Alleged drug, prostitution ring busted in Norristown

Detective Vincent Fuentes saw some odd items in May when he searched the Norristown homes of five Mexican nationals suspected of trafficking in cocaine and prostitution.

He found candles and a T-shirt showing Santa Muerte, believed by some to be the patron saint of Mexico's poor, criminals, and outcast. She was depicted as a skeleton draped in black.

"It is believed she hears prayers from the dark," Fuentes said in court papers released yesterday. "If she is in black, the person is praying for protection."

Santa Muerte apparently didn't deliver. The men were arrested last Friday and arraigned yesterday in connection with an alleged drug and prostitution ring that had been operating in Norristown from mid-2008 until May.

The men, who federal officials said had been living in Norristown illegally, were being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility with bail set at $50,000 cash bail.

The arraignments were delayed until yesterday so that another case wouldn't be compromised, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said.

Ferman said Jose Castillo, 36, and his brother, Victor Castillo-Perez, 34, had run the prostitution ring in Norristown at 566 Kohn St. and 34 E. Oak St., which is across from an elementary school.

She said Alfredo Hernandez-Garcia, 24, had run the Castillos' alleged cocaine-trafficking business out of 725 Swede St., also near the school.

Ferman identified Louis Gonzales-Sosa, 32, as doorman at the Oak Street house. Eduardo Guzman-Hernandez, 29, was doorman at Kohn Street, she said.

The business drew from women from Mexico and Ecuador who had been forced into prostitution, then routed through New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Ferman said.

Ferman said the Castillos had picked up the women in New York and driven them to the houses, where they serviced Mexican clients at the rate of $30 a visit.

The doormen kept the women from escaping, she said, and they were threatened with harm, or with being returned to Mexico for killing, if they didn't cooperate. When the women completed a week's work, they were bused back to New York, Ferman said.

"This situation was horribly distressing and frightening for these women," she said. The three women are in the protective custody of federal immigration officials, according to court papers.

Yesterday, Ferman displayed cell phones, drugs wrapped in a diaper, plastic bags, identification papers, and wads of cash seized from the suspects. There were religious icons, but no firearms.

Mark Medvesky, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the five men would face deportation once the charges were adjudicated.