A man who served simultaneously as an FBI informant and MS-13 gang associate testified Monday about participating in the kidnapping of a perceived rival who was then killed.

“There were tears coming out of his eyes,” said government witness Marcos Castro of Abel Rodriguez. “He started to cry. He was saying that he had a young child and that his mother had heart problems.”

Authorities say Rodriguez was kidnapped and fatally stabbed in December 2017. The killing occurred shortly after a meeting that an FBI agent testified led investigators to stop using Castro as an informant.

But the agent’s testimony also indicated that Castro’s informant file was not officially terminated until months later.

Castro took the stand in the Las Vegas federal trial of three defendants accused of being MS-13 officials and carrying out a total of 11 killings in Nevada and California between 2017 and 2018.

Jose Luis Reynaldo Reyes-Castillo, David Arturo Perez-Manchame and Joel Vargas-Escobar face counts including murder, RICO conspiracy and possessing a firearm during a crime. Their trial could last up to three months.

Prosecutors are not alleging that every slaying was directly carried out by all three defendants on trial, but each of the men is accused in connection with multiple killings. Federal officials say multiple MS-13 members played a role in the slaying of Rodriguez, but of the defendants currently on trial, only Reyes-Castillo is accused directly in connection with the killing.

Witness’ role

Castro said he grew up in El Salvador and came to the United States around 2014 when he was a teenager. He told jurors that he had a third-grade education and could only read a little Spanish with difficulty.

In his home country, he sold marijuana for MS-13 and became a low-ranking gang member, he testified.

His grandfather discovered his gang affiliation and sent him to the U.S. to try to get him away from the gang, he told jurors, speaking through a Spanish interpreter.

“He did not want me hanging out with them,” he said.

Rodriguez was killed in a secluded location outside Mendota, California, a farming community near Fresno.

Castro said he knew Rodriguez, whom he had met through a cousin when he first arrived in Mendota.

He told jurors an altercation led to the other man’s death.

An MS-13 member had been attacked by a member of the rival Bulldog gang and beaten with a baseball bat, he said. MS-13 members decided Rodriguez had been the assailant, court records and Castro indicated.

A gang leader issued a “green light” — essentially a death sentence — for Rodriguez, according to Castro, although at the time, other members did not know Rodriguez’s identity.

Reyes-Castillo said he had seen Rodriguez near his house, Castro said. Since Castro was able to recognize Rodriguez, he said he was tasked with going to Reyes-Castillo’s house to wait in the hopes of finding and identifying the intended victim.

Castro and Reyes-Castillo sat in a car outside Reyes-Castillo’s house, waiting for Rodriguez and watching to see if he would pass by again, Castro told jurors. He did.

“I said, ‘That’s him,’” Castro testified.

‘Rodriguez was begging me’

Reyes-Castillo grabbed a knife, left the car and chased Rodriguez, who tried to run away, according to the witness.

“He threw him down on the ground and he held him at knife point,” said Castro.

Rodriguez was not eager to get in the car, but did so when Reyes-Castillo threatened to use his knife on him, Castro testified.

Castro drove to a canal bank outside Mendota, according to court records. He said he and Reyes-Castillo made calls, getting the word out to other gang members.

Castro said he waited in the car with Rodriguez.

“Rodriguez was begging me to get out of that place when Molesto got out of that car,” he said, referring to Reyes-Castillo by a nickname.

He added: “I told him that I wouldn’t do it because then the MS-13 members would find me and they would kill me.”

Reyes-Castillo tried to interrogate Rodriguez about the rival gang, Castro said, and Rodriguez said, “Don’t kill me” over and over.

Other MS-13 members arrived and expressed concern that Castro might disclose what happened to police, Castro said. One suggested Castro should also be killed, he said, but Reyes-Castillo stood up for him.

Reyes-Castillo then told Castro to go back to Mendota, he said. Federal court records say that Rodriguez was killed after Castro left.

A group of MS-13 members took turns stabbing Rodriguez and hitting him with a machete, then abandoned his body, according to prosecutors.

Castro pleaded guilty in 2023 to a count of murder in aid of racketeering and a count of kidnapping in aid of racketeering in connection with the slaying of Rodriguez.

He testified that he could receive a sentence of life in prison, but signed a cooperation agreement that specifies that prosecutors could request a sentence reduction.

Since he started cooperating, he said his family received immigration benefits and came to the U.S. from El Salvador.

FBI handler’s testimony

FBI Special Agent Ryan Demmon testified previously in the trial that law enforcement developed Castro as an informant while investigating MS-13’s presence in Mendota.

Authorities believed a string of killings between 2015 and 2017 were committed by the gang, according to Demmon.

Demmon said he paid Castro, who was a farm laborer, about $4,000 over the course of four months, transcripts of the agent’s testimony show. Castro was also an informant for local law enforcement.

Law enforcement also worked to resolve traffic violations that Castro had accrued, bought him meals and may have helped him get a nicer phone and repair his car, according to the agent.

They instructed Castro that he had to be truthful and could not participate in violent crimes, said the agent.

Castro drove gang members around and ran errands, Demmon said.

“Marcos didn’t have a really high level of access where it appeared he could decide the types of crimes they were committing,” said the agent. “He was being tasked.”

Investigators tried to mitigate potential crimes, Demmon said, surveilling him on one trip and conducting a traffic stop that led to his car being impounded on another.

But Demmon also acknowledged that Castro was repeatedly involved in assaults for which was not prosecuted because of difficulty locating victims.

End of informant status

Demmon indicated that Castro denied to authorities days before the murder that MS-13 planned to kill anyone in Mendota.

The last time Demmon said he met with Castro as an informant was Dec. 15, 2017.

Castro claimed that he had lied about his identity and had also participated in a killing of Salvadoran police, according to the agent.

The informant testified that it was not true he had killed police officers in El Salvador and that his name really was Marcos Castro.

He said he lied to the FBI because he wanted to stop being an informant and hoped that lying would inspire authorities to cut him loose. Demmon said investigators told Castro that he could stop being an informant at any time.

Castro also testified that he repeatedly lied about details of the Rodriguez kidnapping.

“I was scared,” he said. “I wanted to minimize my involvement.”

Demmon said investigators decided not to continue using him as an informant based on his credibility issues and additional concerns about his involvement with violent crime. They worked with Homeland Security, planning to have him detained by immigration authorities and removed.

Castro was detained days later and interviewed by local homicide investigators who hoped he would provide information on other cases, according to Demmon.

Castro announced to the investigators that he had been involved in a kidnapping the night before, according to Demmon, who indicated that Castro had described the abduction of Rodriguez.

A lawyer asked the agent about when Castro stopped being an informant.

“Marcos Castro was not terminated as an informant officially until early February 2018; is that right?” asked attorney John Balazs, who represents Reyes-Castillo.

Demmon replied that February “sounds about right” for the date when he submitted paperwork to close Castro’s informant file.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.