Catering Truck Murders Tied to Drugs, Report Says
A San Fernando Valley catering truck owner, his teen-age son, and three employees were the victims of a Mexican mob execution stemming from a dispute over drug profits, KNBC-TV has reported.
Los Angeles police assigned to the murders refused to discuss the report Friday, saying they did not want to compromise their investigation.
The bodies of truck owner Ismael Cervantes, 43; his 13-year-old son, Ismael Jr.; cook Francisco Gasca, 31, and brothers Heriberto and Jesus Sandoval, 16 and 19, were found Dec. 10 in remote La Tuna Canyon.
According to an unidentified “informant,” whose face and voice were electronically distorted during an interview broadcast Thursday, the elder Cervantes and his cook were dealing cocaine and heroin from the truck’s site at Lankershim Boulevard and Vanowen Street in North Hollywood and had angered their drug sources in the Mexican mob by skimming off profits.
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