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Razorguns
Well-known member
The "other" terrorists who terrorize us:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gang15may15,0,2750330,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
L.A. Violence Crosses the Line
A brutal band born near MacArthur Park has spread to 33 other states and five countries. For the first time, the FBI forms a nationwide task force to go after a single gang.
By Chris Kraul, Robert J. Lopez and Rich Connell
Times Staff Writers
May 15, 2005
The gruesome murders were each more than 1,000 miles apart, an arc of bloodshed that spanned much of the North American continent.
On a rutty street near a crowded slum in Honduras, gunmen sprayed automatic weapons fire at a bus filled with Christmastime shoppers. Twenty-eight people, including six children, were killed.
In the woods near Dallas, an innocent 21-year-old man was shot in the head, his remains eaten by animals. His pants were pulled down, and police suspect that he may have been sodomized.
And near the banks of a quiet river in Virginia, a 17-year-old informant was hacked to death. She was four months pregnant and stabbed 16 times in the chest and neck.
The killings were similar not only in their brutality but also in their lineage: Authorities say all three incidents are tied to a single Los Angeles branch of Mara Salvatrucha, a street gang formed 20 years ago in the immigrant neighborhoods west of the downtown skyline.
Today, the gang's extreme violence, vast reach and increasing sophistication have made it a top priority at the highest levels of law enforcement and political leadership from Washington to San Salvador.
In recent months, the departments of Justice and Homeland Security have launched a series of initiatives to confront the threat posed by the gang, also known as MS-13, which has between 30,000 and 50,000 members in half a dozen countries, including up to 10,000 members in the U.S., according to federal law enforcement estimates.
The FBI's creation of an MS-13 task force, the first nationwide effort targeting a single street gang, was ordered by Director Robert Mueller after several high-profile murders blamed on MS-13 in the suburbs of Washington. On Tuesday, Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for the first time placed an MS-13 member on its most-wanted fugitive list. The Los Angeles gang member is suspected in a string of violent crimes.
In Honduras, four Central American presidents gathered last month to address the gang crisis. Citing the destabilizing influence of groups like MS-13, they appealed for economic aid to curb the poverty and joblessness fueling the growth of gangs.
Authorities are scrambling to contain forces unleashed in part by past U.S. policies. Refugees formed the gang in the 1980s near MacArthur Park, just west of downtown Los Angeles, after fleeing a U.S.-backed civil war against insurgents in El Salvador. As the gang grew, immigration officials began a decade-long campaign to deport members, including ex-convicts and hardened leaders who helped spread MS-13 across Central America and solidify its structure.
In the United States, the gang has spread from California into 33 other states and the District of Columbia. Investigators say members are involved in murder, extortion, drug dealing and witness intimidation. The expansion has come from migration as well as from calculated efforts by its Los Angeles leaders to tap new markets of criminal activity. In Seattle, for instance, gang members arrived from Los Angeles in 1997 to distribute marijuana, heroin and crack cocaine, according to investigators.
"Everywhere you turn these days, you're hearing about MS-13," said Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker, who is overseeing the nationwide task force targeting the group.
Traditionally, the gang's loosely structured leadership has been dispersed among a vast federation of cells that often act independently.
Although it remains unclear how well organized the gang's leadership is, Swecker recently told Congress that there were signs of greater cohesiveness within MS-13.
Times interviews with law enforcement officials in four countries and reviews of intelligence reports, letters between MS-13 members, transcripts of phone conversations and surveillance videos show that gang members communicate and coordinate criminal activity across state and international borders.
Gang leaders in the U.S. and El Salvador have shared information on informants, discussed punishing rivals and plotted an ambush to free an accused murderer, these records show. In one instance, dozens of MS-13 members from several East Coast states were videotaped meeting in a Virginia park.
In Central America, the gang allegedly targeted top government officials and law enforcement leaders.
"If these criminals are capable of killing 28 innocent people," Honduran President Ricardo Maduro said in an interview, "they are capable of anything."
Now, law enforcement crackdowns in Honduras and El Salvador are helping reverse the flow. MS-13 gang members recruited in those countries are making their way to the U.S. and bolstering the gang's ranks from California to Maryland.
This north-south recycling of gang members has put intense pressure on Mexico, where MS-13 is involved in robbing immigrants and human trafficking, according to officials. "It has to be treated as a regional phenomenon because in Central America the borders are fading," said Magdalena Carral Cuevas, Mexico's top immigration official.
Mexico recently launched its own campaign against MS-13, particularly in the southern state of Chiapas, a roiling crossroads where the gang preys on stowaways trying to jump freight trains headed north.
One result of the stepped-up enforcement is that jails in Chiapas are filling up. At a federal lockup, a new wing has been devoted solely to MS-13 to prevent attacks on rival gang members.
About 30 members of the gang recently gathered in a dirt courtyard at the prison. One, who is doing five years on a drug charge and gave his name as Oscar, said he left his native El Salvador because there was no work. He wore a Dallas Cowboy jersey with the blue and white colors favored by MS-13. Gang tattoos covered his thick neck and muscular arms.
Oscar complained that authorities unfairly single out his group.
"Despite our reputation, we aren't what they think," he said in Spanish. "They have satanized us."
He cut off the conversation when an apparent MS-13 leader demanded money from a reporter for the interview to continue.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gang15may15,0,2750330,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
L.A. Violence Crosses the Line
A brutal band born near MacArthur Park has spread to 33 other states and five countries. For the first time, the FBI forms a nationwide task force to go after a single gang.
By Chris Kraul, Robert J. Lopez and Rich Connell
Times Staff Writers
May 15, 2005
The gruesome murders were each more than 1,000 miles apart, an arc of bloodshed that spanned much of the North American continent.
On a rutty street near a crowded slum in Honduras, gunmen sprayed automatic weapons fire at a bus filled with Christmastime shoppers. Twenty-eight people, including six children, were killed.
In the woods near Dallas, an innocent 21-year-old man was shot in the head, his remains eaten by animals. His pants were pulled down, and police suspect that he may have been sodomized.
And near the banks of a quiet river in Virginia, a 17-year-old informant was hacked to death. She was four months pregnant and stabbed 16 times in the chest and neck.
The killings were similar not only in their brutality but also in their lineage: Authorities say all three incidents are tied to a single Los Angeles branch of Mara Salvatrucha, a street gang formed 20 years ago in the immigrant neighborhoods west of the downtown skyline.
Today, the gang's extreme violence, vast reach and increasing sophistication have made it a top priority at the highest levels of law enforcement and political leadership from Washington to San Salvador.
In recent months, the departments of Justice and Homeland Security have launched a series of initiatives to confront the threat posed by the gang, also known as MS-13, which has between 30,000 and 50,000 members in half a dozen countries, including up to 10,000 members in the U.S., according to federal law enforcement estimates.
The FBI's creation of an MS-13 task force, the first nationwide effort targeting a single street gang, was ordered by Director Robert Mueller after several high-profile murders blamed on MS-13 in the suburbs of Washington. On Tuesday, Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for the first time placed an MS-13 member on its most-wanted fugitive list. The Los Angeles gang member is suspected in a string of violent crimes.
In Honduras, four Central American presidents gathered last month to address the gang crisis. Citing the destabilizing influence of groups like MS-13, they appealed for economic aid to curb the poverty and joblessness fueling the growth of gangs.
Authorities are scrambling to contain forces unleashed in part by past U.S. policies. Refugees formed the gang in the 1980s near MacArthur Park, just west of downtown Los Angeles, after fleeing a U.S.-backed civil war against insurgents in El Salvador. As the gang grew, immigration officials began a decade-long campaign to deport members, including ex-convicts and hardened leaders who helped spread MS-13 across Central America and solidify its structure.
In the United States, the gang has spread from California into 33 other states and the District of Columbia. Investigators say members are involved in murder, extortion, drug dealing and witness intimidation. The expansion has come from migration as well as from calculated efforts by its Los Angeles leaders to tap new markets of criminal activity. In Seattle, for instance, gang members arrived from Los Angeles in 1997 to distribute marijuana, heroin and crack cocaine, according to investigators.
"Everywhere you turn these days, you're hearing about MS-13," said Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker, who is overseeing the nationwide task force targeting the group.
Traditionally, the gang's loosely structured leadership has been dispersed among a vast federation of cells that often act independently.
Although it remains unclear how well organized the gang's leadership is, Swecker recently told Congress that there were signs of greater cohesiveness within MS-13.
Times interviews with law enforcement officials in four countries and reviews of intelligence reports, letters between MS-13 members, transcripts of phone conversations and surveillance videos show that gang members communicate and coordinate criminal activity across state and international borders.
Gang leaders in the U.S. and El Salvador have shared information on informants, discussed punishing rivals and plotted an ambush to free an accused murderer, these records show. In one instance, dozens of MS-13 members from several East Coast states were videotaped meeting in a Virginia park.
In Central America, the gang allegedly targeted top government officials and law enforcement leaders.
"If these criminals are capable of killing 28 innocent people," Honduran President Ricardo Maduro said in an interview, "they are capable of anything."
Now, law enforcement crackdowns in Honduras and El Salvador are helping reverse the flow. MS-13 gang members recruited in those countries are making their way to the U.S. and bolstering the gang's ranks from California to Maryland.
This north-south recycling of gang members has put intense pressure on Mexico, where MS-13 is involved in robbing immigrants and human trafficking, according to officials. "It has to be treated as a regional phenomenon because in Central America the borders are fading," said Magdalena Carral Cuevas, Mexico's top immigration official.
Mexico recently launched its own campaign against MS-13, particularly in the southern state of Chiapas, a roiling crossroads where the gang preys on stowaways trying to jump freight trains headed north.
One result of the stepped-up enforcement is that jails in Chiapas are filling up. At a federal lockup, a new wing has been devoted solely to MS-13 to prevent attacks on rival gang members.
About 30 members of the gang recently gathered in a dirt courtyard at the prison. One, who is doing five years on a drug charge and gave his name as Oscar, said he left his native El Salvador because there was no work. He wore a Dallas Cowboy jersey with the blue and white colors favored by MS-13. Gang tattoos covered his thick neck and muscular arms.
Oscar complained that authorities unfairly single out his group.
"Despite our reputation, we aren't what they think," he said in Spanish. "They have satanized us."
He cut off the conversation when an apparent MS-13 leader demanded money from a reporter for the interview to continue.
