MS-13 trying to organize nationwide

Washington Times:

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.

...

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.

...

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."

...

Actually organizing nationally would make them more vulnerable to a decapitation strategy by the government. By keeping a loose local organization it is more difficult to keep track of the various nets. These guys are very much like the insurgency we are fighting against the Islamic bigots, they just have a different agenda tied to the profits of drug sales. They are the muscle for narco thugs on the distribution end. Mexico has several gangs that guard the turf of cartels on their routes such as the Zetas. The distributed nature of their organizations protects them somewhat.