Military Periscope :: Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)

Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)

Group Name:

Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). The group's name was apparently derived from the Spanish terms for "army units" of street-tough Salvadorans, with the "13" being a gang number from Southern California.

Location/Area of Operation:

The MS-13 has international reach, though it is concentrated in urban areas of the United States and El Salvador, as well as Honduras. The group began as a Los Angeles-based gang, but has since spread to other cities, including Washington, D.C., and New York.

Supporters exist throughout Latin America and even in Western Europe. Significant numbers of MS-13 members are also found in Mexico and Guatemala, as well as some in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Canada.

Stated Purpose:

The MS-13 originally formed in the early 1980s to protect Salvadorans from other Los Angeles-based gangs. MS-13 then recruited members from other Central American countries.

The gang is primarily interested in profit-making activities such as narcotics-trafficking, human-smuggling, robbery, kidnapping and extortion. Authorities have become concerned that its rapidly expanding membership and international reach might lead to MS-13 linking to transnational terrorist groups.

Strength:

There are more than 50,000 members of Mara Salvatrucha worldwide. Estimates reach 75,000 or more. Some sources suggest there are as many as 700,000 supporters worldwide. Core membership in the United States probably numbers from 6,000 to 10,000. Membership is concentrated in Los Angeles, New York City and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, but MS-13 has a presence in at least 30 states.

External Aid and Links:

Much of the MS-13’s strength is derived from the absence of a law and order in poor urban areas (both in the United States and Central America).

Links within various Mara Salvatrucha groups are strong, especially between Central American and U.S.-based gangs. The groups travel with their own human-smuggling networks, as well as via deportation programs.

Within areas controlled by MS-13, minor semi-independent gangs often cooperate with Mara Salvatrucha.

Activities:

The MS-13 group engages in gang warfare over turf -- both in and out of prison -- and conducts everything from petty crimes to narcotics and human-trafficking.

MS-13 varies its operations by locale, according to experts. The machete attacks that occur on the East Coast are rare on the West Coast. Car thefts and drug-trafficking are frequent activities in North Carolina, while gang-on-gang violence is more common in Virginia.

Violent crime, assassinations, robberies, kidnapping and extortion are MS-13’s primary criminal activities. MS-13 gangs also smuggle illegal drugs and people to the United States. Counterfeiting and more sophisticated crimes are much less common.

The gang is increasingly adopting tactics used by major Mexican and Colombian drug-trafficking groups and serves as a source of mercenaries for many major Central and South American drug-trafficking cartels, according to U.S. federal agents.

Overview:

The MS-13 formed in the 1980s when hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans fled their country’s civil war for the United States, settling in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., among other areas. The end of the civil war in El Salvador, MS-13’s own growth and deportations from the United States have all contributed to an expanded MS-13 presence in Central America. Some authorities attribute as much as half the violent crime in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to MS-13.

MS-13 recruits members at a young age, as early as 11. Hispanic males are often targeted. Potential recruits are offered money, a second family and women. Initiation rites vary by clique. Some inductions include beatings for 13 seconds, 13 gang members beating an initiate or 13 lashings. Members are identified with various tattoos: “13,” “MS,” “SUR,” an area code and/or a particular clique name.

MS-13 is especially active in poor areas, where high unemployment provides fertile recruiting grounds.

Up to 100 gang members make up a typical MS-13 cell. The leader of the cell maintains communications with higher-level echelons in the MS-13 hierarchy. Tasks are divided among group members for recruitment, intelligence, operations and funding. The “action” group is the busiest and largest; those members are involved in gang warfare and violent crimes.

A 2004 report by the National Drug Intelligence Center found that MS-13 was coordinating efforts among various chapters in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York City, possibly in an attempt to build a national gang structure. Government prosecutors have seen evidence of a higher-level approval process for cell-level violent crimes.

For example, in October of 2005, MS-13 leader Saul Antonio Turcios Angel (then jailed in El Salvador) was able to order hits on rival gangs from prison using a cell phone. The murders were carried out by Maryland members the same day.

"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," according to a confidential letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Illinois in July 2007.

"MS-13 is attempting to become a unified criminal enterprise operating under one leadership," said the U.S. Attorney's letter. "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. It would be dangerous to look at MS-13 as just another street gang."

Central American governments have taken a harder line against the MS gangs in recent years, with El Salvador instituting tough enforcement measures. This helped lead to the arrests of 11,000 gang members in just one year. Associating with gangs or gang body art were outlawed -- allowing security forces to round up suspected members.

Honduras has followed a similar approach, while Guatemala is still debating its policy. Nicaragua has adopted prevention as its main method for combating the MS gangs. In response, MS-13 has begun recruiting covert members who eschew visible gang ties, such as body art.

In 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation created the MS-13 National Gang Task Force. Its goals include coordinating and focusing law-enforcement efforts against the group.

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators Network (MARGIN) reported in 2004 that MS-13 was the largest and most dangerous threat in the region. In Virginia and Washington, D.C., MS-13 had reportedly become the region’s largest Hispanic gang.

Increased efforts by local and U.S. federal agencies continued to yield positive results with the arrest and conviction of MS-13 gang members nationwide in 2007 and 2008. Nevertheless, the group remains deeply involved in criminal activities.

Group Chronology:

1980

MS-13 was founded by Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles.

1997

April 23: MS-13 kidnapped and murdered Ricardo Ernesto, the son of Ricardo Maduro, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Ricardo Maduro subsequently ran on an anti-crime platform for the presidency of Honduras and won the election.

2003

July 23: President Francisco Flores began tougher anti-gang policies in El Salvador.

August: President Ricardo Maduro of Honduras also implemented strict policies, making membership in a gang illegal and punishable by up to 12 years in prison. Maduro deployed the army in the streets to support the 8,000-member police force.

2004

Jan. 14: The leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua met in Guatemala City to discuss gang issues. They declared MS-13 and rival gang M-18 to be a regional security problem.

Aug. 30: President Antonio Saca stepped up anti-gang policies in El Salvador.

September: A report surfaced that suspected Al-Qaida member Adnan G. El Shukrijumah had been spotted in Honduras meeting with MS-13 leaders.

Dec. 23: Members of MS fired on a bus in Chamalecon, Honduras, killing 28 people and wounding 12. The gang left a note claiming they were members of a defunct Cunchonero People’s Liberation Movement. The note threatened President Ricardo Maduro, the National Congress president and other leading politicians who supported the death penalty and a crackdown on organized crime.

2005

February: The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency launched Operation Community Shield, a nationwide law-enforcement initiative that targeted violent criminal street gangs. Initially, the effort focused on the MS-13 organization. In May 2005, ICE expanded the operation to include all criminal street gangs that pose a threat to national security and public safety. In those first few months of the program, ICE arrested 359 MS-13 members and associates, including 10 clique leaders.

March 17: By this date, the federal crackdown against MS-13 had resulted in more than 100 gang members being arrested in six U.S. cities.

August: The U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland announced the indictment of 22 MS-13 members, charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

2006

January: A leaked Dept. of Homeland Security memo noted that Mexican drug smugglers planned to use MS-13 gang members to assassinate U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Sept. 7: At a prison in Zacatecoluca, central El Salvador, X-rays revealed four prisoners with cell phones hidden in their rectums. Officials also discovered nine cell phone chips and a charger. The phones were said to have been used to direct criminal activities from inside the prison.

2007

Jan. 12: The National Gang Intelligence Center, a unit of the U.S. Dept. of Justice, reported troublesome trends regarding the increased presence of gang members in the military. The center expressed concern over the potential for a breakdown in military discipline and the use of military training by gang members after they left the service. The report noted that MS-13 was among several gangs whose members had joined the military.

Feb. 5: In San Salvador, U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca announced a collaborative effort to combat transnational gangs such as MS-13 and M-18. The initiative covered the identification and prosecution of the most dangerous Salvadoran gang members through programs to enhance gang enforcement, fugitive apprehension, international coordination, information sharing, and training and prevention. The initiative included a joint effort between the FBI and El Salvador’s Policia Nacional Civil (PNC) to establish a new Transnational Anti-Gang (TAG) program, with two FBI employees stationed in El Salvador to coordinate efforts.

Feb. 21: Two members of MS-13 were found guilty in Tegucigalpa of the Dec. 23, 2004, attack on a bus in Honduras that killed 28 people.

Feb. 25: Four Guatemalan policemen, imprisoned in Cuilapa, Guatemala, were killed during a riot at the Mara Salvatrucha-dominated prison facility. The dead included Luis Arturo Herrera, head of the Guatemalan National Police organized crime unit, and three of his officers. The officers, arrested in connection with the recent deaths of three prominent Salvadoran politicians, had been transferred to the jail several days earlier.

April 27: Three MS-13 leaders were convicted in Maryland of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving murder, robbery, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. The MS-13 members -- who were charged with involvement in multiple murders in Maryland and Virginia -- were prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

September: The first joint TAG operation led to the arrest of 10 MS-13 gang members in El Salvador. The gang members were affiliated with four different groups or cliques, including two of the most violent, “Los Teclanos” and “Los Pinos Locos Salvatruchos.” The investigation was part of a larger case involving 41 key MS-13 members indicted for 33 different murders.

2008

Jan. 14: The FBI issued a national threat assessment regarding MS-13. The agency concluded that the gang’s threat to the U.S. as a whole remained at the “medium” level of concern, but ranked “high” in the Northeast and West. The FBI estimated national membership in the gang at between 6,000 and 10,000.

Jan. 30: The impact of MS-13 on U.S. domestic security was seen as uncertain. The danger of both MS-13 and M-18 gangs “is not definitively known,” according to a Congressional Research Service report.

July 28: Three leaders of MS-13, pleaded guilty to participation in a racketeering enterprise before a federal court in Nashville, Tenn.

Oct. 26: Twenty-two individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area were indicted on federal racketeering and other charges arising from their participation in the MS-13. Seven additional individuals were charged with non-racketeering offenses including narcotics and firearms-trafficking, and attempted exportation of stolen vehicles.

Nov. 20: An MS-13 gang member and seven others were charged in New York City with multiple crimes, including 29 counts of murder, attempted murder, assault, racketeering, and illegal use of firearms.

Last Updated:

December 2008