Thread: Vicious MS-13 gang seen as growing threat

Vicious MS-13 gang seen as growing threat

Authorities target group in Texas and across U.S.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 3e193.html

October 28, 2006

By DAVID McLEMORE / The Dallas Morning News

PHARR, Texas – Shortly after midnight in late September, a Texas National Guard soldier with night-vision equipment spied four figures slipping through the brush and alerted Border Patrol agents.

The men were arrested, and one in particular stood out for the extensive tattoos across his face, body and arms.

Wilmer Matamoros, 23, a Mara Salvatrucha gang leader, was imprisoned earlier this year in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

A fingerprint check showed Santos Chileno-Gomez, a 23-year-old Salvadoran, had been deported for an assault on a Long Island, N.Y., police officer. His lengthy criminal record – and the tattoos – labeled him as a member of Mara Salvatrucha 13, a vicious international street gang that federal authorities call one of the most violent in the U.S.

Mr. Chileno-Gomez is among 76 MS-13 members apprehended by the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley during the just-ended fiscal year. That total was up from 62 the previous year, showing the gang's resilience to federal efforts aimed at rooting it out and its determination to travel almost at will through Texas to cliques operating throughout the U.S.

And, some police agencies believe, there is evidence that MS-13 has taken sides in the bloody war among drug cartels that's playing out in Nuevo Laredo.


Teen paid with her life for talking to police

"They are getting more disciplined and more organized. And they're getting smarter," said Susan Ritter, chairwoman of the criminal justice department at the University of Texas at Brownsville, who is preparing a scholarly research article on MS-13.

"In Texas, they often hold meetings or recruitment drives in public under the guise of legitimate activity, such as a soccer game or barbecue. There has been talk of efforts to join forces and operate with one overall leader. That hasn't happened yet," she said.

Officials estimate there are up to 10,000 hard-core members of the gang operating in 33 states, the largest clusters living in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and the Mid-Atlantic region. But Texas is one of the fastest-growing states for MS-13, simply by virtue of geography.

"From Honduras and El Salvador, the quickest routes in the U.S. are the smuggling pipelines that run from Mexico directly into the Valley," said Border Patrol Supervisory Agent Roy Cervantes. "From here, they quickly move on to Dallas or Houston and blend in with the immigrant communities there. They want out of the border area as quickly as possible."

In March 2005, when local police and federal agents began a national yearlong sweep of gang members, MS-13 members were involved in two shootings a week apart in Dallas that underscored the gang's violent streak. One involved a 14-year-old boy who was shot in the face and survived.


Eduardo Galicia, 19, wasn't so lucky.

Police said Mr. Galicia was playing soccer at a playground near Love Field when a man identified as an MS-13 member walked up and asked in Spanish, "What gang are you down with?" When Mr. Galicia said he didn't belong to a gang and turned to walk away, the man shot him in the back of the head. Dallas police made four arrests.

That year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators estimated there were about 140 MS-13 members in the North Texas region. In raids last March, police arrested about 44. Local police say the national roundup of gang members has forced MS-13 members to take a decidedly lower profile in the Dallas area.

"I'm not saying we don't have a problem," said Sgt. Mark Langford of the Dallas Police gang unit. "That would be naive. We're always watching."

It's a sentiment shared by police in Dallas' suburban neighbors.

"We're not seeing a lot of crime directly attributable to MS-13 members. It's minimal," said David Tull, spokesman for the Irving Police Department. "We're not in denial. We know they're out there.

"We hear on the street that someone is coming in and we'll see graffiti around town, but unless we can get them in the light at the right time, we don't get a chance to get them."

Said Patrick Murphy of the Carrollton police: "It's really difficult to say how many MS-13 gang members we have. ... They come and go constantly."

That fluidity – members moving among cliques and back and forth to Central America – makes it hard to pin down numbers in any community with any accuracy, police said.

"This is a gang that operates across borders. It's common to see members of the L.A. clique work in El Salvador, or Salvadoran members operating in New York, recruiting or sharing tactics," said Brian Trucheon, director of the FBI's MS-13 National Gang Task Force, created in 2004. "The scary thing for us is how quickly they can evolve to move around obstacles law enforcement throws up."


Gang's beginnings

MS-13 began in the Ramparts section of Los Angeles in the mid-1980s to protect refugees of El Salvador's civil war from other street gangs. Mara Salvatrucha is street slang for "Salvadoran guard posse." The tattoos gang members use as a mark of identity and pride invariably involve the initials MS and the number 13, a designation of an earlier alliance with a Southern California gang.

A 2005 Department of Homeland Security gang threat assessment identified MS-13 as one of the largest and most violent gangs in the country. That February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents launched a national sweep – Operation Community Shield – targeting MS-13 members. It was later expanded to include other violent gangs. More than 3,000 gangsters were eventually rounded up, one third of them affiliated with MS-13.

The gang's terrifying reputation includes a callous disregard for life and a willingness to use extreme violence with weapons ranging from machetes to semi-automatic rifles.

"Machetes, decapitations and sexual violence against victims are a common tool of intimidation," said Alonzo Pena, the ICE special agent in charge for South Texas. "They are growing rapidly and pose a significant risk to our communities. This is a gang we can't allow to continue to grow."


Intelligence gathering

As a policy, ICE agents conduct face-to-face interviews with any member of the group arrested in Texas in an attempt to gather detailed intelligence.

One sign of the group's increased organization: Recently, MS-13 leaders have told members to remove tattoos from their faces, necks and arms to avoid notice from law enforcement. During interviews with agents, MS-13 members now deny involvement and insist their tattoos are residue of past involvement.

"We're sure that's just disinformation they're feeding us," Mr. Pena said. "The rule of MS-13 is once in, always in."

Houston, with its large Central American immigrant community, is the group's center of activity in Texas, authorities said.

"It doesn't surprise us that they are coming in greater numbers across the border," said Shawna Dunlap, an FBI special agent in Houston. She said Houston saw an increase in what she called "high-profile" gang activity last year, including extortion, robbery and kidnapping.

"About 50 percent of those we see in Houston have been deported multiple times," she said.

While not the largest gang in Houston, MS-13 has become a significant player, said Capt. Mike Graham of the Houston police gang division. He said the gang is getting more organized.

"Our biggest challenge is that they are so transient," he said. "They prey on immigrants, but they don't necessarily stay in the immigrant communities. MS-13 is all over the city. If things get hot for them in Houston, they can disappear to North Carolina or D.C."

The FBI now assigns 10 agents to work with Houston police for investigations involving MS-13.


Homegrown threat

While MS-13 recruits heavily from El Salvador and Honduras and Central American refugees in the U.S., this is no invasion from south of the border. MS-13 is strictly a homegrown gang.

"Only after they were deported did the gang spread to Central America," said UT-Brownsville's Dr. Ritter, who set out to research the gang because she found little information available.

Once back in El Salvador and Honduras, members of MS-13 quickly fought with existing gangs for control, Dr. Ritter said. Both countries got tough, enacting stringent anti-gang laws known as super mano dura, or super hard hand, which provide hard prison time for those simply found to be MS-13 members.

Wherever it spreads, MS-13's business is crime, including drugs, extortion, human smuggling, car theft and contract killings.

"They're very opportunistic and diverse in criminal activities," said Mr. Trucheon of the FBI task force. "In some cities, they specialize in robbery; in others, extortion or crimes of violence. When they move into a community, they'll prey on the lawful and the law-breakers alike."

And intelligence gathered by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agencies indicates the gang's growing presence in the smuggling operations of Mexican drug cartels.

While the FBI says the evidence is indefinite, other agencies say MS-13 appears to have taken sides with the Sinaloa cartel in its vicious turf war with the Gulf cartel to control narcotics trafficking in Nuevo Laredo.

Like the Zetas, a gang of Mexican ex-military commandos, MS-13 members are believed to serve as cartel enforcers on both sides of the border.

"They've shown themselves willing to hire out to protect drug loads, smuggle aliens and intimidate witnesses. If they can find a way to make a dollar engaging in criminal activity, they'll do it," said Mr. Pena of ICE.

"We have received intel that in a short time, MS-13 has taken control of the rail lines in Southern Mexico used to transport illegal immigrants in from Central America," Mr. Pena said. "They are heavily involved in the human trafficking network, and they collect 'taxes' – extortion – from immigrants and the smugglers. MS-13 rapidly becomes a force to be reckoned with wherever they set up."


Border arrests

Many of the gang members apprehended in South Texas by the Border Patrol appear to be new recruits journeying to join cliques in the U.S. or older members traveling on gang business. Some are messengers, a position of trust within the gang's hierarchy.

The biggest border apprehension occurred in February 2005, when a car carrying a load of narcotics was stopped by a Department of Public Safety trooper near Falfurrias in Brooks County. One of the men inside was Ebner Rivera-Paz, a top leader of MS-13.

He had recently escaped from a Honduran prison, where he was being kept for his role in ordering gunmen to open fire on a bus with automatic weapons in Tegucigalpa. Twenty-eight people were killed; the intended target was an enemy of MS-13.

Mr. Rivera-Paz was convicted in federal court for illegal re-entry and deported this year to Honduras. It was his fifth deportation.

"When we apprehend these guys, they clearly are not afraid of the courts or law enforcement," said Mr. Cervantes of the Border Patrol. "And when they get deported, it won't be long until they return. To follow the smuggling route from Honduras takes about a month."


Gang Violence in N. Texas

Three examples of known MS-13 activity in the Dallas area:

March 2005: A 14-year-old boy was shot in the face in northwest Dallas but survived. MS-13 members were detained by police and immigration officers.

March 2005: Eduardo Galicia, 19, was playing soccer near Bachman Lake when he was approached by a gunman who asked, “What gang are you down with?” According to a police report, Mr. Galicia replied that he was not a gang member and turned to walk away. He was shot in the back of the head and killed. Suspected MS-13 members were arrested and charged.

December 2001: A 21-year-old Javier Calzada, 21, was shot to death in Grand Prairie. Later, MS-13 member Brenda Paz, who had turned government witness after moving to Virginia, told police she witnessed the shooting by other gang members. She was found stabbed to death and nearly decapitated along the Shenandoah River in 2003.

I don't see how this can possibly be true when George is running all around the country telling us how safe we are because of him.

I arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras the same day five MS-13 gang members sprayed a public bus with AK-47s, killing 28 and wounding another 28, mostly women and children shopping for the holidays.

The last President of Honduras had a crackdown on MS-13, which had 50,000 members in Honduras at the time, and the gang responded with indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, often decapitating them and leaving the heads in public parks with a sign "This is for you, President Maduro." They even had a contract out on the President, offering $50,000 to anyone that killed el Presidente.

This gang is worse than the mafia. They are totally ruthless with no respect for human life. They prey on immigrants, who are afraid to complain to police lest they be deported or suffer retaliation from the gang.

Having said that, keep in mind that the vast majority of Honduran and other Central American immigrants have absolutely nothing to do with MS-13, other than using summuglers to immigrate illegally to the U.S.

M-13 and other gangs are a major reason we need control of our borders. Among the vast majority of illegal immigrants who are here to work and send some money home and have nothing to do with violent crime, are gang members who feed off of immigrant smuggling and prey on immigrants. Terrorists could easily pay smugglers and enter the U.S. unobserved as well.

Enough said, just my two cents!

Among the vast majority of illegal immigrants who are here to work and send some money home and have nothing to do with violent crime, are gang members who feed off of immigrant smuggling and prey on immigrants. Terrorists could easily pay smugglers and enter the U.S. unobserved as well.

over 28000 AMERICANS were killed by ILLEGALS in only 3 years.
This figure does NOT include rapes or other violent crime. Want to add those figures?

Why don't you give us your source for the above statement, "the vast majority of illegal ALIENS {not immigrants} who are here to work and send some money home have nothing to do with violent crime."
Btw, are you aware of the amount of money the mexicans send home, as they say? #2 mex GDP.......some money? Soon it will be #1 GDP over oil! Great for our economy, don't ya think?

ALL ILLEGALS must be sent back to countries of origin as they ALL bring with them to our country no respect of the Rule of Law while many are maintaining their culture of racism and violence, not to mention their unsanitary lifestyles. 3rd world mentality is not something that the USA needs to grow intellectually, financially and productively.

Let them build their own nations and not tear down ours. Lord knows we give their countries enough free money. It would be best if they flew their respective flags on their own turf. Ole Glory has taken all she's going to take with these racist, disrespectful, greedy people. Americans choose NOT to give any more handouts to interlopers........we'd prefer taking care of our own first.

According to Pat Buchanon, about 8% of illegal immigrants have some sort of criminal record. That leaves 92% that have no criminal record at all, and of the 8% it is reasonable to expect not all are violent criminals or have engaged in a felony. I'd say 92+% is a vast majority.

Now if we had truly effective strict enforcement at the border and in the workplace, eventually the only immigrants we'd have would be legal immigrants or guest workers on a work visa, who had had the proper background checks done before being allowed to enter the U.S. That 8% figure would drop to damn near 0%, much less than the general U.S. population.

The linkage to crime is with gangs like MS-13 that profit off of illegal immigrant and drug smuggling, and prey off of illegal immigrants. IMHO, as long as we have lax enforcement and the magnet of jobs, we will have illegal immigration and criminal gangs getting rich off the illegal immigrant trade. The new fence is only part of the solution.

Tighten control in the workplace with better documents, and allow employers to fill low wage/low skills jobs with legal guest workers, and the incentive to immigrate illegally will drop drastically. Why pay a smuggler $5,000 and risk your life when you can pay $100 to apply and wait for a visa, then enter the U.S. on a bus or plane, work legally, and not have to worry about criminals or unscrupulous employers preying on you?

Think of illegal immigrant as being like the prohibition years. Most people who drank alcoholic beverages were breaking the law but were not career criminals or a danger to others. The gangs that profited from prohibition were generally dangerous criminals. Once prohibition was abolished there was no incentive to buy booze from criminals, and gangs moved on to other things, but made a lot less money.

Think of illegal immigrant as being like the prohibition years. Most people who drank alcoholic beverages were breaking the law but were not career criminals or a danger to others.

bquasius, I understand what you are suggesting here, but the difference, IMO, is that when people drank alcohol they were not hurting anyone else. There are many victims of illegal immigration.....our poor, our unskilled workers, taxpayers, our children, those who've had their identity stolen, those who've been raped and/or killed by gang members, DUI illegals, etc, etc. Illegal workers are also victimized by the illegal employers. There is no end to the injustice and illegality.

Originally Posted by bquasius

Why pay a smuggler $5,000 and risk your life when you can pay $100 to apply and wait for a visa, then enter the U.S. on a bus or plane, work legally, and not have to worry about criminals or unscrupulous employers preying on you?

I have to ask: How do you propose making these "guests" leave when they're time to be here legally is up?

What about the children they create while here? Should they leave too? Or should they and the person(s) who bred them be allowed to stay so we "don't break up families"?

Pat B knows that these figures are not exact! I believe you've quoted him out of context. He's quite aware of the fact that many who are involved in crime have been RELEASED and not charged via plea bargaining to misdemeanors or repeated deportation. These figures are absolutely not accurate and are simply an 'estimate' since our law enforcement's hands have been & are tied. These figures do NOT include identity theft, fraudulent documents, driving without a license, etc. etc.

Sorry, doesn't cut the ice one little chip. You need more accurate information. You're simply repeating rhetoric up to this point.

According to Pat Buchanon, about 8% of illegal immigrants have some sort of criminal record. That leaves 92% that have no criminal record at all, and of the 8% it is reasonable to expect not all are violent criminals or have engaged in a felony. I'd say 92+% is a vast majority.

But........let's say that they were accurate. 8% of a minimum of 20 -30 million? Nice numbers, eh? Should we include the extended families that are being snuck in on a daily basis? That's like saying that only 2% of Islam are fanatics. LOL........2% of well over a billion.

Furthermore, all 100% are LAW BREAKERS and continue to be law breakers/CRIMINALS simply by working, driving, banking, obtaining residence with fraudulent documents, etc. etc. These crimes are considered non violent.

Time to see the big picture. Time to learn the facts. Dig deeper. Travel and experience the lovely end result of the ILLEGAL ALIEN.

Conclusion: The feeling that I have received from you, BQ, is that you are simply a person who is here to attempt to skew the facts and bleed on the truth. That's generally the Lib approach and possibly those Global Repubs who've been manipulated. I'm not getting a feeling of sincerity from you, if you don't mind my being truthful with you. I'm certainly not getting the impression that you've researched much of anything and might be reading from a script you've been given as your so-called facts are exactly the opposite. Please don't use your "immigrant wife" as an example. You began with the food industry of which I have a great deal of hands on experience thru my family's businesses. Then you moved to the "family immigrant".......of which I am the product of 4 LEGAL IMMIGRANTS who gratefully and proudly learned English, flew the American flag and laid blood down for this country. I know IMMIGRANTS also.

Perhaps we simply disagree or perhaps you're being disingenuous. I don't know. But what I do know is that this country doesn't need to be drained by a 3rd world invasion at the expense of her citizens and of course, especially at the expense of our American children. That's where the rubber meets the road.

The 8% statistic I referred to is the percentage of illegal aliens that had criminal records when they entered the U.S. Pat Buchanon is ultra conservative and staunch opponent of illegal immigration, so I doubt he understates this unpleasant statistic (8% of 11 million is 880,000).

Under Federal Law, illegal entry is a misdemeanor on the first offense, and a felony for repeat offenses or illegal entry after deportation. Overstayers are unlawfully present and guilty of a civil offense, which some want to make a felony. So yes you're right that 100% of illegal aliens broke the law. I said only that I believe most illegal immigrants are not career criminals here to victimize us, though their presence does hurt lower income Americans, especially legal immigrants.

I said it before and I'll say it again. I do not support illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants should not receive amnesty and should leave. Amnesty might be politically expedient for politicians, but only encourages more illegal immigration. We gave amnesty to three million in 1986 and now we have 11+ million. 20 years after another amnesty we'll be right back where we started, if not worse.

The point I was trying to make is that criminal syndicates thrive off of illegal immigration. Just as the mafia thrived off of prohibition, these syndicates thrive off of smuggling operations and preying on illegal immigrants that have no protection from these thugs.

Replace the system of illegal immigrant employment with a system that provides strict border and workplace enforcement with enough guest workers and the crime connection is largely broken. The gangs can't as easily prey on legal immigrants, and they lose a lucrative smuggling business. Drastically reduce the numbers trying to cross the border by creating a legal avenue, and border enforcement becomes easier as well.

Omit any substantive guest worker program and businesses are more likely to cheat, especially if they cannot find enough workers to stay in business.

Move to new section for Americans killed by illegal immigrants.