The leader of a MS-13 clique in Springfield was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.

Rances Ulices Amaya, a 24-year-old Springfield resident who went by the street names "Murder" and "Blue," recruited teenage girls as young as 14 years old into his prostitution ring and forced them to perform sex acts to benefit his gang.

Amaya was convicted by a jury in February on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking of a child. According to prosecutors, after recruiting a teenage girl, Amaya would ply them with drugs and alcohol. When victims disobeyed Amaya and the other members of his MS-13 subsection, Guanacos Lokotes Salvatruchas, the gang members would engage in a group rape of the victims.

According to prosecutors, Amaya built a client base around illegal immigrants because he thought they were unlikely to call the police. He would then use his El Salvador-based gang's reputation for violence — and sometimes, a machete that he carried on prostitution appointments — to ensure payment from the johns.

“Rances Amaya’s gang name was ‘Murder,’ and in a real sense he killed the hopes and dreams of teenage girls whom he systematically and sadistically victimized,” said United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride said in a statement.