Andy "Rebirth" Pellerano is a former soldier for the Almighty Latin King Nation, or Latin Kings, one of the largest and most dangerous prison and street gangs in the United States.
Business Insider talks to Pellerano about how members are initiated, what the gang's codes are, and how he got the green light to leave the organization. He covers the rivalry with the Crips and the Folk Nation and the "Bloodline" allegiance with the Bloods in the prison system. Pellerano lived in New Orleans, where the gang spread from its home base in Chicago. He discusses the Latin Kings' involvement in a drug-trafficking network and other crimes such as robbery and extortion.
Today, Pellerano is an evangelical minister and musician. He uses hip-hop and rap to give his testimony to young men and to redeem other former members of the Latin Kings.
Find out more:
www.oneaccordministries.net
https://linktr.ee/AndyRebirth
Business Insider talks to Pellerano about how members are initiated, what the gang's codes are, and how he got the green light to leave the organization. He covers the rivalry with the Crips and the Folk Nation and the "Bloodline" allegiance with the Bloods in the prison system. Pellerano lived in New Orleans, where the gang spread from its home base in Chicago. He discusses the Latin Kings' involvement in a drug-trafficking network and other crimes such as robbery and extortion.
Today, Pellerano is an evangelical minister and musician. He uses hip-hop and rap to give his testimony to young men and to redeem other former members of the Latin Kings.
Find out more:
www.oneaccordministries.net
https://linktr.ee/AndyRebirth
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FunTranscript
00:00 I'm Ande Domingo Peirano, former soldier of the Latin Kings.
00:04 I used to run a drug trafficking network in New Orleans, and this is how crime works.
00:14 So it was in 1995 when I got involved.
00:17 It was because of the name, because of the weight that that name carried.
00:22 When you say Latin Kings, they're like, "Oh."
00:24 You know, they thinking like, "Man, don't play with him.
00:27 Like, he's a Latin King."
00:29 Initially, it's to uplift our people.
00:31 This is not a gang, right?
00:34 This is like an organization, just like you might have the Knights of Columbus.
00:44 First it would be a validation of who you were in the streets.
00:48 You just couldn't come from anywhere and, "Hey, I want to be a Latin King."
00:51 You know, like, "Who are you?
00:53 You know, what type of work you put in?
00:55 You know, who knows you?"
00:56 You know what I'm saying?
00:57 Or, "Are you violent?"
00:59 You know what I'm saying?
01:00 Like, things got to line up with the specific lifestyle.
01:03 So when you have two or three people, they want you to be initiated.
01:07 They'll have five men that jump you, beat you up in a circle, two to three minutes.
01:14 How you handle that process allows you to know if you made the initiation to become
01:19 a Latin King.
01:21 I remember specifically when I got jumped in, I was 14, 15 years old.
01:26 Man, it felt like the longest three minutes of my life.
01:30 I thought they was giving me extra time.
01:33 I'm like, "What time is it?"
01:34 And it was like, "It's only been one minute."
01:36 I'm like, "And I'm fighting.
01:37 I'm fighting for my life."
01:39 But when you fall down, they don't stomp you out.
01:41 They let you get back up and keep fighting.
01:43 And that's part of initiation, because if you just stay down, then you're not ready.
01:48 And when the time is up, it's all hugs and daps.
01:52 Amor de rey, amor de rey.
01:54 Everybody's saying, "King love, king love, king love."
01:56 You're a hug, and now we're laughing about it.
01:58 You feel a sense of worth.
02:00 You feel like you have a sense of purpose.
02:03 Like now you're a part of something that is so great, that you're a part of something
02:07 that's bigger than you.
02:09 You get in a gang, they give you a name.
02:11 They change your name.
02:12 They call me Paco.
02:14 I eventually turned into Paco, the Pope of the streets.
02:18 And I became a slave to my own name.
02:21 So whether if I had to kill you, if I had to steal from you, if I had to rob you, if
02:25 I had to hurt you, you're not going to shame this name, because my identity was in this
02:30 name.
02:31 And I went hard behind that name.
02:40 So they had the peewee when you first got in.
02:43 That was the trial period, just to see your character, see if you're a man, if you're
02:47 willing to fight, if you're willing to die, if you're ready for war.
02:52 If you're a juvenile, you're a peewee for two years.
02:55 And then from there, a soldier.
02:56 And then from a soldier, you could rise in ranks.
02:59 So in the ranking, they had the first anchor, president.
03:02 You know, they had the vice president.
03:04 They had the warlord, which is basically the enforcer.
03:06 They had the counsel that would see, you know, it's just like a counselor, you know, somebody
03:11 that had a lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge that you would have access to.
03:15 And then they had the treasurer that would control the finances to allocate where the
03:19 funds would go.
03:20 You know, so basically that was the chain of command.
03:22 So the first anchor, you got to think anchor, power, you know what I'm saying?
03:25 So that was a place, a position of authority.
03:29 And the one that had rank over the New Orleans chapter in that period was Paco.
03:33 And I think in New York, it was like King Blood.
03:36 So there are some people that would not rise in ranks because they just simply didn't put
03:40 in enough work or didn't take it seriously.
03:43 And then there was cases where some people would get demoted, then somebody else would
03:47 rise in that position.
03:49 And there was instances where some people switched sides and there was a green light
03:53 on them that if they seen them, like, it would smash on sight.
03:57 I kind of like skipped the Pee Wee stage because I was doing things that soldiers were doing
04:01 that Pee Wee shouldn't have been doing.
04:04 When I was in prison, I had a guy, he was a Piru, he was a blood, and I was a king.
04:08 So then we just joined it together and was able to run the whole compound.
04:12 Now in that organization, I was the Inca, I was the crown.
04:16 I was the president of that.
04:18 And in blood, he was the vice president.
04:20 And I took that from the prison to the streets.
04:22 And that's where I just got into the drug trade, just really transporting and just dealing
04:28 with a lot.
04:37 When you in poverty, you aspire to make money because you think money is going to solve
04:42 your problems.
04:43 We would steal cars.
04:44 We had the keys to the Camrys.
04:48 We had the skeletons in the keys.
04:49 You could just go out, unlock the car, just start it right up.
04:53 I was selling drugs.
04:55 I was robbing people.
04:57 By any means necessary, whatever I had to do to get that money, I was getting it because
05:02 I was deluded by my own vanity.
05:05 It was whatever came along the way that you was able to get money and put your hands on,
05:09 you would do.
05:10 I used to run a drug trafficking network.
05:13 One point in time, I was going to Houston to bring bricks back from the cartel.
05:18 We going out to Houston, $48,000 cash money.
05:22 It takes a long time to count 20s and fives and ones of $48,000.
05:26 And then dealing with the clubs, we would deal with the dancers, the strippers.
05:30 I give it to them wholesale to where they'll break it all the way down and they'll make
05:35 the money off of that.
05:36 So then I'm making money off of them, but they're making money too.
05:39 They had a lot of strip clubs, they had visions.
05:42 A lot of them was in New Orleans East.
05:44 One of the clubs on Bourbon Street was just a club that we frequented where we would get
05:47 the VIP section every time we were there, popping bottles, throwing money in the air.
05:52 All of this is a part of that life.
05:55 But the more money I was making, the more money I was spending, the more money I was
05:59 wasting because I just think about how ignorant and foolish I was throwing money in there.
06:04 I can remember everybody following us to go to the club and I'm hanging out the window,
06:10 throwing money out the window on the interstate just so everybody could see money flying down
06:14 the interstate.
06:22 So when the Latin Kings started, like Chicago started in Chicago, which they deemed the
06:26 motherland.
06:27 So the Latin Kings was formed to uprise the Latin race so they could combat the influences
06:32 that was around them based upon the Aryan Brotherhood and the other black gangster disciples
06:37 and these other factions.
06:38 So it came together because they were being oppressed in that time.
06:42 There was a lot of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, but then it was just anything from Latin descent.
06:48 Chicago, New York, those were the main chapters.
06:51 Miami, and then it filtered to Canada, Metairie, New Orleans.
06:57 I remember just at the parades, we would be over a hundred deep at the parades.
07:02 Every king, regardless of where you at, you would fly those colors.
07:08 The gang signs were still the same, the signs that when they would throw up the crown and
07:12 every greeting would be a ... They would dap up and they would touch the points of their
07:17 hands to unite the crown and they would bring the crown to their heart, tapping their heart
07:23 and they would say, "Amor de re."
07:24 They would throw that up.
07:25 That's why I don't ... Still to this day, people do that sign language as love and I
07:30 don't do it because to me, that brings me back to that place.
07:35 They would do that.
07:36 They would touch the points.
07:37 They would bring it and then bring it down.
07:39 That ain't ... You know what I'm saying?
07:41 So it's a lot with that.
07:44 The points, they stood for something.
07:47 You got to think in the mind of a child, because I was a child, love, honor, respect, obedience,
07:54 loyalty.
07:55 These are good attributes, right?
07:58 The five-pointed crown is basically the royalty.
08:02 They go into the religion of kingism.
08:04 The colors black and gold, the black symbolizing the darkness, the gold being the king out
08:09 of the darkness, rising out of the darkness to uplift the people.
08:14 The five points in love, honor, respect, obedience, loyalty.
08:18 In other factions, it was righteousness that was added into there.
08:22 And then they would have a tattoo, you know, where they have a crown, a five-pointed crown.
08:26 And they have five points.
08:28 I got five points up here.
08:30 I got the five-pointed crown right here.
08:32 I got the five-pointed star coming all up here.
08:35 That's how you could identify one another.
08:37 You would see that on the arm.
08:39 You would know that's a king.
08:40 They had Bank Street posse.
08:49 They had Hoover, 31st Hoovers.
08:52 They had folks and crips.
08:55 All of that was rivals.
08:57 And that's why basically the Latin kings in the bloods, right under the five, under the
09:00 People's Nation, because they have the same rivals.
09:03 When you think about gangs in California and Chicago, everything was segregated within
09:09 blocks, within demographics.
09:11 So this block, bang this, so you knew not to go on that block if you was part of a different
09:16 sect, right?
09:17 So that was based upon demographics.
09:20 And then also, it's territorial.
09:23 So like, who's going to run this territory?
09:25 So if you're selling drugs in this territory, this other section can't come in and make
09:31 money on your street because this is your street.
09:35 You had a force behind you.
09:37 It was like a machine, you know what I'm saying?
09:39 This is what you're doing, and these people are here to help validate that.
09:44 Like I said, in the street life, when you in the streets, you need street cred.
09:48 When you in the streets, you need to have power behind you.
09:50 If not, the Jungle Creed states, "The strongest feet on any prey at hand.
09:54 I was branded a beast and sat at the feast before I was even a man."
09:58 That's a creed that they go by, is taking, "I want it, I'm going to get it, and if you
10:03 want to go to war, we can go to war."
10:06 It's just not having no concern, no appreciation for life.
10:10 It was all about you.
10:11 You got to think, you're in New Orleans, you're in the murder capital.
10:14 So obviously you're going to carry a gun because people are not always fighting, right?
10:19 So then you would take situations as they come.
10:22 If it's a fight, let's get in a fight, but if you pull out a weapon, I'm not going to
10:26 let you kill me.
10:27 So I need to have a weapon.
10:29 You don't go to a gunfight with a knife, right?
10:31 And you just had to be ready for whatever came.
10:35 [Motorcycle engine revving]
10:41 There's consequences to actions, right?
10:44 Because there's a certain manifesto in the Constitution that you're to honor and live
10:49 by.
10:50 Think about the points that I talked about.
10:52 Love, honor, respect, obedience, loyalty, obedience, right?
10:56 So when you're dealing with streets, you're dealing with rebellion.
11:01 So anytime people are in a state of rebellion, there must be built-in pressures.
11:07 There has to have rule, there has to have order.
11:09 You wasn't supposed to touch nobody's girlfriend.
11:12 You know, even sisters, like family was off limits.
11:15 Homosexuality, that was not permitted.
11:17 No, it was once a king, always a king.
11:20 So there was no walking away.
11:21 When you leave, you had to go through a protocol so you could leave.
11:25 You paid dues also.
11:27 And there was no running.
11:30 The rule was on one moves, all moves.
11:33 So basically we together, and I pop off, you better pop off too.
11:38 And if you don't, then you're going to have a violation.
11:41 Now when we have a meeting, you're going to get beat up for that.
11:44 So you either take the beating with everybody else, or you're going to take it aside.
11:49 When I was a part of it, like even a guy, he would tell everybody to turn around.
11:54 Like nobody was to take pleasure in seeing their brother get beating.
11:57 You know, like it wasn't entertainment.
12:01 It's certain degrees of it.
12:03 There's certain infractions that will enable you to get a violation and you proceed to
12:08 move forward.
12:09 But there were certain infractions to where you would have a green light and it would
12:12 be smashed on sight.
12:14 Like that's it, you're out of here.
12:15 You're not a part of this.
12:16 You'll never be a part of this again.
12:18 And if they see you, it's up.
12:27 The religious aspect of the Latin kings is the gravitation towards the linguistics.
12:32 Oh, you talking about Amor de Re.
12:35 All right, Jesus Christ is the king of all kings.
12:38 So when you think of Re, you think the king.
12:40 Amor, you think of love.
12:42 God is love.
12:43 How can this be bad, right?
12:45 The Bible says we're chosen generations, a royal priesthood.
12:49 That's kings.
12:50 The initiation process, they'll be jumped in.
12:52 They will call it the baptism.
12:54 We would have meetings.
12:55 They would call it mass and we would meet in a cemetery.
12:59 Think about that, right?
13:01 But we would meet in the cemetery and then the New Orleans chapter and the Kennet chapter.
13:05 Now basically they had the same manifesto, the same constitution from Chicago.
13:10 So when we would have meetings, they would open up in prayer.
13:14 Everybody would get on their knees, put their head down, they'd open up in prayer.
13:18 And they will address certain things that were going on.
13:21 This is what needs to be handled.
13:23 This is what needs to be seen at.
13:25 This is what needs to be done in this area, in this area.
13:28 I would put my money in the basket, in the hat, you know what I'm saying, as a part of
13:33 my dues.
13:34 And that was supposed to go to other kings that were incarcerated or to look out for
13:40 everybody else.
13:41 But ultimately, I don't know where that went.
13:43 You know what I'm saying?
13:45 We didn't meet as much as they probably should have.
13:50 When I was in prison and I joined the Latin Kings with the Bloods, because they both run
13:55 under the People's Nation, they both ride under the Five, we would meet on the big yard.
13:59 And when we meet on the big yard, it would be to address what needs to be done, any new
14:04 recruits, you know what I'm saying?
14:05 What's going on in this dorm?
14:07 Where's this money going?
14:08 When's this coming in?
14:10 We rewritten up and making sure everybody's going to abide by this so we can have a structure
14:15 and we can run this yard.
14:23 The connection between the Latin Kings on the streets and the ones in jail is based
14:28 upon influence.
14:30 If you're just a peewee or you're just a soldier, nine times out of ten, you're not going to
14:35 see a penny, unless it's your close comrades that were running with you head up.
14:40 The Latin Kings to be dominant in the prison was based upon recognition of you being about
14:45 that.
14:46 You already having a name and you proving yourself in that prison.
14:50 So when things came your way, you would handle it with violence.
14:53 You'd be ready for violence at any given time.
14:56 You would form connections within the prison based upon your street connections to really
15:00 get influence on the guards.
15:01 Now you got influence on the guards, you have access to things of the world.
15:05 The more people I would have, I understand chain of command.
15:09 I understand how an organization works.
15:12 But at this point, I'm coming in at a high level.
15:15 So this was based upon my security because I wouldn't really be touching the stuff, but
15:20 I would capitalize off of it.
15:22 So the more people, the more structure I have, so the less things I have to do putting myself
15:28 in jeopardy because I have people under me that I could say, "Look, go do this, go do
15:33 that, move this, move this."
15:34 And then I reap the benefits of it.
15:37 So then I started going to war with the tactical.
15:39 By this time, I'm on extended.
15:41 I'm bored.
15:42 I have nothing better to do.
15:43 All right, let's fight.
15:45 Let's fight.
15:46 Let's go to war.
15:47 I'm going to get respect from my comrades, other prisoners.
15:50 And then on top of that, you get the respect from the correctional officers because now
15:55 they know if you mess with him, you're not going to be able to go home and shift change
15:59 because you're going to have so much paperwork that you got to do.
16:02 You would have been here 10 hours, 12 hours.
16:05 You might not make it home for 17 hours if you mess with this prisoner.
16:09 So guess what they do?
16:10 They stop messing with you.
16:13 For me, prison, it made me worse.
16:16 I didn't get saved in prison.
16:17 I didn't ... The only thing I got from prison is how to be a better criminal.
16:25 Man, my breaking point, bro, I didn't care about the fighting.
16:37 That pain don't last long.
16:39 You know what I'm saying?
16:40 It was really my kids, man.
16:45 When I did that five-year bid and my little girl, Haley, she was two years old when I
16:49 went.
16:50 I had been locked up like four years and I was on maximum security.
16:55 This instant, the officer that was working the dorm, he was cool with me.
17:00 So he's working visit this day and he lets me hold my little girl even though I'm non-contact.
17:06 I got a belt, I got handcuffs, and I got shackles.
17:10 I'm holding my beautiful baby girl.
17:13 She's like, "Daddy, what is this?"
17:17 I said, "That's my bracelet, baby.
17:21 Daddy's shining.
17:22 You don't see they brand new?"
17:23 And she looks and she said, "Well, what is this?"
17:26 And she grabs my shackles and I start doing like this and I'm making them jump like a
17:31 jump rope.
17:32 I was like, "Oh, that's my jump rope, baby."
17:34 And she looks, she said, "You look stuck.
17:39 You look like you stuck."
17:40 I told you prison didn't make me better.
17:44 I'm about to start this empire when I hit the streets.
17:47 But all of this stuff was breaking me.
17:50 So getting out, for me, it wasn't even a thought because I didn't care what they would do or
17:59 what they was going to say.
18:01 I started going to prison, 12, 13, it was still enclosed, selling them on the block.
18:07 Then possession of a stolen weapon, they kicked my mama's door in and they found the gun.
18:13 Then we was all at a parade.
18:16 We was really going to fight another rival gang.
18:19 We had an eight ball and a bandana.
18:22 We had one of the other guys had a knife.
18:26 But man, God intervene.
18:27 We ended up getting caught smoking weed in the car before we could get out and do what
18:32 we was going to do.
18:33 Then 16, one count of first degree attempted murder, three counts of aggravated assault,
18:39 one count of aggravated criminal damage.
18:41 It was gang related.
18:42 Got locked back up.
18:44 I was in there 17 and I got a five year suspended sentence.
18:49 Then I ended up getting charged as an adult.
18:51 I was on the streets two years and then I got locked back up.
18:54 I came home 26, 27, I got locked back up 28, 29.
18:59 I come home 30, 31.
19:01 Then 32, I overdosed on heroin for the third time.
19:04 I was dead on the floor.
19:06 And I say, the paramedics awesome, they did their job, but they didn't bring me back.
19:09 He brought me back because I got a purpose.
19:13 It's like I didn't care about my life.
19:15 I'm putting myself in jeopardy.
19:16 You living that life, not knowing that you hurting everybody that loves you in the process.
19:22 When I overdosed on heroin, I ended up getting sentenced to the church, mandated by the court
19:30 with a suspended sentence saying, if he gets kicked out, if he leaves, we vacate the sentence,
19:36 take him back to trial on the initial charge and multi-bill him.
19:40 So it's either complete this one year discipleship rehabilitation program or go do 15, 30 years
19:46 in prison.
19:47 I went because I'm like, I'm going to face this.
19:50 I said, Paco's dead.
19:53 I'm a new creation in Christ.
19:56 That's where rebirth come from.
20:04 I'm in the process of opening up a facility to where we rehabilitate men and we disciple
20:09 men.
20:10 Some people look at me and be like, you're a pastor?
20:13 But what's a pastor supposed to look like?
20:16 Older men need to take accountability to be there for the younger men.
20:21 They want to see you love them.
20:23 You got to give your time to this younger generation.
20:27 Don't just tell them what they need to do.
20:29 Show them what they need to do.
20:31 So how are you going to do that?
20:32 By proximity, by inconveniencing yourself and going into these neighborhoods, going
20:38 into the projects.
20:39 I go hood to hood, block to block, prison to project, to juvenile facilities and I share
20:46 my testimony and I make it tangible because I make myself transparent.
20:51 I don't get cleaned up like I never been dirty.
20:54 So I used to rap for the world.
20:55 I opened up for Kevin Gates, opened up for VH1 Living Hip Hop.
20:59 I had a beat from Manny Fresh with Manny Fresh on the chorus with Cash Money Records.
21:03 I got a new single out with my wife and Sister Roxy, call me that, as part of the worship
21:09 team.
21:10 It's called Amazing Grace.
21:11 It's like a 2023 rendition.
21:15 It's no coincidence.
21:16 I'm here talking about God's amazing grace.
21:18 You know what I'm saying?
21:19 I'm here.
21:20 [static]
21:37 [silence]