hanging out with a real bad guy he's suspected in multiple homicides
and they would just you know try to make it as tough as possible for me out there so when there's
a member that's going to get out or something usually they're getting out with some established
things that need to be done the problem is some of these guys will get out and even though
they left the organization they're still drugs or into money or whatever so they'll go
back to their neighborhoods and they'll say who they were to try to get their neighborhood to give
them drugs and money and that'll always get back to a a mem and good standing and so that's how
we usually find them to to be able to kill them and me getting out I I did have a few uh names
that that I needed to uh that were that were on the list to be killed upon being released I right
away tried to make connections with drug dealers that were already established on the streets at
first uh I tried to use um being a Mexican Mafia member to influence them but that actually scared
a lot of them away people uh there's a history of bullying uh amongst the Mexican Mafia where
they would approach these drug dealers with you know hey we're the Mexican Mafia and you know
we want this and that and they just take instead of you know there's no give back um so what I
started doing really was I I had conversations with the guys and I was like listen I understand
our history that's not what I'm about the only thing I'm asking you to do is give me a better
number than you give most people at the time uh methampetamine was a big thing and that's
what I was uh most mostly involved in pounds of methamphetamine I was sending to Kentucky
where it was double the price from Arizona The Money it wasn't like I had to send 80% of my proceeds
to anybody the established amount for non-members is they do have to give up a third of anything
they bring into the system so if you bring in three grams of heroin one of those is going to
the Mexican Mafia but us within ourselves we're pretty free to make money and do whatever we
need to do for that it just comes down to that rule of of staying in contact so if you get
a letter saying hey my sister needs you know a TV then you get the sister a TV and you're
basically um keeping people happy everything that came into prison was what was controlled by
the Mexican Mafia you couldn't bring dope in and make money without giving them their third now
with the connections to California and and the cartels and stuff things are a little bit more uh
organized and established with the drug trade and you know they started uh legitimate businesses and
you know putting up car shops and different things like that it depends on on the the the members
that are on the street there was a few members in Tucson that were bringing tons and tons of dope
from Mexico they had that connection out there I know California had a little bit more established
connections uh with the Ariano Felix cartel at one point it's not like saying the Mexican mafia's
working with the cartel it's just you know this member has a connection with the cartel and
if you need dope we can get it obviously I mean if you need 1,000 lbs it'll be here one
of the big things that that was happening in my day was coyote the Mexican Nationals bringing
them over the Border was a big thing that was one of the things that was a little more organized you
know usually we wouldn't do it ourselves we're not going to take that type of risk but you could
send your soldiers that are looking up to you to go bring um you know 10 20 of the what they
call chickens boils across the border and and bring the money back and that was I mean that was
huge uh and I believe still is just watching the news you can see the the stash houses that they
catch were full of Mexican Nationals being held and that was the other side of it um a lot of
them were sent to a stash house and they would be held there until their family paid whatever
was agreed upon and yeah absolutely that's still happening people usually come into the system
already with a name a lot of us did time together The Recruitment in juvenile hall and so there's always some kind
of connection uh his dad may be in prison his uncle as people are coming into the system you
kind of know from their neighborhood or their family who they are there is no obligation to
the organization you don't have to be a part of it the only obligation you have is if there's
a riot um you have to take part in it it's as as a as a Cho or Mex and I really only took part
in in uh sponsoring one member I recruited I I talked to younger kids about the cause and I did
all of that stuff as well everybody's paperwork is red when they're coming in the system you
would read people's case the pre-sentence report was the biggest thing that would have
a lot of uh Clues anybody with a sex offense uh there's no way that you're going to become
a member other than that there are really no um no guidelines if if you don't even have to
be Mexican to be in the Mexican Mafia it's just a matter of you know we say you know what's
in their heart you know I mean if they're if they're willing to put in the work and be a part
of it then then they can work their way into being that in Arizona we have no color system in
California obviously that's their thing they The Codes have the suros with the blue and stuff Arizona
doesn't have that in Spanish L is just the M it's just the shortening of the Mexican Mafia con
l in Arizona we don't use the black hand as a as a signifier uh some of the old Mexican Mafia did uh
but we have our own I had the tattoo the Mexican Mafia tattooed on my back uh in Old English yeah
for in letter is huge the government actually paid to cover it I mean it was crazy I couldn't walk
around the rest of my life with Mexican Mafia tattooed on my back like that so yeah they paid
to to have it a tattoo artist actually come in and and cover it up for me the Arizona Mexican Mafia
uses a lot of nwat which is the Aztec language um a lot of members uh learn that throughout
their time in in prison we would use it uh a lot to write each other so for the purpose of so
Administration couldn't read our letters kind of as code um there there's been other uh codes that
we've made and come up with in there uh just kind of bingo type you know codes where you you put
letters in different spots and only the other person would know it and every member usually
has a code name in nowat as well that way we could speak of other members without or you know
the facility knowing who we're talking about it never works they usually already know but it's
what we think at the time the biggest way is through legal mail you would get a case and print
it out as thick as you can get it in the back of one of the papers you can write whatever needs
to be sent now you have you know 300 pages of something where one page in the middle somewhere
may have a note in it it's going to be real difficult to detect that especially since they're
not allowed to actually go through your legal mail the way they can regular mail there's another
way where it's kind of you write with urine and when they get it in prison they you could put
fire to it and it'll come out kind of brown the best way to send messages it's just Word of Mouth
there's a lot of so-called secretaries usually members wives or girlfriends back then we would
have uh a girlfriend have two or three phones in her house and you know different members
would call from different facilities and she would put the phones on on speaker phones and
then we could just talk to each other that way directly the biggest thing in uh in prison was
uh commissaries as good as money stamps was the The Guards big thing that is the currency of of prison the
NFL bets and all of that everything was done in Stamps dope you can buy with stamps there was two
ways that people could pay or three actually if you brought in cash if you snuck cash in cash was
worth double so if you had $100 it was worth $200 commissary was one for one so I would give you
a list the day before commissary of everything I wanted you to order for me and you know that's
how you would pay me or you could do Street to Street where your loved one would send the money
to my loved one on the street and in that case you had 10 days for the money to be received
by my per who whoever I was was was receiving it if it wasn't there within 10 days it could
double when you're talking about the economy in prison something that costs $20 on the street is
worth you know a couple hundred in prison and so when these guards you know you offer them that
type of money it's it's hard for them to to say no you know the Integrity only takes them so far
corruption is is not difficult because of I mean they're human you know especially when you're
young and you're being offered big money and and you're getting paid you know $40,000 a year
and these guys are you know waving you know that that amount of money to you for doing something
that seems almost you know too easy some of them will be um relationships uh the guys will get into
a relationship with a with a woman guard and then the woman just feels this obligation or love or
need to please and and so they'll they'll bring in anything sometimes they're lied to hey I need
just need you to bring me this pair of shoes but the pair of shoes is full of dope they just don't
know it um and sometimes they're told straight up what it is and they just they're good with it it
just depends I've seen guards open doors and let people go in and stab somebody as far as training
is concern that may be part of it I've seen them as young as 20 years old 21 you know they're just
kids and you're dealing with career criminals people that have been in prison for the last 30
years I mean you know the incarceration rate in the United States were were high up there in in
the world just putting someone in a Cell for five years and then releasing them and expecting them
to be different than they were five years ago is that's not a plan that's not it's not going to
happen you know if anything um I think it makes you worse in my day there were no programs you
can get your GED and that was basically it um just giving people the tools to you know to do
something with their lives may even change them on the inside if you give them a little sense
of worth you know what I mean when you're just sitting in there um dayto day feeling like you're
warehoused I think it takes some of the humanity away from you as well you just fall in line
with what's going on and so the The Killing you know the drugs all this stuff just becomes
normal it's not hard to become a murderer it's not hard to kill and so I I I think the Department
of Corrections would do everybody a favor if they did the if they separated everybody in that way
younger from older dangerous from non-dangerous um but they don't you know everybody just
kind of gets mixed in and again I know it's difficult you know how many facilities can you
have and you know how many guards do you have to to man these facilities but in a perfect
world I think uh separation would be the best way I was released in 2001 on parole and I was out
for 7 months I went back in on just a possession The Sting of marijuana charge I was out for 4 and 1/2 months
and I got locked back up I I was pulled over with a gun and in the car under the passenger seat even
though I got found not guilty the prosecution put in for the judge to violate my probation or my
parole and sentence me to 15 months in prison I was released April of 2003 and then in may
we had the the federal sting where they called the meeting at the Suites for all members there
was like I think 13 or 14 of us on the street at the time and we all went to this meeting where we
talked about past stuff I talk you know homicides that we had done and future stuff homicides that
we were going to do uh drug deals that were on the on the horizon and it was all a setup one of the
members uh he was actually working for the feds they had video cameras uh audio everything set up
and um and so 11 days after being released I was rearrested and I went back to prison and I thought
I was going to get out from there I didn't know obviously yet about the sting I thought I was just
arrested on my violation of parole my son's mom uh based on the fact that she had been arrested
in our case she had been indicted a few members felt that she would be the weak link so they had
greenlighted her and they were going to kill her but no one spoke to me about it and everybody
we were all there together the people that made this decision one of them lived right next door
to me at the time and so when the feds came and and talked to me about it and showed me the proof
of what you know this conspiracy to kill her was about and it wasn't necessary that I didn't
believe him cuz I saw the proof so when I got back to the pot I brought it to their attention
you know I was first told that you know you know the organization comes first it's how you know you
know the all this type of stuff and and I agreed I knew that however I felt that that I would I
should have been at least included in the vote you know that you know this is my son's mom she
just had my son little baby they agreed and and apologized and and said it wasn't going to happen
but that I needed to talk to her and ensure that she wasn't going to speak out that was the issue
I I had I had told her that she could tell on me go ahead and tell them whatever you need to tell
them to to get your case dismissed you know plea bargain whatever you got to do a couple weeks
later the feds came back with more info they had a a taped phone conversation where it was
being sent out and and so immediately um the day the feds came with the information about the
phone call is when I told them um you know hey go pick her up put her somewhere safe and and we'll
start talking they put her on the phone with me and they had her checked into a hotel and with my
son I still remember she's like so you're going to flip you know she goes what the is wrong with
you and I was like what do you want me to do you know they're going to kill you what do you want
me to do I can't just leave you at the house like and that was the end that was that was the the
the beginning of the end I guess um they sent me to the CCA and then I was there in the whole
or segregation uh for about I think four or five more years was the end of my uh criminal career
I guess you would call it I think that was the hardest time I you know I was at the same time
I was on um lockdown 23 hours a day and in fact there was they had enhanced um security measures
on me because I had went to that CCA and so the marshals had put all these extra security measures
on me where I had to be housed alone wreck alone shower alone a lieutenant or above had to be there
to take me out of my cell but I still thought that that I was going to be I was going to get you know
life I I didn't never I never had my wildest dream thought that I was ever going to get out I was in
until 2015 and uh and now I've been out about 9 years this other side that I'm doing now with you
know speaking out against it I think I owe it you The Aftermath know there's a lot of kids that are that look
up to this you know that that think that this is something that is Honorable and it's just not
me and my son's mom started the nonprofit phase two of life our Target is to atrisk Youth and
trying to keep these kids at the very least away from these prison gangs but if we can away from
prison in general this is just about going into juvenile facilities schools talking to these kids
we've done fundraisers where we you know we do uh back to school backpacks we've given PE equipment
to schools we're just trying to do little things in the community Comm but uh in in the long run
our our hope is to you know for this nonprofit to have its own facility where we can offer these
kids some kind of trade you know some sense of self-worth and and have us there as adult guidance
for these guys a lot of these kids don't have that you know I've talked to lots of people now
I've made contacts through you know the YouTube channel crazy as it sounds um I have a couple um
members reaching out to me that are still active and telling me things that are going on within
the organization now and uh I think it's just it's a good way to know you know the happenings
of today they're no different of than before it's the same drama the same stuff obviously if I
wouldn't have done what I've been doing this type of stuff um nobody would know what I look
like I've burnt myself by doing what I do but uh all of the older members that I did time with are
either doing life or they're out of the game alog together I think that the glamour behind it
has been overblown those movies American me The Future and blood and blood out were significant in making
younger individuals kids you know with with easily influenced Minds uh see this as um as a glamorous
thing to be a part of although these are uh smart individuals uh they're convicts and for the most
part they're they're drug addicts they're not the elite that people would like to you know that we
would like to portray us ourselves as that's what I want uh to put out there more than anything is
these kids to know that that that hype is just that you know there there's no cause there's no
family these aren't your brothers you know you're going to end up hurting your real family your
own you know everything that you love and that loves you for a bunch of fools that that uh
are going to are just playing pretend [Music]