The federal manhunt for Larry Castillo is continuing.
Castillo, 42, with a last known residence in Victorville, also goes by the name of “Lil Dee.”
He was among 20 defendants and fugitives state and federal law enforcement officers and agents say are tied to the San Gabriel Valley-based, Mexican Mafia-linked, Puente-13 street gang who were named in a set of federal criminal complaints filed last year alleging their involvement in a kidnapping, two shootings, illegal firearms sales, and trafficking of narcotics, including methamphetamine cocaine, fentanyl, and carfentanil.
On December 17, 2025, following coordinated raids which involved the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Covina Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the West Covina Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, and the Baldwin Park Police Department, 18 of those named in the complaints were taken into custody. Those included included Victor Sanchez, 24, a.k.a. “Pollo” and “Chicken,” of San Bernardino; Isaiah Castro, 24, a.k.a. “Boy,” of Azusa; Isaac Estrada-Frost, 21, a.k.a. “Ghost,” of Rosemead; Heather Covarrubias, 40, a.k.a. “Snowbella,” of Diamond Bar; Dominic Ornelas, 23, a.k.a. “Dom” and “Lil Speedy,” of Rancho Cucamonga; and Adrian Lopez, 25, a.k.a. “Tapped In” and “Monkey,” of La Puente; as well as other members of the gang for whom ages were not provided were Lucky Sanchez, of San Bernardino; Fernando Carmona, of East Los Angeles; Isaac Estrada, of Rosemead;, Silvestre Ponce, of Covina; Erica Rodriquez and John Rodriguez, both of San Bernardino; Esteban Fausto, of Pomona; Otan Motamedi, of Westminster; Abel Dominguez, of West Covina; Francisco Rodriguez, of Pomona; Lorenzo Mejia, of Glendora; Daed Andrade, of San Gabriel; Taken into custody shortly afterward was Bryan Gordian-Padilla, 24, a.k.a. “Goon,” of West Covina/Baldwin Park.
Another defendant, Heather Johnson, 38, of Victorville, was already in state custody.
The criminal charges and the arrests grew out of a federal investigative effort, known as Operation Burning Bridges
Two of those targeted for arrest, Castillo and Soo Kang, 31, also know as “Easy,” of Los Angeles’s Koreatown escaped the dragnet.
It was determined that two of the 23 individuals sought, Steve Mauricio, of Fontana; and Panfilla Gallegos, of La Puente were deceased.
Operation Burning Bridges was initiated three years ago by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and soon became focused on members and associates of the San Gabriel Valley-based Puente 13 gang. Federal authorities intensified the investigation when it was learned the members of Puente 13 were trafficking – importing, manufacturing and distributing – carfentanil, a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than fentanyl.
After obtaining warrants, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives utilized wiretaps and seizures of evidence without effectuating arrests and purchased weapons from identified Puente 13 gang members and associates in what Kenneth Cooper, the special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, called “controlled sales.” Those weapons bought by undercover agents as well as those seized prior to the serving of arrest and search warrants on December 17 included a machine gun, 14 rifles, four short-barreled rifles and other firearms with the serial numbers removed.
While the majority of those implicated in the investigation of Puente 13 are or were residents of Los Angeles County, no fewer than five of them were living in San Bernardino County. Information developed through a non-related investigation into a double kidnapping in 2023 led to an early breatktrhough in the case.
On July 8, 2023, Covarrubias, who then cohabiting with Adrian Lopez in a home in the 17800 block of Grapevine Lane in the Rosena Ranch section of San Bernardino County reported to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department a burglary had taken place after she and Lopez had given the home’s keys to an individual identified in court documents as A.A. so he could do work on Lopez’s car. She said jewelry was among the items stolen.
On July 21, 2023, A.A. and a woman, referred to in court documents as A.C., told investigators with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department that they had been abducted by Lopez and Covarrubias on July 20, 2023. During this ordeal, according to A.A. and A.C., a group of Lopez’s and Covarrubias’s associates, believed to be members of Puente 13, beat and tortured A.A. in an effort to obtain jewelry Covarrubias maintained he had taken from the Grapevine Lane abode. After A.C. was let go, A.A. claimed, he was able to escape.
A.A., who had visible injuries when he and A.C. spoke to the sheriff’s deputies and detectives, identified the home on Grapevine Road as where the beating took place.
Sheriff’s Department investigators over the next month positively identified Lopez and Covarrubias as suspects in the kidnapping and assault and obtained arrest warrants for both subjects. On August 29. 2023, Lopez was arrested in El Monte and Covarrubias was arrested in Fontana. They subsequently served a search warrant at the home on Grapevine Lane. While doing so, they found an AR style assault rifle, a 50-round loaded ammunition drum for the assault rifle which made it capable of automatic fire, a loaded pistol, and an unregistered handgun without a serial number, known as a ghost gun.
It is believed but has not yet been established that information obtained by Lopez and Covarrubias in their post-2023 arrests assisted federal investigators in the Operation Burned Bridges.
According to an affidavit filed in federal court, Lopez drove Ornelas to a home on East Hurst Street in Covina on December 18, 2022, where they opened fire. here were people in and outside the home, which is allegedly the residence of at least one indivusal associated with Blackwood, described as a “clique of Puente 13,” one which has been involved in a rivalry with another subgroup within Puente 13, known as Ballista.
Lopez and Ornelas fled after discharging more than 20 shots at the home. As ornelas was jumping a retaining wall, he lost his left shoe. After law enforcement recovered the shoe it was determined to match the size of shoes worn by Ornelas. A DNA analysis of the shoe found that it also match Ornelas.
Investigators with the Covina Police Department recover recovered 24 bullet casings from the area surrounding the residence.
Investigators have also determined that Puente 13 gang members were involved in a shooting that took place on May 2, 2025 outside the H & H liquor store at 736 Glendora Avenue in La Puente. Investigators alleged that footage from a surveillance video at that location depicts three individuals, get out of a four-door Honda Accord with an Arizona license plate driven by Estrada-Frost after Estrada-Frost parked on the sidewalk next to the store. As one of those who had emerged from the car spray painted a wall at the liquor store with Puente 13 symbology, Estrada-Frost’s attention was drawn toward a man across the street at a carwash, vacuuming his car. Estrada-Frost walked toward the man, verbally mischaracterizing him as Crip gang member, telling him, “This is Puente.” When the man sought to leave, Estrada-Frost yelled racial slurs at him and then shot at him as he was driving past, missing the driver but hitting the passenger door frame.
According to federal officials, Castillo was involved in the kidnapping of A.A. and A.C and the assaults and torturing of A.A.
Occasional monitoring of his normal haunts in Victorville have not resulted in his arrest. An all-points bulletin calling for his immediate arrest has been circulated. Despite having several distinctive tattoos visible on face and neck, he has not been apprehended.