Ricardo Alberto Díaz

Ricardo Alberto Díaz, known in U.S. federal records as “Rata de Leewards” and “Mousey de Leewards,” is one of the defendants at the center of the American prosecution of MS-13’s alleged senior leadership. His profile is especially important for the archive because federal filings do more than name him as a defendant: they connect him to the Ranfla Nacional, identify him as an original member of an early prison leadership group, and preserve a clique identity through the “Leewards” aliases.

The indictment unsealed in January 2021 alleges that Díaz was a member of MS-13, an original member of the group referred to in the charging document as the “Twelve Apostles of the Devil,” and a member of the Ranfla Nacional. Prosecutors describe that early group as part of the process by which imprisoned MS-13 leaders began creating a more formal command structure around 2002. The government’s broader theory is that this prison-based hierarchy evolved into a leadership system capable of issuing rules and coordinating activity across El Salvador and beyond.

Those allegations make Díaz a direct link to the organizational-history page covering the formation of the Ranfla. In the the archive graph, his profile should therefore connect not only to MS-13 and the leadership case but also to the event describing the early-2000s consolidation of prison leadership. That gives the user a historical route through the material instead of treating every defendant as a disconnected entry in a federal case.

The alias “de Leewards” opens another branch. Leewards should exist as a canonical clique node under MS-13, but its initial page should stay deliberately narrow: a documented relationship to Díaz, a parent relationship to MS-13, and only those additional people or cases that future primary sources support. This avoids a common problem in gang databases, where aliases are used to infer entire structures that the cited material does not actually establish.

The federal prosecution alleges that the Ranfla Nacional functioned as MS-13’s highest leadership body and directed or influenced violent and criminal activity in several countries. Prosecutors further allege that the organization used violence and intimidation against rivals, civilians, police and government personnel, and that senior leaders sought to preserve the gang’s power while incarcerated. These are prosecutorial claims and remain labeled as allegations within the archive unless linked to a later adjudicated record.

Díaz also belongs to the broader story of how MS-13 developed from a Los Angeles street gang into a transnational organization with a strong Salvadoran center. Federal filings trace that history through migration, deportation, incarceration and the emergence of leadership bodies inside Salvadoran prisons. A useful profile therefore needs to explain why a “Leewards” clique identity and membership in the Ranfla Nacional can coexist: MS-13 retained clique affiliations while senior structures allegedly operated above them.

A Justice Department update in November 2023 listed Díaz among defendants reportedly in El Salvador custody for whom U.S. extradition requests were pending. The principal DOJ page for the case was updated in February 2025 and continued to identify him among the fourteen charged leaders. the archive should record those dates rather than imply that a 2023 custody statement has been independently verified through 2026.

The strongest version of this profile is consequently relationship-driven. Díaz links Leewards to MS-13, links the clique layer to the Ranfla Nacional, and links the modern hierarchy to the earlier prison-based leadership story. His page should surface co-defendants and the formation event, while the Leewards page should reverse-link to him. That structure creates an expandable and source-controlled node ready for future court filings, extradition developments or additional documented Leewards relationships.