Manuel Ortega is an immigrant trafficker and murderer of a Columbian cartel dealer named Felix Arias, because Arias sexually harassed Manuel's wife Natalie Ortega. Manuel and Natalie were later killed in a public restaurant by cartel hitman Javier Lariano Gaitan as retribution.
Gaitan was convicted, but was later shot by another mercenary, Cristobal, before Cristobal fled the country. The cartel started to dispatch witnesses of Manuel's and Gaitan's murders, slashing the throat of gun dealer George Lobrano, strangling Manuel's boss Ramone Buenaventura, throwing his mother out a window, and kidnapping his and Natalie's daughter Felice Ortega, sending an enforcer posing as "her uncle". (L&O: "Prince of Darkness")