Ash Kelley

For decades, they had been one of the better organized gangs in the region, responsible for a lot of drug trafficking and smuggling.

In more recent years, though, the organization had expanded to include several members of the family living across the border in Brownsville, Texas.

So they were kind of like working dual sides of the border.

Okay.

Now, unlike more of the hardcore gangs that had been recently established in the region, the Hernandez family mostly just ran marijuana back and forth from Texas to Mexico.

So the police, they had run into the police a lot, but they weren't like super dangerous or anything like that.

Despite that, they had been successful for many years, due in large part to their charismatic leader, Saul Hernandez.

But when Saul was killed by machine gun fire in 1986, the family business started to fall apart.

Now, Paul's brother, Serafine, tried to step into his brother's role and keep everything together.

But within a month, he was arrested by U.S.

officials, which left their entire operation in disarray.

Now...

Without the charisma of their former leader, the Hernandez business wasn't just in danger of losing money, but they were also in danger of being taken over by one of the other organizations in the region because that was happening too.

They would just walk in and be like, well, you're part of us now and you're going to be paying us everything that you're making.

And that's it.

Deal with it.

Like, otherwise we can just shoot you.

Oof.

Yeah.

So in order to fend off any potential takeovers, which would have inevitably ended in the murder of those higher up in the family, like I just said.