MS-13 gang seeks to unite nationwide

MS-13 gang seeks to unite nationwide

By Sara A. Carter
July 25, 2007

Lt. Bobby Shirley of the Jefferson County, W.Va., Sheriff's Department examined gang graffiti in 2005 on a building near where members of a Mara Salvatrucha gang were known to congregate. Federal law-enforcement officials warn that MS-13 groups are uniting across the U.S.

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The international street gang MS-13 is unifying its violent members across the U.S., including the D.C. area, attempting to strengthen its criminal operation by creating a single organization.

"Traditionally, the gang consisted of loosely affiliated groups known as cliques; however, law enforcement officials have reported increased coordination of criminal activity among Mara Salvatrucha cliques in the Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York metropolitan areas," states a confidential letter sent out earlier this month from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Illinois.

"MS-13 is attempting to become a unified criminal enterprise operating under one leadership."

The Washington Times has obtained a copy of the letter and an Army intelligence presentation on the growth of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha.

Federal law-enforcement agents say the gang is adopting tactics used by major Mexican and Colombian drug-trafficking groups and has become a gun-for-hire for many major Central and South American drug-trafficking cartels.

"Indications that previously independent cliques are forming alliances with other MS-13 cliques, as well as with other gangs to facilitate criminal activity, further heighten the threat," the letter continued. "It would be dangerous to look at MS-13 as just another street gang."

Agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) say that the gangs' tactics are terroristic but question whether the small groups can unify under one leader.

"These gang members are some of the most brutal people we have ever encountered," said a DEA intelligence officer on the condition of anonymity. "Whether they are unifying, well that's more difficult to tell. In some cases yes and in other cases no.

"But a unified criminal enterprise between all groups — it could happen. We'll have to wait and see. What we know is that they're getting stronger."

According to the DEA, the gangs' major source of income is narcotics and arms trafficking. Human trafficking and extortion also are becoming lucrative enterprises for them, the DEA agent said.

MS-13, which began as a Los Angeles street gang, is responsible for thousands of killings and mutilations in the United States, Mexico and Central America. MS-13 rival gang Mara 18, based in El Salvador, is just as violent and recruited more members internationally, said detective Patrick Word of Gaithersburg, president of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators Network.

"While showing some regional alignment between cliques," Mr. Word said. "MS-13 is still showing no signs that it is unifying nationally or transnationally ... There is just no one leader or even a group of leaders."

But others on the federal level disagree. The letter and presentation suggest that MS-13 has an estimated 96,000 members internationally.

"Mara Salvatrucha members typically are Salvadoran nationals or first-generation Salvadoran-Americans; however, many cliques in the United States now accept members from Belize, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico," the letter stated.

There are an estimated 20,000 members associated with 125 cliques in the U.S. alone. As of 2003, DEA and FBI officials have located groups in 30 states, plus the District.

Although the group began as a small street gang in Los Angeles, it spread quickly to El Salvador as many illegal alien members were deported from the U.S. for criminal activity. Many of those deported began to recruit new members throughout Central America.

The viciousness of the gang killings is displayed in a U.S. Army intelligence presentation which included graphic photos. One photograph shows the Roman numerals for 18 carved into, and then slashed over, the severed head of a Salvadoran woman suspected of Mara 18 ties. A second photo shows a dismembered baby lying in brush.

"They can function as networks, with extensive transnational linkages," the Army presentation stated. "Their internal functions include recruiting, logistics, attacks, intelligence [collecting and propaganda], and activities including murders, drugs, extortion and others."

The Salvadoran Policia National Civil recognize MS-13 as "organized crime" and they leave death in their wake with hundreds, if not thousands, of killings from El Salvador to the U.S. annually.

On Monday, Oscar Ramos Velasquez of Baltimore, an MS-13 gang member, was sentenced to 37 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise, and conspiracy to commit assaults with a deadly weapon.

"This sentence should serve as a warning to young people who are tempted to join gangs like MS-13, that you may pay for that decision for the rest of your life," said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. "Federal, state and local authorities will continue to work together to combat violent gangs in Maryland."

Velasquez is one of 14 MS-13 members who have been convicted in this Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act conspiracy case.

MS-13 is also the largest gang in Northern Virginia and groups associated with the gang are growing in Montgomery County, Md., as well, said Virginia state Sen. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, Fairfax County Republican. 

At my level of government, what frustrates me the most is that so many people stand in the way of tough policies against illegal immigration," Mr. Cuccinelli said. "They either ignore it or don't understand the connection to public safety, security and the community's well-being."

Here in Dallas we've gone through two previous waves of gangs and gang wars.  First it was the Jamaicans in the late 80's.  They literally took over South Dallas using the abandoned slum apartments as their drug trafficking houses for distributing pot and cocaine.  Their drive by shootings and enforcement tactics became more and more violent.  They were soliciting 12 and 13 year old black boys as their mules, runners, and distributors.  And when one got out of line they killed them.  These Jamaicans were ruthless and had no compunction about killing anyone who either got in their way or tried to stiff them.  South Dallas became a lawless wasteland which the Dallas Police refused to touch four fear of themselves being killed.  Many of the cops decided that if you can't beat them, join them.  And through the mid 90s the cops were offering and selling their services to protect the gang's leaders.

Finally, the FBI stepped in and the Jamaicans moved off to New York and returned to Jamaica.  Local and state law enforcement against them had proved worthless and hopeless.  If it hadn't been for the FBI and with some DEA involvement, South Dallas would have become an anarchy "state" of its own.

Following the feds clearing out the Jamaican drug lords came a movement by the Dallas city government of strict code enforcement in South Dallas.  Apartments were razed, property seized, slum lords fined and the blacks began to feel more secure about their homes and safety.

But then the Crips and Bloods moved in on South Dallas, having expanded their California operations.  The blacks and the Mexicans who had started moving into the area stood up to them and made enough noise about the warring gangs that the police actually had to make it appear that they weren't going to tolerate the gang violence.  So much of the Crips and Blood activities moved north and took over the historic Swiss Avenue district and expanded into North Dallas.  Here again, it took the FBI with some assistance from the DEA to step in and rid the city of the two gangs who migrated into other states and moved back to California until their leaders had, for the most part, been incarcerated or otherwise disposed of.  Interestingly, they never, in the Dallas area, became as violent and ruthless and brutal as were the Jamaicans.

Now it's MS-13 and they hate blacks.  It's part of their strategy to kill blacks at random.  We've had black children in South Dallas and Oak Cliff injured and murdered by members of this highly violent gang.  Given their way they will run the blacks completely out of South Dallas.  Unfortunately, many drug dealers and common street criminals in South Dallas' black community migrated there from New Orleans where they never knew anything but crime and welfare.  They are a worthless lot but nothing quite as violent and determined as is MS-13.  I am stunned when Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton pretend it is their callings to support the illegal migration from south of Texas' border with Mexico.  These violent MS-13 members have not hidden their agenda to exterminate the blacks.  And sadly Dallas whites, especially the so-called Dallas conservative whites, are pretty much giving a silent wink and nod to the matter thinking that perhaps the MS-13 gangs will somehow solve the problems the whites have with the South Dallas blacks who, on the whole, are a drag on the city.  And the blacks know how the whites feel because their appeals to the white community go unheeded.  And this is the first time ever that they're face with a gang more deadly than they have been.  They are in fear of MS-13 and it's with good reason that they are.  I reported to you the other day that 123 MS-13 members were arrested thanks to the FBI which was assisted mainly by the Irving, Texas police department because of the fact that a portion of South Dallas touches into Irving and the citizens there want MS-13 to stay in Dallas if they are flushed out altogether.

It's an ongoing twenty plus year war with these gangs and so far Dallas' "finest" have been the least helpful of law enforcement agencies.  There would be far more gang violence here if the feds weren't carrying the burden of keeping them in check and moving them out.  

MS-13 is a problem which will have national implications if the feds fail in getting local and state law enforcement seriously involved in eliminating the gang.