Thread: What an alliance between Los Zetas and MS-13 really means

What an alliance between Los Zetas and MS-13 really means

Dave Gibson
drug cartel Examiner


MS-13 already has stranglehold on Los Angeles and our nation's capital
Photo credit: Getty Images

Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 has been described by many as the most dangerous gang in America, while Los Zetas is arguably the most violent of Mexico’s drug cartels...Now, there is evidence that these two powerful and ruthless organizations have struck a deal which makes both groups even more dangerous to the United States.


Video: Mara Salvatrucha - World's Most Dangerous Gang Part1

MS-13 was formed by Salvadoran, mostly illegal immigrants in the 1980’s. While the gang was originally made up exclusively of Salvadorans, they now accept all Central Americans as well as Mexicans. MS stands for Mara (slang for mob), Salva (El Salvador), Trucha (slang for on-guard).

MS-13 began in Los Angeles and as members moved deeper into the country, more loosely structured gangs or cliques were formed. However, these cliques continued to communicate with one another, and the network was formed.

Over the years, MS-13 has become better structured, and the FBI believes that the gang’s L.A. members have a higher status among the group. The gang typically targets high school and even middle school students for recruitment.

Initiation into the gang usually consists of the recruit committing a brutal attack on either a rival gang member or even upon an unsuspecting civilian. On November 26, 2008, Jonathan Retana was convicted of the murder of Miguel Angel Deras, which was part of an MS-13 initiation.

According to the FBI, there are at least 70,000 MS-13 gang members operating between Central America and the United States. The FBI also reports that the gang currently operates in 42 states as well as the District of Columbia. The highest concentrations are in California, the District of Columbia, New York, and Virginia.

MS-13 set up shop in Northern Virginia during the 1990s, lured by the region's fast-growing Salvadoran population, later expanding into the Maryland suburbs of Langley Park and Gaithersburg.

The following violent acts were committed by MS-13 gang members in Virginia and the D.C. Metro area:

-In February 2011, Alexander Rivas, 18, was arrested by Alexandria police, following an investigation that began in November, when the father of a 14-year-old runaway told police his daughter was living with Rivas. Court documents state that the girl was found in the gang member’s apartment and she was being used as a prostitute.

According to prosecutors, Rivas ran a prostitution ring, operating in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, using underage runaways. The affidavit states that the business catered to "construction workers and illegal immigrants."
On a typical Friday or Saturday night, the operation would see about 100 customers paying for sex.
Rivas typically charged $50 for sexual intercourse with the girls.

Rivas is charged with sex trafficking of children by force, fraud or coercion.
A17-year-old girl told detectives that Rivas carried a machete, he nicknamed "his wife," when taking her to have sex with his clients. He reportedly used the machete to intimidate anyone who tried to avoid paying.

Rivas admitted to once robbing a group of men of $1,200, and telling them: "What are you going to say? That you got robbed after having sex with a minor?"

-In December 2010, Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne sentenced Hector Valdami Campos-Aguilar, 19, to 10 years in prison for a September 2008 drive-by shooting that took place in Sterling Park. The gang-related attack wounded three people, leaving one paralyzed.

According to prosecutors, Campos-Aguilar along with two other MS-13 members drove up on a group of young men at the intersection of East Poplar Drive and Buckingham Court in Sterling, thinking they were members of the rival 18th Street gang, they turned around and opened fire on the group.

One of the victims was shot in the arm; another was shot in the back, penetrating his spleen; and another was left paralyzed from the waist down from his injuries.

As it turned out, none of the shooting victims were actually gang members.

Campos-Aguilar, came to this country illegally from El Salvador, and has a long criminal record. His record in Fairfax County alone includes convictions for receiving stolen goods, two counts of carrying a concealed weapon, trespassing and assault and battery.

-November 2011, a jury found gang member Ingmar Guandique, 29, guilty of first-degree murder in killing of D.C. intern Chandra Levy. Guandique, who speaks no English, heard the verdict through a pair of headphones on which the translation was provided.

A Salvadoran national in this country illegally, Guandique was charged in April 2009 with the murder of the missing intern, who disappeared in 2001. Her skeletal remains were discovered a year later in D.C.’s Rock Creek Park.

According to prosecutors, Guandique murdered Levy on May 1, 2001, raping her along a jogging trail in the park.

At the time of his arrest for the Levy murder, he was already in prison for assaulting two other women in the same park at knifepoint. He is serving a 10-year sentence for that crime.

In October 2009, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fernando Campoamor told a judge in D.C Superior Court that Guandique, along with members of the MS-13 gang threatened to kill a witness and his family, if he testifies at Guandique’s trial.

-In 2007, MS-13 gang member Everec Alvarez Chacon pled guilty to beating a man to death in a Suitland, MD cemetery. Two other gang members took part in the 2004 murder.

-In 2005, two MS-13 members were convicted in an Alexandria, Va. United States District Court for killing a 17-year-old pregnant girl. A rope was placed around the neck of Brenda Paz, she was then stabbed repeatedly. Her body was then left along the muddy banks of Virginia’s Shenandoah River. The murder was retribution for the girl’s cooperation with a federal investigation into the gang’s activities.

-During 2004-2005, there were two machete attacks in the Northern Virginia area. An Alexandria teenager lost four fingers during a savage encounter with MS-13 members, while a Fairfax man also became a victim of an MS-13 machete attack. Both incidents are believed to have been initiation acts.

In 2005, Michelle Malkin writing for Human Events said: "Reporting by a reliable Norfolk [VA} source indicates MS-13 members are planning to randomly attack local law enforcement officers in the Tidewater area. Threats of this nature have been termed by gang members as 'green light' notices. Green light notices have continued to increase, prompting the Virginia Gang Association to issue warnings to law enforcement in Virginia and the surrounding states. . . . Additional source information indicates local MS-13 members are equipped with weapons and ballistic vests."

The violence which MS-13 perpetrates is unprecedented in this country, and they do not limit their brutality to rival gang members. Whether a civilian or even a police officer, no one is safe as long as this gang exists.

Los Zetas began as elite enforcers for the Gulf Cartel in their ongoing war with the ultra-powerful Sinaloa Cartel.

Many Zetas commandos were actually trained at U.S. military bases, in an effort by this country to aid the Mexican government in their fight against the cartels. Upon their return to Mexico, they were recruited by the Gulf Cartel, who offered them a much higher salary than did the government.

Los Zetas have earned a reputation as ruthless fighters and have become so emboldened they now regularly announce their dominance around Mexico with so-called 'narco-banners.'

Recently, Guatemalan authorities announced the discovery of an alliance between these two brutal organizations after arresting 50 Zetas believed to be linked to a massacre on a cattle farm in which 25 people were decapitated.
The Zetas were placed in jail cells alongside MS-13 members and their secretly recorded conversations reportedly revealed the alliance.

Eduardo Velasco, head of a Guatemalan Interior Ministry task force, told the Associated Press: "As a result of this union with the Zetas, the Mara Salvatrucha have more ability to organize, strategize and maneuver. The Mara Salvatrucha want to build up their inventory of long-range weapons, grenades and drugs for their own use and for sale ... they know the economic benefit is great for them and that the Zetas, as an outside group, need the Maras' network in order to grow inside Guatemala."

With so many MS-13 cells already deeply entrenched in this country, an alliance with the hyper-violent and well trained Zetas is basically tantamount to placing an invading army in several parts of this country, and along with it—the sort of violence now commonplace in Mexico and Central America.

To put this into perspective…Imagine if the mythical 'five families' in the movie "The Godfather" had all agreed to work together and merged with a U.S. Marine Corps division, unleashing their full terror on New York.
To steal a line from "The Godfather II"…"We’re bigger than US Steel."

source: What an alliance between Los Zetas and MS-13 really means - National drug cartel | Examiner.com

Mexican Mafia ordered illegal alien gangs to target blacks

(ALIPAC NOTE: We have added important notes to this highly biased and inaccurate article)

EXCLUSIVE: Mexican Mafia member ordered gangs to target blacks, police say (incorrect: lone members of the Mexican Mafia do not make policy decision affecting multiple gangs. A more accurate title should read "Mexican Mafia Ordered Gangs To Target Blacks)

GOP lawmakers press DOJ about court decision allowing gang members to stay in US

“We are concerned that based on this decision, gang members will be able to receive asylum or withholding in the U.S., simply by telling immigration authorities that they have renounced their membership in the gang,” the letter sent Friday read. “In the Martinez case, an MS-13 gang member did just that. Surely it is likely that when gang members are placed in removal proceedings, they will claim that they are no longer a member of a gang and have renounced gang membership in an attempt to circumvent removal. Even aliens who have in fact left gangs were members of criminal organizations and do not deserve the protections of asylum or withholding.”