A heavily tattooed and “violent” MS-13 gangbanger wanted in his native El Salvador on a gun rap was nabbed in the US by federal immigration authorities — nearly 20 years after he was deported.
Joel Armando Mejia-Benitez, 38, was arrested in Silver Springs, Maryland, on May 5 by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents pending deportation proceedings, the agency said Friday.
Photos released by ICE show the migrant’s extensive gang tats, including “MS” on his chest, a horned skull on one shoulder over the words “Mara Salvatrucha” — MS-13’s name — and “Maryland” on his right forearm, signaling his allegiance to the vicious crew.
“The arrest of this violent MS-13 gang member is a critical step in our ongoing mission to safeguard our communities,” ICE Baltimore Acting Field Office Director Nikita Baker said in a statement.
“We remain steadfast in prioritizing public safety and protecting national security by targeting and removing dangerous criminal aliens who threaten the well-being of our Maryland residents.”
Mejia-Benitez was arrested by the US Border Patrol in Texas on Nov. 22, 2004, and was ordered to be deported back to his native El Salvador on Dec. 14, 2005, according to ICE.
Federal agents took the illegal gangbanger into custody at the Prince George’s County Detention Center on Sept. 28, 2006, and shipped him back home two months later, ICE said.
Mejia-Benitez then snuck back into the US and was arrested again on March 20, 2014.
He was turned over to authorities in Silver Springs after that arrest and held, before he was taken into custody by ICE earlier this month for deportation, the feds said.
The latest arrest came just days before another notorious MS-13 member, Omar Antonio “Antichrist” Villalta, was sentenced to 55 years in federal prison for the savage 2017 quadruple machete murder of four people on Long Island.
Villalta, 29, was the sixth person sentenced in the bloody April 11, 2017, massacre in Central Islip.
Also this month, MS-13 gang member Mario Clifford Rivera, a 32-year-old gangbanger nicknamed “Chuky,” was sentenced to 17 years behind bars in Florida on a fentanyl trafficking conviction.
Federal prosecutors said Rivera brazenly used the US mail to peddle the drugs.
MS-13 is among the criminal crews identified as a terrorist organization by the Trump administration.