Rene Enriquez

Rene "Boxer" Enriquez was a high ranking and influential member of the Mexican Mafia before becoming a Federal witness in 2003. His life is chronicled in the true crime book The Black Hand: The Bloody Rise and Redemption of "Boxer" Enriquez, a Mexican Mob Killer

Criminal career
In his teens, Rene was arrested after committing a string of armed robberies and was sentenced to a long prison sentence. At the age of nineteen, Enriquez first encountered the Mexican Mafia, or La eMe.

When Enriquez was imprisoned at Deuel Vocational Institution, he made his first "hit" for the Mexican Mafia, stabbing a gang member from Los Angeles, but the victim survived. His second hit was on a Vagos MC member, named "Chainsaw", stabbing him to death.

In 1985, he was sworn in as a full-fledged Carnal (Mexican vernacular Spanish for brother).

He projected "La eMe" into a status of unprecedented organizational structure, with a base army of approximately sixty thousand heavily armed gang members who control the prison system and a large part of California crime.

"I believe I'm a cut above the rest. As a mafioso, you have to be an elitist. You have an elitist, arrogant mentality," he says. "That's how you carry yourself in the Mexican mafia. That's how you project yourself."

Enriquez has been involved in organized crime for 20 years and was a Mexican mafia member for over 17 years. Rene hopes to seek parole in late 2009, although the parole hearing and date has not been set.

His parole handler was quoted stating, "There is a possibility Rene may get out of prison once his work with the feds are done, however there is also possibility that he may not."