Federal authorities have charged six people with a 2015 murder in Lawrence, adding new charges this week to a sweeping indictment made public in January that targeted 60 reputed members of the violent MS-13 street gang.
Close to a dozen of the men have been charged with murder in five other cases.
The new charges are related to the July 2015slaying of 16-year-old Jose Alexander Aguilar-Villanueva, also known as Fantasma, who was found behind a bench at South Common Park with multiple stab wounds.
Authorities said Tuesday that six people face racketeering charges in that killing, with the possibility of life in prison:
Oscar Noe Recinos-Garcia, 22, also known as Psycho; German Hernandez-Escobar, 28, also known as Terible; Noe Salvador Perez-Vasquez, 25, also known as Crazy; Jose Rene Andrade, 24, who also goes by Triste and Inocente; Josue Alexis De Paz, 19, also known as Gato; and Manuel Diaz-Granados, 19, who goes by Perverso.
That brings to 61 the number of men who have been charged with participating in the violent street gang, which officials said preyed on young immigrant teenagers and instilled fear in rivals in Boston and the North Shore.
The alleged gang members, dozens of whom were picked up in predawn raids in January, face charges including drug trafficking, firearm violations, immigration offenses, and fraudulent document charges.
De Paz and Diaz-Granados were not named in the initial indictment and are being charged for the first time.
A spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office said that Diaz-Granados was deported before the January law enforcement sweep of gang members, but authorities would not comment Tuesday on his whereabouts.
Authorities said that Hernandez-Escobar and Prez-Vasquez were leaders of MS-13’s Everett chapter, known as Everett Loco Salvatrucha, or ELS.
MS-13 is an international street gang with roots in El Salvador and is sometimes called Mara Salvatrucha.
The gang has a presence in 46 states and the District of Columbia, with more than 6,000 members nationwide. The gang originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s and spread east and into Massachusetts, where “cliques’’ operate in heavily immigrant communities in East Boston, Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, and Somerville. The local cliques raise money to pay dues to the gang leadership in El Salvador.
Authorities said after the massive sweep in January that they had dismantled much of the East Coast structure of the gang.
The new indictment charges 17 members in six murders:
Katerin Gomez, a 35-year-old mother of three who was hit by a stray bullet in October 2014 in Chelsea; Javier Ortiz, 29, who was killed in December 2014 in Chelsea after a previous altercation with an MS-13 member; Wilson Martinez, 15, and Irvin de Paz, 16, killed in September 2015 in East Boston; and Cristofer Perez-De La Cruz, 16,killed in January with a gun, knives, and a machete after MS-13 leaders in Virginia told leaders of local cliques that their crews needed to be more violent, according to court records.
The authorities also accused gang members of at least 15 attempted murders.
Milton J. Valencia can be reached at milton.valencia@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @miltonvalencia.
