Central American gangs: a mafia with a thousand heads
m3report | September 24, 2010 at 7:18 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pg2Ga-Cw

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Friday, 9/24/10

La Prensa Grafica, San Salvador, El Salvador (9/22/10)

Central American gangs: a mafia with a thousand heads

The mafia-like gangs that lash Central America, known as maras, have various governments in tenterhooks, enacting laws and regulations to combat the thousands of members of these groups which arose a quarter of a century ago from the Hispanic barrios of Los Angeles. The mara phenomenon is concentrated in the so-called North Triangle, composed of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, countries characterized by poverty and family disintegration due to emigration.

In El Salvador, where this phenomenon is strong, maras are true mafia organizations involved in drug and weapon traffic, extortion and kidnappings. El Salvador’s new law states that â€