Article: Gangs in U.S.

FBI cracks down on gangs of El Salvador
By Andrew Buncombe, The Independent
26 February 2005

The FBI has established a special task force to counter the growing menace of an El Salvador-based street gang whose members have spread throughout parts of the US. The move comes as President George Bush has set aside $150m and appointed his wife to head an initiative to keep teenage boys from becoming gang members.

The task force was set up to tackle Mara Salvatrucha, commonly referred to as MS-13, whose members have been responsible for more than three dozen killings in the past two years. Its existence was revealed during a conference this week in San Salvador to discuss gang violence.

The task force senior official, FBI veteran Robert Clifford, has said there was no evidence to support rumours that MS-13 was linked to al-Qa'ida and was conspiring to bring terrorists into the US through Mexico.

MS-13 is one of several Latin American gangs that have spread to US cities. However, MS-13 is believed to be the only one that retains close links with the country from where its members originated.

Experts say the gang's expansion has accelerated in the past two years, during which time there have been 18 MS-13-related killings in North Carolina, 11 in northern Virginia and eight in Los Angeles. The National Drug Intelligence Centre, an arm of the US Justice Department, estimates there are between 8,000 and 10,000 members of MS-13 in 31 states and about 50,000 internationally.

The gang sprang up in California in the late 1980s, when Salvadoran refugees who fled the violent civil war formed protection groups against existing gangs in their neighbourhoods. The gangs flourished after members from the US were deported to their own countries and they now control everything from drug trafficking to public bus routes.

In Guatemala, police recently took over several bus routes after 100 drivers walked off the job in protest at the protection money demanded by gangs. In Mexico gangs have taken control of some of the migrant smuggling routes.The interest of law enforcement in these gangs has increased after several prominent Latin American politicians claimed they were linked to al-Qa'ida.

The gangs have been responsible for a series of high-profile crimes such as the murder of a pregnant woman, herself a former gang member living under a witness protection scheme, in the supposedly serene Shenandoah Valley, west of Washington DC.

John Moore, director of the federally-funded National Youth Gang Centre told The Independent: "Occasionally gang members show up in different cities but in the case of MS-13 they seem to have emerged all over the east coast."