Alex Sanchez is a former high-ranking member of MS-13. He became involved in the gang in the 1980s in Los Angeles and participated in its expansion.
Sanchez was deported to El Salvador in 1994 along with 4,000 other Salvadorans. There, he began to recruit young members into the gang. He was involved in robberies, street fights, and carjackings, and he survived being shot four times. Sanchez decided to leave MS-13 in the mid-1990s. He is now the executive director of Homies Unidos and is a violence-prevention worker and expert on gang culture.