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MS-13: AN INTERNATIONAL FRANCHISE
Intervention Offers Hope Where Police and Border Crackdowns Fail
A former leader of Mara Salvatrucha combines religious conviction and charisma to try to turn kids away from the lethal streets. He shows pictures of gang members and says: 'All these guys are dead.'
By Rich Connell and Robert J. Lopez
Times Staff Writers

December 26, 2005

Inside the locked gates of a county juvenile detention facility in Sylmar, all eyes are on Ernesto "Satan" Deras.

Before him are two dozen teenagers accused of violent crimes and facing the prospect of being tried as adults and sent to state prison.

Deras, a veteran of the violent street gang Mara Salvatrucha, speaks in a dry monotone, but his message settles in with an ominous weight: Give in to gang leaders or other criminals and you'll waste away in prison â€â€