http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/10/09/ga ... index.html


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal agents have arrested more than 1,300 suspected gang members in the past three months, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency official said.


Gang weapons and paraphernalia are displayed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2006.

During the three-month, nationwide crackdown, immigration and customs agents worked with law enforcement counterparts in 20 cities in what one official described as a "summer surge."


The sweep was part of the agency's Operation Community Shield anti-gang initiative, which started in 2005, and has resulted in arrests of more than 7,000 alleged members and their associates from more than 600 gangs, the agency said. Those taken into custody are either prosecuted in federal courts or deported.

One of the gangs targeted has been MS-13, which is believed to be the fastest growing group in the United States as well as one of the most violent, the agency said.

The FBI estimates MS-13 has about 10,000 members in the country, along with tens of thousands in Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, where the gang