WINTER HAVEN, FL -- They say timing is everything, even in crime. If the four admitted members of the "Mexican Mafia" arrived at their target home an hour later, it would have been empty. If they arrived an hour earlier, they would have surprised their intended victims.
As it was, they arrived at the home at the precise time the Polk County Sheriff's Tactical Drug Unit was on scene making an arrest.
The detectives were arresting six people at the home when four armed men drove up in a car. According to deputies, suspect Gerardo Moralez advised that he and the other occupants respond to the residence to commit an armed robbery on the people who were inside.
He further advised that someone who lives at the residence owed drug money to several "Mexican Mafia" members with whom he is affiliated.
A sheriff's office statement claims Moralez told deputies, "that he and the other subjects collect money for the Mexican Mafia in the area; that he has been doing this for three (3) months; that Gonzalo Orozlo is a “hit man” for the Mexican Mafia; and that Orozlo has bragged about kidnapping and killing people who fail to pay off their drug debts to the Mexican Mafia. Moralez had no specific information regarding the people Orozlo had supposedly killed.
A total of ten suspects were eventually arrested.
