Five San Fernando Valley Street Gang Affiliates Arrested on Federal Complaint Alleging Murder-for-Hire Plot Against Local Crime Boss

LOS ANGELES - Five members and associates of the San Fernando Valley-based Vanowen Street Locos and Elmwood Rifa 13 gangs were arrested today on a federal criminal complaint - four of them charged with taking part in a murder-for-hire plot targeting an Armenian Organized Crime boss but which instead resulted in his significant other getting shot and wounded in front of their two young children earlier this year.

The defendants arrested today are:

• Carlos Armando Ochoa Grimaldi, 47, a.k.a. "Spanky," of Sylmar;
• Christopher Ayala, 29, a.k.a. "Hits," of Sylmar;
• Edir De La Cruz, 34, a.k.a. "Temper," of Van Nuys; and
• Maria de Jesus Mares, 39, a.k.a. "Mary Oceans," of Van Nuys.

Also arrested on a complaint today was Vanowen Street Locos gang member Jose de Jesus Gonzalez, Jr., 49, a.k.a. "Listo," of Llano, who is separately charged in connection with the August 2023 shooting of Vahan Harutyunyan, 49, of Hollywood, Florida, who is now in federal custody on kidnapping charges. Approximately five firearms, a silencer, firearm parts, and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition were seized during the search warrant services.

Grimaldi, Ayala, De La Cruz, and Mares are charged with use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire. Gonzalez is charged with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

The defendants are expected to make their initial appearances this afternoon in United States District Court in Los Angeles.

According to affidavits filed with the complaints, Armenian Organized Crime, a Russian Mafia and Mexican Mafia-affiliated transnational criminal organization, has made Los Angeles County a center of its U.S. operations. Since 2022, two local leaders within the organization, also known as avtoritet, which in Russian means "authority," allegedly have engaged in a power struggle for control in their territory, resulting in multiple assaults, murder attempts, and a kidnapping.

Robert Amiryan, 47, of Hollywood, an avtoritet, has been the target of an assault and attempted murders ordered by a rival avtoritet, Ara Artuni, 41, of Porter Ranch. Amiryan and Artuni are in federal custody after being charged earlier this year with a series of crimes and are scheduled to go on trial in December 2025 and August 2026, respectively.

Artuni is principally charged with ordering the murder of Amiryan on multiple occasions in 2023. In retaliation, Amiryan conspired with members of his own criminal organization to kidnap and torture one of Artuni's associates in June 2023.

In early 2025, Grimaldi, Ayala, De La Cruz, and others began stalking Amiryan and renewed efforts to kill him. For example, in February 2025, Ayala informed De La Cruz that he and others were still working "on th[e] job" to kill Amiryan.

On March 14, 2025, Grimaldi and Vahagn Stepanyan, 40, of Burbank, shot and wounded Amiryan's significant other as she arrived home in her car with their two children. Stepanyan is currently in federal custody and is charged with racketeering, fraud, and firearms offenses.

After the shooting, Mares called De La Cruz and reported that the "job [was] done," and Stepanyan would pay her $50,000 for her role as the getaway driver, according to court documents. In the days afterward, Mares told De La Cruz, that she believed she would not be getting paid because "it was the wife not him." Stepanyan ultimately paid Mares a reduced rate because Amiryan was not killed.

A complaint contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in court.

If convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

The Los Angeles Police Department Major Crimes Division - Transnational Organized Crime Section; the Burbank Police Department; Homeland Security Investigation's (HSI) Northridge and Ventura offices; the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG); IRS Criminal Investigation; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Lyndsi Allsop and Kenneth R. Carbajal of the Major Crimes Section and Tara B. Vavere of the Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Section are prosecuting this case. The Department of Justice Criminal Division's Violent Crime and Racketeering Section provided substantial assistance.

This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.