More gang members showing up in border seizures
More gang members showing up in border seizures
Yuma Sun, Arizona
Federal authorities say they have been arresting members of a notorious and violent Central American gang recently in the Yuma area among the thousands of illegal immigrants being apprehended.
Joe Brigman, spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol's Yuma sector, said patrol agents over the past 18 months have been apprehending members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang as those deported gang members are trying to make their way to Los Angeles and possibly to the East Coast.
Brigman would not say how many of those gang members have been arrested.
Distinguished by their tattoos, including on their faces, the Mara Salvatrucha gang members take pride in a propensity for violence, Brigman said.
The gang members are also known to act as enforcers for certain Mexican drug cartels, Brigman said.
The gang started in Los Angeles among the children of El Salvadoran refugees who came to the United States in the 1980s fleeing civil war in El Salvador, Brigman said. Some had ties with violent street gangs there, he said.
The Mara Salvatruchas formed in order to protect themselves from other Hispanic Los Angeles gangs and later expanded into various criminal enterprises, he said.
"They're highly violent. They are, without a doubt, the most violent street gang in America today," Brigman said.
Gang members who have been arrested for criminal activity in the United Sates have been deported to El Salvador and other Central American nations where they originated, Brigman said.
"We have no indication they have established a network of gang-related activities in the Yuma area," he said.
While the Mara Salvatruchas may not have gotten a foothold in Yuma County, they are now reportedly in Arizona, said Al Valdez, supervising investigator with the Orange County District Attorney's Office Gang Unit.
"They may not be in Yuma but they are in Arizona," said Valdez, adding the gang reportedly operates in 30 U.S. states as well as Canada and in Central America, Valdez said.
In Central America, the Mara Salvatrucha gang and other gangs reportedly became the targets of vigilante groups and death squads, one of which is known as the Sombra Negra, or Black Shadow, Valdez said.
Last year, a massive crackdown on gangs in Central America caused some of those gang members to flee into Mexico, unleashing violence there, according to The Associated Press.
Valdez said the gang, also known as "MS-13", is more organized and mobile than other gangs, and is the largest Hispanic gang in the United States, Valdez said.
Valdez said Mara Salvatrucha gang members "have a hair trigger for violence" and are known to terrorize others in their own ethnic community, threatening them with violence or death if they cooperate with police.
In Virginia last year, MS gang members chopped off the fingers of a rival gang member. In 2002, they decapitated a woman who testified against them, Valdez said. Gang members murdered the woman after she left a federal witness protection program, he said.
Brigman said gang member arrests in the Yuma sector led the Border Patrol to conduct a gang awareness seminar recently for 50 to 60 local, state and federal law enforcement personnel. The seminar centered on the Mara Salvatrucha gang and the 18th Street Gang, Brigman said.
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ublish/articles/story_13789.php
Posted by Editor at December 22, 2004 05:37 AM
