Thread: The world's most dangerous gang

The world's most dangerous gang
By Piers Scholfield
BBC News, Washington
Apr 3, 2008

The suburbs of the US are no longer the same as those immortalised in 1950s movies, with white families living in big houses and the father driving off to work in his Buick, past manicured lawns.


These days, it is more likely that English will not even be the first language you hear on the streets.

In Langley Park, Maryland, the kiosks sell Spanish-language newspapers; the supermarket shelves are stocked with tortillas and assorted black beans.

Mexican music plays in the background while the tannoy blares out announcements in Spanish.

Outside, groups of men hang out on the street corners and their Spanish is accented - Nicaraguan, Honduran and, most often, Salvadoran.

They wait, hoping to be picked up for a day's labouring in the houses and gardens of Washington DC's middle class.

But among the hard-working families lurks a darker shadow.

Violent crime

Vicious street gangs, committed to violence, have spread throughout the Americas and are now a significant threat in the US.

We visited Maria Hernandez in her apartment in Langley Park.

She welcomed us through her battered front door, which had been smashed by police in a dawn raid.


They were looking for evidence connecting her son, Marvin, to an assault, where a man suffered brain damage after being hit on the head with a baseball bat.

Maria told us that Marvin had joined a gang after being picked on at school.

The police search warrant said Marvin was a member of MS-13.

MS-13 - or Mara Salvatrucha - is the biggest and fastest-growing of the Latin American street gangs.

In Maryland alone, MS-13 members are accused of being responsible for a long series of violent crimes including murder.

Favoured tactics include decapitation by machete.

MS-13 started life as a group of young immigrants on the streets of California in the 1980s.

After nearly a million Salvadorans fled their civil war for the US, many of them settled in Los Angeles where gang violence was rife.


In the 1990s, the "maras" spread to Central America after many of their leaders were deported from the United States.

Kill and control

Those countries, struggling to get back on their feet after years of devastating civil conflict, were a perfect setting in which gangs could proliferate.



There's evidence that the model of the gang is rape, kill, control. They're really about gaining control over other immigrants from their community
Rod J Rosenstein, US attorney for Maryland

Today, some estimates put up to 60,000 maras active in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and - according to the FBI - in more than 40 US states.
Rod J Rosenstein is Maryland's US Attorney.

His office is currently prosecuting a series of cases against MS-13. He told us the gang's motives are more about mayhem than money.

"There's evidence that the model of the gang is rape, kill, control," he said.

"They're really about gaining control over other immigrants from their community, intimidating people and asserting some degree of threat which enables them to control their neighbourhoods."

Rosenstein's prosecutors have moved on from charging individual gang members with discrete crimes.

Instead, they are now targeting MS-13 with federal racketeering laws - the same legislation used against the Mafia and other organised crime.

For this tactic to be successful, they must prove that MS-13 is indeed an organised network.

We attended court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The prosecutors spent much of their time talking about gang meetings; about the clothes - blue and white for MS-13 - and the tattoos.

And, most damningly, an alleged firm link between gang leaders in El Salvador and their proteges in the US.

Murder by mobile

In June 2007, the then US Attorney-General, Alberto Gonzales held a press conference to announce charges against MS-13 leaders in El Salvador.


The indictment alleged that Saul Antonios Turcos Angel communicated with members of the "Teclas Locos Salvatruchos" clique in Maryland via mobile phone and ordered them to commit two murders.

Later that day gang members in Maryland killed two people and wounded a juvenile.

The links between the countries are clear.

The court in Greenbelt was shown a home video made by the gang in a Salvadoran prison.

In it, maras send greetings to their "homies" in Maryland and other parts of the US.

They talk of killing and controlling others and display their full-body tattoos in a show of allegiance to MS-13.

Mindful of these trans-national links, the FBI last year made the decision to open an office in El Salvador.

Aaron Escorza heads the FBI's National Gang Task Force. He told us the gangs move freely around the region.

"They don't recognise borders. They commit crimes in El Salvador, flee El Salvador to come to the US and you have MS-ers who are committing crimes in the US and fleeing down to El Salvador to evade arrest."

Hard fist

But once in El Salvador, the challenge to authorities is immense.

Entire swathes of the capital are virtually under the control of MS-13 and its rival, Mara 18.

Local police patrol warily, tending when possible to avoid those parts of the city.

The region's homicide rates are among the highest in the world - 58 per 100,000 of population in El Salvador.

The past decade has seen politicians rise to power on the back of promises to declare war against the gangs.

The "Mano Dura" - or Hard Fist - policy introduced by Honduras at the start of the decade was closely followed by "Super Mano Dura" in El Salvador.

The legislation meant police could round up gang members at will, throwing young men in prison for any suspicious behaviour, including associating with likely gang members or sporting tattoos.

The result was thousands of gang members in prison.

But courts were not able to process such numbers and many lingered in prison without charge.

The prisons themselves have become strongholds of the gangs, many of them controlled by the Maras themselves, the authorities guard only from the outside.

The "Mano Dura" policies are now largely discredited.

On patrol in San Salvador, the police told us the laws had been counter-productive, driving the gangs underground and leading to more clever tactics from the likes of MS-13.

They pointed out men who could be Maras, but who now wear long t-shirts to cover their tattoos.

The graffiti that used to be ubiquitous, identifying each gang's territory, is no longer so obvious.

Mano Dura made the prisons into virtual headquarters for the gangs.

And the US deportation policy added to the problem, with the result that the gangs have become ever more organised and powerful.

Revolving door

Jose Miguel Cruz, of the University of Central America, who has studied the Maras for over a decade, says these approaches have led to a "revolving door" effect.

"MS-13 has spread across the US and is a major security problem in Central America. We haven't tried any more preventative measures."

He draws a comparison with Nicaragua. "They also are poor, they also have weak institutions."



If we can lock them away we will but if we can't, they should be deported
Julie Myers, US assistant secretary of state for homeland security

But Nicaragua has so far managed to avoid any large-scale gang problem. Why? "The police concentrate on more preventative measures," says Mr Cruz.

Former gang member Edgar Ramirez backed this up.

When he arrived back from the US, deported after a three-year prison sentence, he said there were no opportunities, no way back into normal society.

"I had tattoos so everyone treated me like a criminal," he tells us.

"And if you speak English, they know you're a deportee."

For now, US policy remains focused on law-enforcement.

The US Assistant Secretary of State for Homeland Security, Julie Myers, says it must remain the priority.

"If we can lock them away we will, but if we can't, they should be deported," she told us.

"We have to think about stopping young people going into gangs; but I believe the American public is safer when we remove these individuals from the streets of our communities and deport them wherever possible."

In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was fighting a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Central America, he promised to rebuild a new, better, El Salvador.

But after spending so much on the war, there was little appetite in Washington for the reconstruction project.

Two decades later, the US is reaping the consequences. And in Central America, a region still struggling with poverty and crime, MS-13 has thrived.

Law enforcement alone does not seem to be enough to contain it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7328967.stm

We visited Maria Hernandez in her apartment in Langley Park.

She welcomed us through her battered front door, which had been smashed by police in a dawn raid.


They were looking for evidence connecting her son, Marvin, to an assault, where a man suffered brain damage after being hit on the head with a baseball bat.

Maria told us that Marvin had joined a gang after being picked on at school.

Are we supposed to feel sorry for her and marvin? Obviously, her parenting skills suck. She exercised no control over her son? She's ok with him being in a gang? Alot of kids got picked on in school over the years, doesn't mean joining a gang is the answer!

This has been a problem for years (note date on article)

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Chicago Police Warily Track New, Violent Gangs

California gangs moving into Chicago area pose an elusive, dangerous challenge

By John Dobberstein, Daily Southtown January 07, 2004

Riding a wave of migration from Mexico and Central America, a handful of California street gangs have arrived in many Chicago suburbs.

Four gangs in particular - 18th Street, Surenos 13's, Nortenos 14's and Mara Salvatrucha - can now be found in nearly two dozen Chicago-area communities, large and small.

In the past two years, California gang members have been fingered in shootings or stabbings in Elgin, Joliet, West Chicago, Addison, Franklin Park and Bensenville.

Some gang experts worry they eventually may make a push into Chicago, particularly on the Southwest Side, in the neighborhoods around Midway Airport.

Already, 68,000 gang members have staked out turf here. Blending in among the Chicago area's established street gangs now, these California newcomers are a curiosity of sorts.

They're not organized, but their members keep popping up throughout the region.

"We're seeing them everywhere," said Paul Marchese, supervisor of DuPage County's gang prosecution unit. "They've come to do more of the things traditional street gangs do, shootings and violent crimes in general."

Police differ on the significance of their presence here, but the potential for conflict may rise as their numbers grow.

Joe Sparks, a recently retired gang investigator for Chicago police, said he believes the California gangs are waiting for an opportunity.
He sees their arrival in the city as inevitable.

"They're blending in with our gangs," said Sparks, who's been consulting with the Chicago Police Academy about the issue. "The (Surenos) 13's, once they get enough numbers, they could make a move."

The Surenos 13's are allied with the Mexican Mafia, California's largest prison gang. They have a decades-long, violent rivalry with the Nortenos 14's.

With roots in Mexico and ties to Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, 18th Street is considered the largest street gang in Los Angeles, numbering between 15,000 and 20,000, authorities said.

And Mara Salvatrucha could be especially dangerous for police, gang experts say. Most hard-core members are former guerrilla soldiers from Central America with extensive training in weapons and warfare tactics.
"They're a force to be reckoned with," said West Chicago police Cmdr. Bruce Malkin, who's been studying California gangs for several years and doing yearly presentations about them at police conferences.

Fierce enmity

A rivalry has raged between the Surenos 13's and Nortenos 14's for decades, dating back to their fight to control the prisons in Michoacan, Mexico.

Through migration to the United States, these gangs brought their violent battles and involvement in drug trafficking to California and the Midwest.Norteno 14's have been found in North Chicago, West Chicago, Aurora, Cary, Crystal Lake, Elgin, Palatine, Schaumburg, Streamwood and Woodstock, police said.

Surenos 13's have been found in 14 suburbs, police said, ranging from Joliet to Carol Stream to Round Lake Beach and Waukegan.
18th Street factions have been found in West Chicago, Aurora, Woodridge, Downers Grove and Naperville.In the early 1990s, a massive recruitment effort helped 18th Street expand into 15 states, said the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations, a cooperative network of police officials that helps communities with emerging gang problems.

The gang's primary business is national and international drug trafficking, and high-ranking members have close ties to Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, the NAGIA said.

Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, formed in Los Angeles during the 1980s as Central Americans fled a bloody civil war in El Salvador.
Facing crackdowns today in their base countries of Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Ecuador, MS-13 members have spread into Mexico and the United States.

At last estimate, MS-13 had more than 8,000 members in 27 states and the District of Columbia.

MS-13 members generally show no fear of law enforcement, the NAGIA warns. The gang's members are known to booby-trap their stash houses with grenades, and MS-13 has been implicated in the execution of three federal agents and the shootings of several other police officers throughout the country.

A bitter rivalry exists between MS-13 and 18th Street members.
"The Mexicans and El Salvadorans don't get along," said Lina Presley, a member of the National Major Gang Task Force. "You're talking about oil and water here."

Neither city or suburban police have reported a widespread presence of MS-13 members, although the NAGIA said they are present in Illinois.
New challenge for Chicago police

A foray by California gangs into Chicago could present the Chicago police department's new gang intelligence unit with a significant challenge.
Chicago police said they're aware of the California gangs, but they do not believe they pose a problem ? yet.

"Our sense is that they're not making serious efforts to enter into Chicago," police spokesman David Bayless said. "Our gang intelligence unit and deployment operations center keeps an eye on them, as they do all gangs."

In 2003, about 42 percent of the city's murders were gang-related.
Bayless said police are focusing on gangs currently operating in Chicago.
"We're beefing up our information-gathering efforts," he said, "and if information becomes available that (California gangs) are operating in Chicago, we'll take the necessary steps."

Some police officials doubt the California gangs can challenge Chicago gangs for supremacy.

But other experts note the gangs have already become a force in Boston; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; and New York.

"Chicago's not immune. A lot of officers underestimate these groups," said Gabe Morales, executive director of Gang Prevention Services in Seattle and president of the International Latino Gang Investigators Association.

"They're not going to do it out in the open and start a war. They'll go in areas where the Latin Kings or Gangster Disciples aren't strong, bring in their soldiers, then intrude on areas where they think they are weak."

The ms 13 is nothing but a bunch of wanna be young punks!!!!
You want to join a gang and be a tough guy join the US Marine Corps!

Originally Posted by MountainDog

The ms 13 is nothing but a bunch of wanna be young punks!!!!
You want to join a gang and be a tough guy join the US Marine Corps!

They do join, and that too is a problem. About a year ago I recall seeing youtube videos and stories about how they join the Military, learn offensive tactics, get kicked out, and use that Military training against the police. (On our dime!)