CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Two men were sentenced Thursday to more than three decades in prison for a gang-related killing in November 2022 at a Charlotte nightclub, federal officials said.

Christian Alejandro Garcia Santa Cruz, 32, of El Salvador, and Aderly Jose Veliz-Ronquillo, 30, of Guatemala, each were sentenced to 35 years for using a firearm during a violent crime resulting in death, according to U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina Russ Ferguson. 

The two are members of a subgroup of the La Mara Salvatrucha gang known as the Hollywood Locos Salvatrucha Clique, Ferguson said.

On Nov. 6, 2022, Santa Cruz and Veliz-Ronquillo got into an argument with several men in a Charlotte nightclub parking lot and fatally shot one of them, according to court records.

That killing was intended to burnish their reputation within the gang, prosecutors said.

A third gang member, Luis Fernando Guardardo Moreno, 24, of El Salvador, received 20 years in prison for racketeering conspiracy, Ferguson said.

The Hollywood Locos group operates in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., authorities said.